This is works with their mothers, too, which is why single moms (and especially newly-single moms) are so often targeted by pedophiles. A woman who's been treated very badly by her previous partner (neglect, contempt, indifference, outright abuse, etc.), but has now found a wonderful man who treats her and her children like precious treasure, is going to have a very hard, if not impossible, time believing that this incredible human being has sinister designs on her young children of either sex.

I'm not trying to say that, after a broken marriage or failed relationship, no one has any hope of ever finding love again. I am saying that single parents of young children need to do a microscopic, in-depth, serious analysis (think colonoscopy!) of any other adult they are considering allowing into their home, and giving access to their babies.

t&l

Neaksis,

Can I ask you something? Did you tell your daughter why you wanted her to stay away from this man? Did you talk to her about why his behavior bothered you? I don't know if it would traumatize her more or empower her, that is why I'm asking.

S.

I did talk to her some. I waited a few days to remove the emotional immediacy from it, and then just talked in general that it is OK to tell people to stop when they are making us uncomfortable. I didn't want to get too specific, since she already thinks any guy wants to have sex with her unless proven otherwise, and I didn't want to reinforce that in her mind.

I am requesting a name change for this thread so that the very important subject can be more easily searched in the future...??? You OK with that?

I agree with the requests to change the subject title here. This is a very good thread, and others need to see it as well. I just happened to look.

I have shared my story before, and will share it again here. This seems like a good place to do so.

About 5 years ago, while I was still married to WxH, I was out of town for a few days. When I came home, my then H announced "we need to talk". My 15-year-old niece had been at church camp that week. One day they had a discussion about "good touch, bad touch" and encouraged the girls to talk about any "bad touch" that may be happening to them. Niece went to a counselor to confess that her Grandpa has been touching her. It was the same story - her mom would leave her with grandpa (this was WxH's Dad) and when they were alone Grandpa would wrestle with her, which lead to tickling, which lead to touching. This had happened many times over the years. The last time it had happened she told him "NO! No more!” this was not a shy or quiet girl, and she had finally gained the courage to speak up.

I have to confess, at this point, that I was horrified, and did not believe it was possible that this had happened to her. This girl is very out going, an attention seeker, loud. She did not show any of the usual "signs". She was being raised by a single mom, who had no contact with the girl’s father. Grandpa had been very helpful over the years with school projects, babysitting, attending soccer games, that sort of thing. He did not seem to give this girl any more attention than the other grandkids. He spent more time alone with her, simply because her mom was single and needed baby-sitting help some times. Grandma worked swing shift at that time, and was not home in the evening to help with babysitting.

Anyway, at first I didn’t believe it - but then my WxH said "we know it is true - because my two sisters have now come forward to say that it was also happening to them when they were growing up"
Apparently he had done the same "wrestle, tickle, touch" routine on his own daughters when they were younger as well. These daughters never came forward. This girls own mother was one of these daughters - she had been molested by her father as a child - and yet she left her own dd home alone with him! Her response to this is just "I thought he was over it. He is a lot older now, and I thought he was over it". The other sister never spoke up all those years, knowing that her niece was home alone with her dad, knowing that he had molested her as well. Of course she feels bad now - she too claims that she thought he was "over it".

If you had ever met this man, you would be shocked to hear this story. He is kind and gentle. He does not openly "tickle" kids, or try to get them alone. He does not give you the creeps at all. Even now, it is still so hard to believe.

Long story short - the abuse was reported at camp, so the camp counselors called the sheriff, and then the mom. Mom picked her up form camp that night, and called a meeting with the remaining 5 siblings (including WxH). The siblings decided to confront their dad head on; he ended up turning himself into the Sheriffs department (after a week they still had not come looking for him, so he just went it on his own). After a year of court appearances and counseling (he never denied any of it - and plead guilty so that the girl would not have to testify in court) he ended up in jail for 2 year. He is now out of jail but can never have any contact, of any type, not even by phone or by letter with the girl. She is now 18, and sad because she cannot talk to, write to, or see grandpa. She did not want that to happen - she only wanted to talk about the abuse and get help for herself. But the law does not allow him to ever have contact with the victim again. He lives in a motor home on a friend’s property. He also can have no contact with any child under age 18, so my boys have not see him since this all happened (although my Older son turned 18 recently, and was allowed to visit his grandpa for the 1st time in 5 years). My boys have always been very sad about this, because they are not happy about what he did, but they still would like to have contact with their grandpa. They are not allowed to even write him a letter, or send a card. If they do, he has to report it to his parole officer, or he may have to go back to jail for having contact and trying to hide it. We aren’t even allowed to give him pictures of the grandkids.

