World's Greatest Mother

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

I have a friend who was sexually harrassed by her step father a few years ago when she was only 15 or so. My friend told me about it a year or so ago, but it was only yesterday that she told me what her mother did about it.

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Someone ELSE called the police and they attempted to arrest him, but she began denying it because her mother made her life a living hell. She was grounded from the computer for a year, and wasn't allowed to tell anyone. At all. Simply because her mother is an emtionally dependent woman who settled for a creepy, abusive man. She also threatened to kick my friend out of the house at fifteen.
I used to like her mother. She was a cool lady. But then my friend told me about this, and I don't like her anymore, obviously. I have trouble understanding why a mother would allow her oldest daughter to be harrassed by her husband, and do nothing about it.
I always wondered what her mother did about it, but I never asked because she didn't seem to want to talk about it. She said she is only still there (I advised her to get emancipated and move in with her stop mother) because she loves her mother and doesn't want to make things worse.
I'm sorry about the rant here, but this just makes me sick.

[Sibling Chatty]

Unfortunately, this is not as rare as we'd wish it to be.

It happens with alarming regularity, to lots of people--girls AND boys, at times. There are as many "reasons" as there are perpetrators, but one really sad problem is that the mother often cannot accept that it happens.

A psychologist that I edit papers and books for has done a lot of research in this area. The private practice is devoted to this problem, in fact. If you ask any group of people to write a simple "yes or no" response on a slip of paper as to whether they've ever been sexually harassed or abused--the percentage that will admit IN SECRET is generally at least twice the number that will admit to it in public.

In 'general population' mental hospitals, the public admittance is over 50% and the private is over 89%. (No gender breakdown except that almost all females in psych care have at least one incident of sexual abuse.)

University freshman classes, in orientation groups of 250, divided by gender: an average of 23% of females and 4% of males said so (show of hands) publically.  By secret 'vote', the numbers were much scarier. Females: harassed 70%, molested/abused 55% actually raped repeatedly 29%, generally by a step-(father/sibling/uncle/cousin) but sometimes by a blood relation. Males: harassed 37%, molested/abused 23%, repeated rape or demand for oral 13%.

And incoming freshmen classes at a private religious college actually reported HIGHER numbers that the average, especially in long-term abuse by non-related males that were not step-relations either.

(The papers were fairly well received, the book cannot find a publisher because it seems to be "targeting men as villians". Yeah?? Most perpetrators happen to be men.)
====================

I spent most of a decade providing for and taking care of a person that i'd known since chilhood that was repeatedly abused by her step-father for 7 years. He was also constantly trying to make her mother think she (the mother) was mentally ill. The scars are deep, hard to heal. If I had the chance to kill that SOB, i'd cheerfully do it. To this day, and he's 86 years old, he's shown little to no remorse for his actions.

My niece was repeatedly molested by her stepfather, who 'bought' her silence by threatening to go after her younger sister. (The girls were 9 and 7.) It started when her mom was pregnant... After the baby was born (male) and the Mom wasn't pregnant, working nights and taking care of the house (she took a full year leave of absence from work) she notices things being weird. The man's daughter from his previous marriage went thraugh a CPS investigation of possibility of abuse from her stepfather, although she denied that her stepfather had touched her. (There were medically proven signs of abuse.)

My ex-SIL started putting things together in her mind, took all three of her kids to a specialist that does medical exams for the CPS in Houston, and went home that night and shot her soon-to-be-ex in the arm and leg so that he couldn't prevent her leaving. (At that time ex-SIL was back to work in law enforcement, that's what her degree's in.) There were signs of abuse for both my niece and for the baby...

It happens. A lot. In all social strata, at all income levels. There have been estimates that over half the mental illness in the US is caused by or exacerbated by child/adolescent sexual abuse.

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

What an atrocity! I'd like for him to miss the Draino in his morning OJ, both her step-dad and that old man.
My friend, thankfully, seems to be normal, despite her effed-up family. Just a side note,it was more like the kind of harrassment that dirty old men get in trouble for with waitresses.
Her mother knows what happened, admits it, but accepts it because she thinks she has to have a man.
My friend and I are both in a half-day high school thing, and he came to our evening showcase and was at my presentation, and he immediately set off my creep-alarm. Which is never wrong when it goes off.

What's worse is that man is a better father then her own, because he actually comes to things and is there, despite the fact he's a creep and ought to be castrated so he can't have any more kids. Her biological father left before my friend started her presentation, while the twit stayed.

[Sibling Chatty]

As long as any girls that are around him know to scream bloody murder and scream it loud...if he even pretends to LOOK at them wrong. Some people wouldn't want to draw attention, and they get victimized.

Sometimes you have to wonder what the deal is with some men. There's more to fatherhood than sperm donation. (Sometimes the wise woman figures that out early on and avoids the problem, too.) And some people are a waste of protoplasm. (Kellie's stepfather was a total pervert. I spotted him the first time I met him...and I also told him he was creepy, with eyes like a snake. When he made an off-color 'trousersnake' remark, I just cheerfully kicked him in the nuts with my clunky band shoes.)

I'm pretty good at spotting the pervs and abusers, and have a very piercing, evil stare...which I will employ as needed.

Your friend is lucky that her stepfather is stoppable. Not all are. And she's lucky to have you as a friend to give her moral support.

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

Thanks.
Indeed. People like that are a waste of valuable oxygen.
The girls in the group I'm usually with (and we usually meet at her house) know he's creepy, and when we're over there, we're ALL over there, and if he's home, then we stay together, even though it's a tiny place. And there's a lot of us.
I usually aviod the people who set off my creep-o-meter, if it's feasible.