The hows and who’s of child abuse

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Unless you have been hiding under a rock lately, you have most likely noticed that the “blogosphere” is ablaze with child exploitation allegations, and from that stemmed the “what about the child molesters!?“. It’s so rare for me to have an opinion that I even care to share (sometimes I feel so dry, my skin flakes and falls from my forehead every time I feel one coming on), that and I just can’t bear to write them down (that’s what I have Jelly Man for! He gets my sense of humor at least), but I just got to chime in this time.

I’m not for or against - do what you want, or what feels right to you and yours (if the two are not the same, and I would guess that often they’re not), but I just have to laugh out loud* at one argument I have seen more than once these past weeks.

*Yes! An actual LOL, IRL! ROFL!
Ahem..

Look, I understand that not everyone feel it’s safe to put up pictures of your children, and I can see how the argument goes, and might even agree a little bit. It just gets a little laughable when people start making the claim that they are making sure their children don’t get in contact with “questionable people”, assuming there is some sort of definition for “questionable” and as if you can tell from looking at someone whether or not they are more or less likely to abduct your child and abuse him/her. Especially since about 95% of children know their abuser.

Who in their right mind lets their child be alone with someone they know to be a child molester? Exactly - no one sane would, yet it still happens. And not because we put our family pictures up on our silly blogs, whether big or small. We have gotten babysitter offers from a lot of people, some of whom we trust to be able to take care of Carlita if need be, others whom we don’t, and we both agree that we aren’t taking any of them up on their offer; Not because we think they are child abusers, but because we wouldn’t be able to tell if they were.

Exceptions being my mum and Jelly Man’s dad, who happens to not have offered.. yet.

Again, I respect that opinions differ on the matter of putting pictures on the web, but I think it is demeaning to those parents whose children have been molested by someone they trusted, school teacher, coach, priest, other family member, family friend and so on, to imply that other’s are not taking the safety measures they could be taking, because I am willing to believe that most of them would never have thought themselves to be leaving their child in the care of someone “questionable”.That, in fact, most child abusers, sexual or otherwise, look pretty darn “normal”.

Child abusers mainly look at child porn, not family photos, and in my case some nitwit masturbated while looking at me through the bookshelves of our library when I was 15 - not exactly your typical “questionable” hang-out place, if you ask me, and I would have personally preferred that the guy had stayed at home that day and masturbated to my picture, than have him brush his load off on me in the isle after he was done**.

**I was utterly clueless as to what exactly had just happened - it took me a couple of years to figure that one out.

The world is turning out to be a really sick place when one feels awkward filming one’s daughter’s face while she is getting her diaper changed, for fear of what others would think should they find out what is going on where the camera is not filming. Yet that is exactly what happened the other day when Carlita was talking up a storm during her diaper change. To pervert family photos, lulling people into believing they are safe as long as they don’t put pictures on the web, is not helping the actual issue, if you ask me.

But then, that is just my opinion, so I’m curious - what is yours?

She posts - sure sign of Armageddon!

Friday, March 28, 2008

I can’t believe it’s Friday already. After Carlita’s morning appointment Wednesday, Jelly Man called in and took the rest of the day off as well, so between that and Monday being a holiday, this hasn’t been much of a week at all. I like it. I could get used to it.

It snowed all through yesterday, fluffy, powdery snow, and now it’s all melting away in the gorgeous sunshine. I wish the weather would make up its mind. I want spring! But if I can’t have spring I at least want a little snow, because the grey, the mud and the dead sticks just gets to me in a way that is not good. It’s damn near offensive.

So, here I am. Carlita is napping and I’m trying to work, except I’m not, because I’m busy not-so-secretly waiting for Jelly Man to get back from work so we can get our collective asses to the big-ass-mofo grocery store, just so we can elbow our way through the weekend shopping traffic, so we can get it over and done with, SO WE CAN RELAX FOR THE REST OF THE WEEKEND!

Or, that is our plan.

We might be suffering from delusions of grandeur, but at least we’re not running around claiming to be Jesus, in plural nonetheless.

Anyway, life is trudging on, and not much is happening - unless you want to count my BPAL orders arriving as wonderful and thought provoking news, which I happen to do, because then you’re in luck. I’m now loving an oil called “Glowing Vulva at Ryogoku Bridge”, and if that isn’t exciting I don’t know what is! I’m really trying to tone down my perfume buying, because seriously, how many bottles does one need - honestly? But it’s hard. Very, very hard.

The whole perfume thing has gotten so out of hand that I’ve been decanting perfume oil into little 1ml vials to sell, and even give away to people I’ve been meaning to send care packages to for eons now. Somehow, this huge stash that I’ve accumulated is taking over and I’m no longer sure who owns who, or what. And since I accidentally ordered two bottles of the same perfume in my two most recent orders, I think it’s time to take a step back, hold on to my monies and really ponder if this hoarding and searching for the perfect blend is nothing more than a waste of time, AND MONEY, better used elsewhere.

While my brain is furious at my frivolous spending, my heart loves, loves, LOVES the perfumes, so taking that step back, as mentioned above, is VERY HARD INDEED.

You should help me make it easier by checking out my sales post! (Have a look, even if you don’t know what BPAL is!) BUY IT ALL AND BREAK MY CHAINS!

Just be careful. It’s addictive.

I’m five years old again

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

For those of you not in the know, there is a facebook application called (fluff)book where you keep a (fluff)friend, it’s dumb and it’s stupid and it makes me want to call it retarded, but that would be an insult to retards, and did I mention very, Very un-PC - but, anyway, my point being that this (fluff)book is good at sucking your time, a big ol’ time-sucking machine, and they just keep finding ways to get better at it.

So, I basically have a virtual tamagotchi, and it’s this whole network of people who pet each other’s (fluff)friends, because when you pet someone’s (fluff)friend you earn 5 munny*, but even though you can pet them as many times as you wish, you will only receive 5 munny per (fluff)friend/day. The more your (fluff)friend is petted, the better s/he feels, and the better s/he does in (fluff)races, which is, shockingly, exactly what it sounds like, (fluff)races between (fluff)friends. I can’t empathize the (fluff) part enough, can I?

* Do I need to explain what munny is? Do I really?

Ok, so this is already a pretty stupid thing to waste your time on, but nevertheless, and now I’m involved in a virtual (fluff)friend egg-hunt.

I can’t believe myself. I’m supposed to be an adult, ferchrissake! Maybe I should just go ahead and delete the damn (fluff)book.

But, I can’t! *whimper*

There was something else I wanted to share about the (fluff)book, but I got distracted by the egg-hunt. SO lame, I know!

In other news, I quit drinking so damn much soda. It would be technically correct to say that Jelly Man is the one who does the shopping on his way home from work and he is refusing to bring me any, but that would leave me with little dignity left to cling to. I quit it on my own, sorta, when I realized there is no way to get coca cola unless I order pizza to be delivered, except I can’t cause we have no cash at home at the moment. I must say though, my skin has cleared right up! I could get used to that.

But I also really, really miss Dr Pepper like I’d miss an arm. (Hello again, un-PC! I bet all the one armed folk out there thinks I’m such a tard for saying that..)

Am trying to get my ass in gear and get some housework done. *hiss* *boo*

And fortunate

Saturday, March 08, 2008

For some reason this makes me really, really happy.