Children raping children

I can imagine few things as horrifying and disturbing as this story, in which an 11-year-old girl accuses three boys, aged eight and nine, of rape.

It's disturbing on so many levels. They're so young, all of them. It's hard to conceive of children that age being the perpetrators of a rape. At that age, how can they even imagine it? Who's sexualized those boys to the extent that they would even think to link sex and violence like this? How can we possibly consider charging eight and nine-year-olds as adults for something like this? Why can't we find whoever hurt them or whoever taught them that this was a thing to do, and charge them instead?

But I think what disturbs me most is to read that the boys' defense -- at least as portrayed in this story -- is that the sexual activity was consensual. How is it possible that an 11-year-old girl could consent to sex? How have we gotten to this state, as a society, that we take a case like this, and think "well, she just didn't want to get in trouble with her parents, so she made up the part about the rock"?

Some days, I just want to give up on our society altogether.

Religion, the HPV vaccine, and the squick factor

The Catholic school boards' fretting about the HPV vaccine might seem to suggest some of the perils associated with publically-funded religious schools. The vaccine's a sensible public-health measure, right? Religion's interfering with the public good. That's a bad thing.

Except people see this vaccine as being about teenagers having sex.

It's not, of course. Or at least, not entirely. The whole point of the vaccine is that, for it to be effective, you have to be vaccinated before you're exposed to the virus -- ideally, before you're having sex. So a girl vaccinated at 13 or whatever will be protected when she's 18 or so and getting involved in her first sexual relationship. Or when she's married at 25. Or whenever she becomes sexually active. But people have an incredibly strong squick factor when it comes to my daughter having sex, and I think it kind of short-circuits the logic centers. I seriously doubt any girl who wasn't going to have sex is suddenly going to run out and become promiscuous just 'cause she's protected from cervical cancer. Let me assure you that cervical cancer is the last thing on the mind of any girl contemplating her first sexual relationship. It's not going to be a deciding factor. I'm not sure why that's so hard to get.

So I don't think anyone's associating the Catholic boards' jitters with John Tory opening the religious-schools can of worms. Which is a shame, because they should. If a religiously-run school can impede one public health measure, what about others? We're bound to have Jehovah's Witnesses schools receiving public funds while preventing kids from being vaccinated for all kinds of things. And that's just the first example that came to mind.

Full disclosure: I went to a catholic school. And as you can probably tell, the indoctrination didn't stick. Heck, it didn't stick at the time. We used to joke about being the school with the highest birth rate in the city.

But just because I don't think it's always effective doesn't mean I think publically-funded religious education should be accepted. School should be about school. Religion should be separate. And I know that it's not, now. Lots of schools, especially in smaller towns, are de facto protestant. That's not good either. Nor do we need to avoid mentioning religion -- we just need to avoid endorsing it.

Church and State, right? It shouldn't be so hard.

What makes a mother

I have to admit, I'm somewhat conflicted about the Patti Tomasson case.

Well, not about the case specifically. I believe adoptive parents should absolutely be entitled to parental leave and I think it's a shame the court decided otherwise.

What conflicts me is that the discourse around the case has been almost entirely about mothers. Tomasson herself has emphasized that "paternity benefits are a separate issue".

But I don't think they are. If this is all about bonding with a child, why should fathers be any less entitled to that time? The idea that bonding is a purely maternal activity just reinforces the kind of gender essentialism I wish we could get past. We need more fathers to spend time with their children, both when they're young and as they grow. Is it any wonder child-rearing is still an overwhelmingly female job, when men are actively excluded from the discourse?

By the same token, it is true that childbirth is physically exhausting, and carries with it all kinds of trauma -- there's no doubt that one would need time to recover from that. To that extent, I agree with the judge. Where I disagree is that parental/maternity leave is (or should be) about more than just the physical exigencies of childbirth.

I suppose in my ideal universe, there would be medical leave to allow for late prenatal care, childbirth and recovery, and there would be parental leave, for which all parents would be eligible, and which would take up the vast majority of the time period we now think of as maternity leave.

Thoughts?

Raising kids is a no-win proposition

• Kids should get more cuts and scrapes.
• Kids need to play outside; otherwise they'll become obese couch potatoes.
• Kids need to be supervised, and driven to and from school every day; otherwise they'll be kidnapped and raped and murdered.
• Kids need to be exposed to Baby Einstein videos; otherwise they'll never be geniuses.
• Kids shouldn't play sports; they'll become too competitive and lack empathy.
• Kids need to play sports; otherwise they'll be fat and nobody will like them.
• Kids shouldn't play sports; they'll get hurt.

Add yours in comments.