It is a huge mess. I know that his own daughters thought they were protecting him by keeping his secret all these years. Problem is - they failed to protect their own children! And, by keeping it secret, by the time it all came out he was all ready 70 years old, and now he is living a lonely existence in his older years. If he had perhaps gotten help much earlier, he could have eventually worked his way through the system, and perhaps had supervised visits with the grandkids. As it is, by the time he gets through his parole, his counseling, his group therapy, he will not likely live long enough to reach the point where he gets supervised visits.

About the two sisters, who knowingly allowed their children to be alone with Grandpa - when the family showed up in court, the day Grandpa was sentenced, the judge read them the riot act. It doesn't help anyone, or change anything, but believe me they know that they screwed up.

I have read many books since this time, and one thing I have learned that is interesting:
We all know that many times a child molester was actually molested themselves as a child. My former FIL confesses that he was molested by an uncle when he was young. Why does that happen? Why do they commit the same horrible crime that they suffered through? Latest research indicates that some children, when "sexed' or exposed to sexual issues at a young age, end up "freezing" time at that age. They end up associating sex, and arousal, with the age they were at when they were "sexed" themselves. It does not happen to everyone, obviously, but some times the child is frozen to that period in time, and then seeks sexual partners of a similar age. That seems to certainly be possible of him.

I am not sure what lesson I hope tot each here - I guess part of it is that you can never be too careful. I would NEVER have suspected this man. But his own daughters knew, and assumed he was "over it". They never get over it. They can learn to deal with it, but they never get over it.

I just re-read my post and realize that I may be sounding like I have pity for the man, who molested several girls, and now lives a lonely existance as an old man. I do not have pity for him - and he does not ask for any. I guess what I am trying to say is that it did not help him any to keep his secret for so many years. If the secret had come out earlier, we could have kept it from happening to this other young girl, and it is also possible that with proper treatment he could have eventually returned to his own home, but only with supervised visits with children. At this point he is still not allowed to return to his home, becuase the vicitm lives right next door. His wife has remained married to him becuase they are now in their mid 70's and she sees no point in trying to "start over". while in jail she really struggeled becuase they had been living off of their social security, but when he was in jail she no longer recieved his social securty. His social security payements stopped while he was in jail, and she was really struggling. Now that he is out, the social security checks are coming again, but she has to give part of the money to this friend who is giving up a portion of her own property for him to live in his motor home. Perhaps, if the crime had been reported earlier, the wife could have gotten a job, or made a decision to D, or at least build some type of better life for herself. As it is she mostly stays home, embarassed to go out in public.

The ECM's in my life were all family (well, there was one guy who flashed me when I was 5, that was a stranger, but I never saw him again). My mothers drunken brothers, her dad, and my dad.

There was talk that my dad had a family previously, including a daughter, but 'it ended badly and they cant see each other'. I think I figured out what happened. He was 30 when he got my mother (16) pregnant. My mother denies his abuse of me in one breath, then says it wasnt her fault in the next.

They all were married but preyed on the female children. No step-families, these were all blood relatives.

Strangers, ok... but to have to worry about all the men in your family? It's too sad.

I'm sure that's why I never wanted to have children. In my world, there was nothing worse than being a child.

Maybe tomorrow we could talk about red flags you, as a parent, might see from your children if an adult has already targeted them for inappropriate sexual pursuit, and even contact; but tonight I'm all studied out and tired, and still have to get up in the morning and go to ths dumb class. But our actual discovery of what was happening to our church friends all came about because of involuntary, non-verbal clues the molested child gave out. The clues from Neaksis' kids were more subtle initially, but there are things you need to watch for, even if there's no adult in your lives that you might suspect of doing anything wrong.

t&l

I have 2 very good friends who were molested as children. One by her dad and one by her step-dad. So much worse when you live with the ****** and are scared to talk. This subject makes me sick to the stomach and I can't believe it about the guy in the hospital. He should be castrated.

