The Education Wonks
And he has to pay $50 a month? I hope he hasn't had to pay all along, and that she can't go for back support.
They never said if it was "rape" or if he was a "willing participant", but either way she should have gotten some time. She was the adult (chronologically) and she should have known better.
This story is disgusting from start to finish. This young man was victimized and his abuser did not receive ANY jail time. Now, she is raising a child fathered by her victim and receiving child support? What ever happened to common sense in our judicial system???
It's amazing that the woman didn't get any prison time. It was rape pure and simple. However, just because the mother is a rapist doesn't mean the child has to suffer. Her mother has been punished already. I think the ruling was just.
How is this ruling just? Consider this for a moment, this young man was raped (whether it was consensual or not is immaterial), from this illegal action a child was conceived. Now a convicted sex offender is able to raise the child? This should turn your stomach! If it doesn't let's turn the table, ok. Say that a 27 year old man rapes a 13 year old student, she has a child from the illegal action. Since, she is underage the child goes to the man and the child remains in this sex offenders custody. If this happened everyone would be revolted. What's the difference (except the sex of the offender)?
What is ridiculous is the argument that the young man is "immature". Duh! She should have thought of that before she raped him.
You *wonder* what would have happened had the adult been a man and the child a 13-yr-old girl?
I don't think you wonder at all. We *all* know the answer.
Let's see - he gets raped at 13, doesn't get custody of the child, and still gets to pay child support.
Somebody got screwed more than once.
And the comment that the young man was immature - ha! how much more immature can one get than to be a 27 year old attracted to a 13 year old. That shows a disgusting lack of emotional maturity. And now she gets to perpetrate her diseased mind on another child. I would be curious to see what her little one is like 10 years from now, having been raised by a mentally unstable person.
wow, can a father EVER win custody? I mean the mother has to be dead or life sentance in jail to even have a chance to raise your own child as a father. AND he has to pay support. Like he's too "immature" to raise it, but not too "immature" to be an cash machine for the mother. Wow.
Lemme ask you this, would you put a minor into the care of (any) registered sex offender?
The time to remove the child from the mother would have been at birth.
The child can't win in this situation. Take a three year old away from her mother? Leave a three year old with a woman who was/is somehow skewed enough to be attracted to, and rape, a 13 year old boy?
The decision should have been made three years ago.
I'm going to go with Mrs. Bog on this one. While it sickens me that this woman retained custody in the first place, not to mention makes me want to barf just thinking about her affair with the boy, it makes me think twice about taking a three-year-old away from her mother. The boy's family should have filed for custody immediately, and by their not doing so makes me suspect that it's the boy's decision rather than his parents' to go for custody of his daughter.
The child is not a stranger to the young man. He has been visiting his child. He has not seen the child in the last seven months however. I don't think this would be ripping the child away and putting her with a complete stranger. (That scenario occurs on a daily basis, in any case, all over this country.)
Oddly, the nut-job mother required that the FATHER'S visitations be supervised. How bizarre is that!?! SHE is the one who ought to be supervised.
If a young girl was raped by an older man and had a baby as a result of that rape, most all of us (the courts included) would be livid if that father wanted full custody of that child. We'd NEVER settle for a child being raised by him, no matter how much time he had or had not spent with that baby. But for some reason, we're able to stomach it just a little bit better when the female rapist keeps the child.
I would venture to say that more long-term damage will be done to this child in the next 15 years than could ever have been done by removing her from the home that she has known for 3 short years. Only time will tell.
Linda F framed my first reaction beautifully. Of course he is immature-- he was 13 when you raped him.
Mrs. Bog also covered my second reaction. This woman should not have been allowed to keep this child. that three-year window has allowed her to grab control of this situation ONCE AGAIN-- perpetuating the crime.
There should not be a presumption that a child-molester mother is a better parent than her victim. His youth has been taken advantage of, yet again.
I also would like to note, however, that this kid keeps having kids. I wonder if that promiscuity is not an afterefffect of the sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of this freak, but still.
The contention that the child would be exposed to abuse in the victim's home is supported by the theory of the cycle of abuse. If that's the behavior he's learned is okay...
It is all just sickening.
This is actually the second such case we've seen recently -- a teacher in Ohio worked out an agreement with her student/baby-daddy so that he could get visitation and she would retain custody.
If you want to talk about a group of people that's routinely discriminated against in this country--and legally, too--it's fathers.
For some reason my trackbacks don't seem to take here, so ping!
I don't know what Texas law provides for but in most states it is extremely difficult for anyone other than the natural mother of a child to get custody.
hard as it is to accept, the child would be most damaged now by the interruption of her attachment to her caretaker. There is no justice to be found in the situation, so it calls for mercy, and the most mercy needs to be shown to this child, who is thoroughly implanted in a family with a mother (however poor her boundaries), a father, and a sibling.
One of the biggest problems in our culture is the damaged attachments of children in modern families. Whether it be divorce, or caretakers not related to the child, or death, or single parenthood, our kids are DAMAGED.
The wealth of information that is being gathered on the crucial nature of attachment to one caretaker who is absorbed in the child -- as this mother, despite her seriously flawed boundaries -- is beginning to show the depth, breadth, and heighth of this problem...it's horrendous. And guess what? Teachers have to deal with the fall=out.
You're right about the situation not being "equal" between men and women in the same situation. And you're right it's not "fair." But the unfairness is inherent in dimorphism and you can't erase it, no matter how NOW and the pc patrols want you to pretend it's not there.
Men often get the short end of the stick in custody, etc., and it is often women who are calling an end to marriages. But the advantages to being a male are still there, much to the fury of feminists. Let's face it guys: you will never, ever be pregnant and faced with any decisions about what to do. You have a different set of issues and conflicts, but that hardly means women "win."
BTW, she should have served some time while she was pregnant. And she should have to participate in some restoration of justice program. And she should be in therapy twice a week until she's 75 and there's not a drop of estrogen left in her body. And she ought to have the financial sacrifice of paying for that therapy.
None of that is vindictive, just restoring the balance and having a chance to break the intergenerational yuckiness in her family of origin. Dollars to donuts this woman was either severely neglected, abused, or sexually violated. Her acting out on a 13 y.o. makes that social history obvious.
I wonder what her child's adolescence will be like. I wonder if history will repeat itself? One thing's for sure: rip the child away from her mother--her inadequate, shame-filled mother--and you guarantee that child's future misery.
This way, she has a maybe 25% chance of making it.
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