<< This post comes with a content warning about attempted child abduction. Please tune in to your body and sense if this is not something you can/want to read. >> I want to share a personal story with you. A story that’s behind this picture of me when I was eight years old. This picture is of me getting ready to go to the Tae Kwon Do class I took at the local YMCA.
Hey Lanae. This was a terrifying read. So glad you avoided that car. I hope the drivers are rotting in jail (or hell) somewhere. But at least there's some lightness being emitted from that dark day, in the form of your life mission in sexuality education. Thank you. From which I will segue to my kids' experiences as 11-12 year olds, taking a course called Our Whole Lives, at the UU church in Bethlehem PA. It was a 26-week course in relationship/sex education, where they were introduced to all things sexual, counseled in loving relations of all sorts, and visited by guests of all gender identities and sexual preferences, to understand and appreciate their bodily autonomy. Both said it was the best thing that ever happened to them in church. That's often not much of a statement, but at this church it was. (All UU churches offer the course; check it out for your kids, if any. https://www.uua.org/re/owl) I remain grateful that truth-telling can set people free, but also help them look out for themselves.
Outstanding piece here, and I agree fully with what you say about patriarchy. Predators also work their way into situations of trust. I spend half my time living in Japan. There was a well liked PTA official. He abducted a young Vietnamese girl, brutalized and raped her, and murdered her. I am the father of a four year old girl, and that shook the nation to the core. I also have been in situations like you when little. My mother instilled in us over and over again not go talk to strangers or go with them.
Hey Lanae. This was a terrifying read. So glad you avoided that car. I hope the drivers are rotting in jail (or hell) somewhere. But at least there's some lightness being emitted from that dark day, in the form of your life mission in sexuality education. Thank you. From which I will segue to my kids' experiences as 11-12 year olds, taking a course called Our Whole Lives, at the UU church in Bethlehem PA. It was a 26-week course in relationship/sex education, where they were introduced to all things sexual, counseled in loving relations of all sorts, and visited by guests of all gender identities and sexual preferences, to understand and appreciate their bodily autonomy. Both said it was the best thing that ever happened to them in church. That's often not much of a statement, but at this church it was. (All UU churches offer the course; check it out for your kids, if any. https://www.uua.org/re/owl) I remain grateful that truth-telling can set people free, but also help them look out for themselves.
Outstanding piece here, and I agree fully with what you say about patriarchy. Predators also work their way into situations of trust. I spend half my time living in Japan. There was a well liked PTA official. He abducted a young Vietnamese girl, brutalized and raped her, and murdered her. I am the father of a four year old girl, and that shook the nation to the core. I also have been in situations like you when little. My mother instilled in us over and over again not go talk to strangers or go with them.