Not an exhaustive post--the poster is exhausted...but wanted to start dealing with the fact that in addition to looking for red flags in the behavior of adults in your children's lives, you should also be looking for red flags from your children, too.

We can go over the others as we have time, but here's one to start out with: Sexual behavior or knowledge beyond what is normal for the age of your child. I first really got suspicious (over the likelihood of ECM's niece having been molested) on a nice spring day last year when we had outdoor church. As usual, Neaksis and I got stuck with all the kids, and we were having class with everybody sitting on blankets under a tree, instead of lined up in rows of chairs. All the other children were sitting like regular kids, and this little girl was sprawled out on the blanket, leaning back propped up on her elbows, knees bent with legs slightly apart, and looking up at me through her eyelashes in a very sultry way, her little pouty lips slightly open. It was as if she'd been "posed." It would've been considered sexually inviting if an adult woman did it. In a child, it just screamed abnormality. It was so obviously something she had been taught, and when church was over I went to Neaksis and said, "That kid's been molested. You need to talk to her mother, and see if you can help."

Neaksis, that shy, retiring soul, didn't want to broach such a loaded topic with the mother, even though she knows her better than I do, but I've been known to be persuasive (<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />) and kept talking until she eventually did. They talked for the longest time; bringing up the subject turned out to be a lot like turning on a spigot! Since then Neak and Neaksis have done a lot of plowing with these parents to encourage them to cut the perpetrators completely out of their lives, even though they're close relatives.

Val's version of this red flag is different, and much more blatantly, obviously sexual. She can describe the taste of semen--"hot, salty, and yucky." She once showed us how she was taught to give a man an erection, and not only did she have the pumping action down pat, but (close your eyes, Neaksis) she even held her hand in the position a woman would be most likely to use to minimize strain on her wrist. (Don't ask how I know this. I realize you like to maintain the mental fiction that you were brought by a gender-neutral stork!) Nobody watching her could have the slightest doubt that she knew exactly what she was talking about. And she was 5 years old.

Most little kids are curious about sexual differences. Even the little saints <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" /> in the mission apartment complex where I grew got in trouble on a couple of occasions for playing "doctor." I'm not talking about normal childish inquisitiveness. I'm talking about terminology, techniques, knowledge, etc. that a child has, which are unnatural for whatever age group the child is in. If you notice this, try to find out why. Who taught them? Where did they see it? What have they heard? Be subtle, if you can, in your questioning.

Be accessible to your child. Val says when she tried to tell her biomom that the Marsupial was molesting her, her mother screamed at her and said, "Don't you EVER say that again." And Val didn't. She endured in silence. It wasn't until she molested Neak's little boy, and he tattled, that the layers of this onion began to be peeled back. Even after it was exposed, it was at least a year before she would say anything at all about it without first asking, "You're not going to yell at me, are you?"

It's hard for a parent go easy on a kid while searching for this kind of information, and question gently, but too pressing of an approach will be likely to make your child withdraw and clam up, especially if they see anger and are afraid (however wrongly) that it's directed at them.

t&l

Similar story from a young mom who used to houseclean and occasionally babysit our son. My babysitter's friend walked into her kitchen and found her babysitter's fiancee dipping his penis in the sugar bowl and putting it into her baby's mouth. She went ballistic & threw him out then and there.

My babysitter segued from this story into accepting my invitation when I interviewed her the first day, to bring her baby to work with her whenever she came to clean our house, and from then on always brought the baby with her. Her peace of mind was repaid to me by her gratitude and conscientiousness many times over.

Porn is often used to sexualize kids. I wonder how many parents think to tell kids not to look at porn with anyone? - Dru

This thread really gives me the creeps.
Forget about the misery of an A --- how does a child ever get over molestation and abuse? Or do they at all?

Stories like the ones in this thread just shock me. The signs described seem such obvious red flags... probably because I (praise be) have never been exposed to such perverted behavior. My mother warned my siblings and I about this kind of thing before we entered kindergarten. I was never confronted with it --- now I see that I and my siblings were not easy targets. I've often viewed my mother as hyper-vigilant in the past. Reading this makes me thankful for her vigilance and thankful that my daughters are growing up in a very nurturing circle of kind, experienced women (MIL, SIL, auntie).

