Pedophile Principal Is Why I'll Never Be a Free-Range Parent
I would like to be a more laid-back, "free-range" parent. I don't want to look at every stranger and acquaintance, for that matter, and wonder the worst about them. I don't want to feel like my children could be attacked and violated anytime, anywhere, but too often I do. Stories like this one out of Iowa pretty much resign me to the fact that I always will.
In Cedar Rapids, Iowa (a town I, incidentally, almost moved to when I was growing up), elementary school principal Robert Burke was sentenced to 30 years in prison for video taping little boys while they were using the bathroom -- in the school he was supposed to be leading. The judge said he had one of the biggest child pornography collections she'd ever heard of, and he was sharing the images over the Internet. She called it "one of the most aggravating circumstances and crimes" that she'd ever seen.
The rage I feel at this man for violating those little boys in so many ways knows no limits. How someone in that position of power could break such a trust that we as parents put in our educators and school leaders is beyond deplorable. But most of all, it's frightening that someone parents least suspected was doing this right under their noses.
You can tell me all you want that this is an isolated incident, that it makes headlines because it's the exception rather than the rule. I know the barrage of media today makes it seem like these things happen more frequently now, when that may not be the case. But the fact is they still happen.
I realize I can't protect my children from everything and everyone, and I don't feel like I'm that extreme in my efforts to keep them safe. (Of course, I'm sure that we all have our own definitions of what extreme is.) But it's the inner fear, worry, and skepticism I feel toward people that is exhausting; it's infuriating to me that people like this principal keep perpetuating them.
Do stories like these make you worry about your children more?
Image via Kyle Taylor, Do it. Dream It. World Tour/Flickr
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slw123
That is despicable. There is a special thing in prison that happens to men who hurt children =)
ReiReally
I'm considered the overly-protective one of my family but I think I could so more to keep my son safe. It doesn't stop us from living our lives and I wouldn't say I'm paranoid, to me, I'm just doing my job as a parent.
xanthian41691
I was molested as a child by my step-brother so people can call me paranoid or over-protective or whatever but I will do my best to try and make sure something like this never happens to my child(ren)
dana315
as horrifying as this is, short of locking up your children and keeping them home from school, how else do you propose you protect them from situatiuons like these? I, for one, do not plan on accompanying my children to every bathroom break until they are eighteen, which is the only way you could prevent this scenario. It is not a question of free range or over-protective, becuase ultimately, you can't control evrything that happens. I do choose to promote safety and common sense in my children, without excessive fear or naxiety of a big bad world.
arliss123
I agree with Dana. Even the most overprotective parent probably doesn't imagine that the principal is taping her children in the bathroom. This has nothing to do with free-range parenting.
bullemhead
Zyva
"Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing." - Helen Keller.
When you choose to 'lock up' your children, you take away from them the ability to make mistakes and learn from them, which I think is more dangerous in the long run. I don't feel this is a 'free-range' issue, it's more of a sick individual issue.
.LoVeMyBuG.
bullemhead: Your comment just made me an even more "over protective" parent. I don't let my kids out of my sight! All too often it's the people we are suppose to be able to TRUST that are the one's that end up in headlines like these. I know I will have to let go someday but that day is not today nor tomorrow, my kids will be on a short leash until they are MUCH MUCH older.
PonyChaser
I live near CR, and this is in the news a lot these days. Does it make me fear more for my son? Nope. Because, honestly, even if I was the most overprotective parent on the planet, and accompanied him to his classes, and even into the stalls of that bathroom, how is my presence going to stop him from being filmed? None of the teachers knew that camera was there. None of the janitors. Nobody knew until it was discovered. So being an overprotective parent would have changed exactly nothing.
Except that it would have changed something - it would teach my son that the world, even his school, is a big, bad, scary place, and that he is to be frightened of everyone and everything. He is not to trust his teachers, his principal, his friends, his friend's parents...
Would it have stopped the principal? No. It would damage my son for life, though. And that's not something I'm willing to do. I teach him to be smart, not fearful. To trust his instincts above all else. If he feels that 'prickly' on the back of his neck, to trust it and leave, even if it means being rude.
Others are correct: this has nothing to do with Free-Range Parenting, and everything to do with a sicko .
vamom08