Your opinion is your opinion.
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The person involved is now an adult. No one knows what happened except the two people involved. Itâs a terrible situation but I will wait for the outcome of investigations and the findings in the Civil Trial before giving any opinions.
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This was my thought as well. For us, we were half-filling gatorade bottles with vodka and drinking them right out of our lockers in school. And still doing just fine in our AP classes and then heading on to our sports practices in the afternoon. I am always surprised when adults are surprised that teenagers are drinking and having sex- right under their noses. Fortunately I know of very few scenarios where a friend or classmate was raped, but of course it did happen. Sometimes addressed, often swept under the rug because the guy was âfrom a good family.â
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Exactly.
It really seems that people have some sort of revisionist history regarding their memories of being a teenager themselves. A lot of really shitty shit goes down. Most of it the adults never know about. There is a whole world going on below the surface, which is usually all that the adults get to see.
There are intense feuds, emotions that run unchecked, sexual appetites to be experimented with, sometimes with bad results. Everybody keeps their mouth shut. Occasionally, something rises to the surface⊠And the adults find out, and it is variously âhandledâ. Sometimes quickly swept under a rug, and very rarely addressed through legal means.
I have absolutely no problem with a cultural shift towards young people being more likely to come forward to report sexual violence.
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Oh, honestly, will you please stop the moral policing. Itâs pretty tiresome. Nearly all in this thread have been nothing but respectful, which is all you can ask for, given the nature of this thread.
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If this is all true as described, that is a very concerning level of deviancy and planning for such a young boy. And then malice afterwards.
As far as the parents- if at 14 I had drunk too much and been alone, presumably making out, with a male teenage friend my parents wouldnât have been happy and there would Iâm sure have been questions and a long talk about safety and healthy relationships and respect BUT very few people would suspect this level of criminality from a teenager they have known for several years. Itâs really outside the norm and at 14 she may not have had the words to communicate what happened to her.
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This made me giggle. I am pretty darn old and I can promise you that it is not a change in parenting. Some parents just are not watching their kids every move.
I can promise you that my mother had no idea what I was wearing on the outside on any given day, let alone what I was wearing underneath. Heck, I did my own laundry too, so she would not have known what I owned even.
(This comment is not saying the parents or kids in this situation did or did not do anything. I am responding only to the post I quoted.)
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Definitely not the norm, but it does happen. Iâve watched similar behavior unfold in real time before.
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Just a few words about parents knowing what happens to their kids.
Nope not always. I was molested at 7 or 8 years old by my step-grandfather while visiting my grandparents in FL. I was a very sheltered child. My parents did not read the signs that I remember afterwards. I never told them. They never questioned me.
My parents are now deceased. Either they know now or they are wondering why that so called man is not around as I imagine he is rotting in hell.
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I think that all of us sharing how our parents really didnât know much about what we were up to, in many cases, is interesting- and funny- in places. There is a difference in this situation.
If I understand correctly, the parents of this poor girl saw her in the condition that she was in after the incident, and apparently didnât see a red flag. If this is correct, THAT I would be concerned about.
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We donât understand this at all. We have no idea whatsoever what they saw and identified as a red flag or otherwise. For all we know they lost it and wanted to report and test and everything under the sun, but didnât for some reason we donât know (and is none of our business). Itâs just not fair or accurate to say they didnât see any red flags at the time. In fact, if I had to guess, I would guess they did.
I would be, and am, vastly more concerned about the assault of a 14 year old than the reaction of her parents EVEN if that reaction was as you conjecture above. For the cheap seats: Even 14 year olds with The Worst Parents in the World - utterly neglectful and uninvolved - do not deserve to be assaulted ever.
This discussion reminds me of the master class that was Taylor Swift on the stand. Every time opposing counsel said something like the above, she redirected right back where the real concern belongs: the assault (e.g., Werenât you critical of your bodyguard for not stepping in? TS: Iâm critical of your client sticking his hand under my skirt and grabbing my ass.)
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And I am concerned about the attack on this 14 year old girl, as well.
The discussion meandered over to what weâd all done as kids, that our parents never noticed.
If, as I believe has been stated, the poor girl was drunk and disheveled, it is my personal opinion that the parents should have noticed that. I stand by my opinion. A drunken 14 year old isnât a joke.
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I donât see anyone saying itâs a joke at all. Certainly the civil filing does not suggest her parents thought it was. The only parties I can see who might be accused of seeing it as a joke are EBâs parents if, as asserted in the filing, they responded âkids will be kidsâ when they saw the state of the 14 year old.
You and I are in complete agreement re: the seriousness of the situation. We only differ in that I do not think we âunderstandâ the parentsâ full reaction at all as we lack information about their reaction at the time other than what was noted in the filing (which was considerable concern when they saw her). And, regardless of their reaction, the true concern lies with what was done to her (on which point I believe we also agree).
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Your personal opinion. Based on what you feel about what parents should notice. Not knowing the parents.
Itâs apparently so important that multiple people on this thread have stated that the rape never happened because the parents werenât observant of it. Including multiple inappropriate discussions of exactly what they should have noticed.
How many times does a woman say âbut I was rapedâ until we stop saying âbut it didnât look like you were, so you werenâtâ
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I am not saying that the child wasnât raped- quite the opposite. I am looking at this more in a forensic way, I suppose. What could we do better, or learn from this situation, in our own families or situations? I believe that it was stated that she was drunk and disheveled upthread when Ben carried her over to the barn? Please let me know if I am misunderstanding this. If I was a parent with a 14 year old daughter, I am going to be pretty upset about this, and dig a little deeper.
If she says she was raped, then that needs to be investigated down to the last detail. The accused needs to be held responsible for his actions, if he is found to have done this heinous thing.
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We have no idea behind the official documents.
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I would suggest that they were pretty upset and did dig a lot deeper or none of us, including the sheriff and SS, would know anything about this. I think this discussion here is dispositive of the question re: were they upset and did they dig deeper. It seems that the answer is a big, resounding, âyesâ.
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I think these questions and discussions about what the parents thought are important because it forces us to look at the culture that is our sport.
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When I was a kid there were two trainers whom I was not to be alone near. If they were at a show my father was never far from me. He used to put his lawn chair recliner in the hood of the truck with his tractor umbrella where he could oversee the area.
My Dad never told me why when I was younger just that he didnât want me near that trailer. I figured it out as I got older and by then he didnât have too because of the remarks I made.
This is how it was but not how it should be. Yes parents should watch their kids but there needs to be accountabilities to the bad apples even if they are successful barns or trainers.
I donât have the answers. I firmly believe kids also need mentors whom are not their family. Many times kids confide in me or my husband because they cannot to their parents.
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When?