{{{{{{{{{Dru}}}}}}}}}}}

What happened to you was very terribly, and you are so brave to share that with us. Thank you.

This is a toughie, and one of the reasons our family speaks out about the topic whenever we can. Overcoming the effects of molestation is an enormous life challenge; for some people it will be an insurmountable one. At best, it takes years of pain and effort. Far better to prevent it if possible, than to dedicate a life to clean-up once it's happened.

Parental vigilance is essential, but by itself may not be enough, especially if the vigilant parent doesn't know exactly what they're looking for. My husband and I thought we were being careful and alert, but were unable to prevent young Neak from being approached by a fondler. She'll be 34 in July, and it wasn't till she was in her teens that the subject even came up as something directly relating to her. She did give us some behavioral clues when she was little, but not knowing what we should have been looking for, we failed to put the proper interpretation on what we saw. She was extraordinarily careful with her own kids as a result, and watched other adults like a hawk...not knowing that for her children, the molester would turn out to be a little girl 4 or 5 years old.

I have a picture of all 5 kids in our family, taken by Neaksis shortly before knowledge of the molestation surfaced. As soon as I can figure out how to get it out of my cell phone and into yahoo photos, I'll post it. These were little kids...and as far as we can tell, the original abuse had started at least 2 years before when the ECM moved in with Neaksis' kids biomom. They're all cute and smiling, and give no evidence whatsoever, in the photo, that something so evil and awful was going on in their lives.

And here we come to my point of the day, which is this: Child molesters groom their victims to keep secrets. If, as we go through the list of warning behaviors, you think you might be seeing them in your own child, and want to check further, don't be surprised if your child is evasive about the subject, or outright denying of anything at all. Val (now 10), Thor (now 12), and Odin (almost 9) were all molested and abused by this man, although the 2 boys were more targeted for violence than for sex. Neaksis' adoptees kept this secret for 2 or more years, and even when it came out, it didn't come directly from them.

The Marsupial used different techniques for the 2 older children, in the effort to keep them silent. He didn't worry about Odin, who (at the time) was too little to tell anybody what was going on. Thor was controlled by threats of violence, particularly against his biomom. He was told that if he ever told Neaksis or me what was happening, the Marsupial would make his mother disappear and he'd never see her again. It still angers me to think of this little boy suffering years of this torture, enduring terror and pain in the effort to protect a mother who wasn't protecting him!!!!! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /><img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /><img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /><img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /><img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /> Val, on the other hand, was seduced. Wooed. Enticed. Among other things, he told her he loved her, that she was beautiful (especially in this one little swimming suit--which she became obsessed with wearing, and which was taken away from her once we found out why she always wanted to put it on), and that he wanted to marry her when she grew up. (Why Biomom isn't offended that this man promised her 4-year old daughter marriage, when he was screwing her FOR FREE, is something I will never, ever understand!)

I've got to quit now and go run errands, but let me say this, too: As we discuss this further, please know that a single red flag you can identify in either your child, or an adult in their lives, doesn't necessarily indicate anything is wrong. Maybe it does. Maybe it doesn't. That's why you ever-so-gently need to investigate. But if you see whole clusters of these behaviors, don't close your eyes to them for fear that you might find something too ugly to bear. It's not half as ugly as it will get if something is actually going on, and nothing is done, so that the abuse is allowed to continue.

What a depressing subject! Wish nobody ever had to talk about it at all. But let me tell you, it's a depressing life, too, to live with molested children in the aftermath, and the longer the abuse goes on, the worse the aftermath will be. It's better to get educated early, than to pay later.

t&l

"If, as we go through the list of warning behaviors, you think you might be seeing them in your own child, and want to check further, don't be surprised if your child is evasive about the subject, or outright denying of anything at all"

This is dead on. During the period when my step daughters were molested, I was suspicious. There were too many druggie types hanging around their house all of the time. One time, when we picked them up, the oldest (10) was in the bedroom playing board games with a 45 year old man.

I told my husband that I would no longer go in the house to get them, because it gave me the creeps. I talked to her, but she denied anything. She wanted to protect her mother, who allowed these animals to hang around.

Cell phones aren't the best cameras for taking pictures of other pictures, but I think it's good enough for my purposes. These were adorable little kids. Val is the girl on the left. She was the original target of the molester, and at the time this picture was taken, had probably been his sexual partner for almost 2 years. Try and visualize how young she was--a baby, really--when he started. The oldest boy is Thor; he's standing at the top. Odin is sitting on the ground. Neak's 2 children, the Pwintheth and Mr. Computer, are the other boy and girl. Mr. C and the Pwintheth were molested by the other children, who were only putting into practice what they had learned in their biomama's household, but not by any adult. I'm not sure that makes it any better. The Dervish hadn't been born yet at the time the photo was taken.


Who knew?



It's 1AM almost. I'll come back to this when I'm coherent. Later.

t&l

A parent who suspects, or even just worries about, sexual molestation of their children can easily over-react and see red-flag behavior even where none exists. It's important for a parent to be able to differentiate between the two types of activity.

Normal childish curiousity would be like Neak, when she was about 5 or 6, running screaming down the hall of the house as if someone had set her on fire, yelling to me that something was wrong with Neakbro. Turns out he'd had a little baby erection and she thought something terrible had happened to the little weiner, to make it stand up that way. Normal would also be Neakbro, at maybe 4 years old or so, asking me one day after his bath, "Mama, how come sometimes my penis stands up straight and sometimes it just lies down and doesn't do anything?" Or Neak, when she found out I was pregnant with Flard (#3 child), asking her father one day, "So, Daddy, Mama is having another baby. Does this mean that your penis has already done its work?" <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" /> At least she didn't ask him at church! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Abnormal is a 4-year old girl giving her 3-year old brother nightly bedtime blowjobs, while Biomom and the Marsupial watched TV in the next room. And let me tell you, when this all came out into the open, and they no longer slept together in the same bed, Odin had a VERY hard time doing without his nightly "fix", too. Abnormal is a little girl who can't have stuffed animals, or other similar toys in her bed with her, for fear that poor Mickey Mouse or Winnie-the-Pooh will be used in manners Walt Disney NEVER intended. Be careful with your pets, too. Abnormal is children behaving in seductive manners towards adults, who may or may not have encouraged this behavior. Think of the flirtatious, alluring behavior of an adult trying to get the attention of a potential partner. Think Pamela Anderson on Baywatch, trapped in a 8-year old body. If you see this in a child--not normal. Pay attention. Another thing to watch for is sneaky behavior with other children of either sex--always being found off somewhere out of sight together, under the bed, in the closet. In our situation, putting it as delicately as possible, juvenile sexual activity freely crossed gender lines, and great effort is made so as not to allow, at any time, a child in this family to be with another child outside of direct adult supervision. It's a bummer for the adults, but ceaseless vigilance is the price we're having to pay for the carelessness and evil of other adults.

t&l

I haven't had training, and there is much I don't know, but I watch the girls when I go to Girls camp and if you spend a few days with a group, you can tell when something is wrong.

You don't always know what it is, but there are clues when there is a huge strain on a girl. We work with girls 12 to 18, and most have a good family life, and are well adjusted.

Some of them seem to be afraid of me, and some of them seem too eager to get to know me. I have wondered about both sides of it. I try to talk to all of the girls, and encourage them because life is difficult and encouragement can make a difference. I never try to get them alone, I know that much at least. Perhaps I led a sheltered life, I didn't know it was so widespread, and I didn't understand about children with children.

It's sad to know children are at risk. I don't think we worried about it when I was a child growing up in a small town.

I can see there is a lot to learn, perhaps if we all learned it, more children could be protected.

My heart goes out to those who have suffered abuse, and those who have to cope with it in their families. God be with you.

SS

Both wariness of, and attention seeking from, adult men (usually) can be red flags for previous or ongoing molestation. Child-to-child is much more common than realized. Almost as soon as Val was taught these sexual techniques by the Marsupial, she began to practice them on her brothers, particularly the youngest one, with whom she shared a bed. Once a child has been molested, it becomes vital for the adults in his/her life to protect other children from sexual aggression by the molested one. It's not enough to watch out for your children just by being careful with other adults. You must know their playmates, too, and watch for red flags from them, as well.

t&l

Glad you wrote, SS. I was wondering if anybody was getting anything out of this thread, or if our poor family skeleton was dancing around naked in the cold...and all for nothing!

t&l