views and comments....

[baileys Bhoy]

Whats everyones view on this recent headline....14 year old boy let off with raping a 4 year old girl!! The judge blamed society!http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4411429/Cage-the-porn-boy-who-raped-my-girl-4.html

[pat]

Blame the parents.

[Alrock]

Whats everyones view on this recent headline....14 year old boy let off with raping a 4 year old girl!! The judge blamed society!http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4411429/Cage-the-porn-boy-who-raped-my-girl-4.html

Erm... a blatant lie, but what can you expect from the sun...

Judge Hawkesworth gave him a three-year community order and banned him from accessing porn or using computers without filters.

That's not "Let Off", maybe not as strong a sentence as you would have liked but he was found guilty & sentenced.

[squidge]

Im not going to discuss this case in particular. If i was the parents of the girl I would feel like they do.


There is a serious point about pornography behind this story though. Its availability and its normalisation ( i dont even know if thats a word) Yes its been around for years and when we were kids grot mags were passed around amongst the boys or kept under the matress but todays pornography is insidious and so so so much harder core than the stuff you would see in the Grot mags nicked from the newsagent.

Magazines like zoo and nuts are now mainstream and they encourage an attitude of "get yer kit off". Kids do the sexting thing and they have phones they take to bed and, as a parent you have no idea what they are looking at or who they are texting. Im no prude and I was very relaxed with my older children about discussing sex and letting them watch films like American Pie which have a funny and irreverant look at gtowing up and sex but the internet porn is something else entirely. Video games dont worry me in the same way - they are "not real" and if you have a normal well adjusted kid they arent going to turn into serial killers or rapists by playing video games. Pornography is different - it looks real and it looks like "thats what people do".

What did I do? I snooped! The older boys knew I would snoop I never made it a secret. i checked their emails, their internet habits and their texts - sometimes openly and sometimes in an underhand manner. Some of my friends criticised me loudly and often for it but I dont care. I am their mother, It is my job to know what they are doing. Locks arent allowed on doors in my house, passwords not allowed on phones, internet not allowed in bedrooms other than for homework. Facebook and bebo pages had to have me as a friend lol. I was a right cow and im not stupid enough to think I knew everything or that they didnt hide things from me - of course they did, but by having rules we talked about them, about what was acceptable and what was not and thats the best thing you can do- in my opinion of course lol

[rich62_uk]

What did I do? I snooped! The older boys knew I would snoop I never made it a secret. i checked their emails, their internet habits and their texts - sometimes openly and sometimes in an underhand manner. Some of my friends criticised me loudly and often for it but I dont care. I am their mother, It is my job to know what they are doing. Locks arent allowed on doors in my house, passwords not allowed on phones, internet not allowed in bedrooms other than for homework. Facebook and bebo pages had to have me as a friend lol. I was a right cow and im not stupid enough to think I knew everything or that they didnt hide things from me - of course they did, but by having rules we talked about them, about what was acceptable and what was not and thats the best thing you can do- in my opinion of course lol

I do EXACTLY the same lol ! If my children dont like the fact I read their private messages on facebook then I tell them to not have facebook its simple. They are also not allowed a phone till High School and again I read the messages. I have found out several things that was going on in their lives in which an adult was needed for help and advice, they would not of seeked that help as its classed as 'grassing' up ... My house my rules.

[sassylass]

I understand how upset the parents must be but they certainly seem to be going down the drama path. I do not mean to minimize this crime. It's horrific. However, it's done, and now the parents must deal with the well being of their little girl. Their daughter is learning how to cope from them and I don't think histrionics is the way to go. Professional counseling could help everyone involved: the daughter and her parents, and the boy.

[oldmarine]

Im not going to discuss this case in particular. If i was the parents of the girl I would feel like they do.


There is a serious point about pornography behind this story though. Its availability and its normalisation ( i dont even know if thats a word) Yes its been around for years and when we were kids grot mags were passed around amongst the boys or kept under the matress but todays pornography is insidious and so so so much harder core than the stuff you would see in the Grot mags nicked from the newsagent.

Magazines like zoo and nuts are now mainstream and they encourage an attitude of "get yer kit off". Kids do the sexting thing and they have phones they take to bed and, as a parent you have no idea what they are looking at or who they are texting. Im no prude and I was very relaxed with my older children about discussing sex and letting them watch films like American Pie which have a funny and irreverant look at gtowing up and sex but the internet porn is something else entirely. Video games dont worry me in the same way - they are "not real" and if you have a normal well adjusted kid they arent going to turn into serial killers or rapists by playing video games. Pornography is different - it looks real and it looks like "thats what people do".

What did I do? I snooped! The older boys knew I would snoop I never made it a secret. i checked their emails, their internet habits and their texts - sometimes openly and sometimes in an underhand manner. Some of my friends criticised me loudly and often for it but I dont care. I am their mother, It is my job to know what they are doing. Locks arent allowed on doors in my house, passwords not allowed on phones, internet not allowed in bedrooms other than for homework. Facebook and bebo pages had to have me as a friend lol. I was a right cow and im not stupid enough to think I knew everything or that they didnt hide things from me - of course they did, but by having rules we talked about them, about what was acceptable and what was not and thats the best thing you can do- in my opinion of course lol

Call me old fashioned but I agree with squidge. I would not let my children get away with anything. There were consequences for their misbehavior and they knew it. All my children grew up to the kind of adults that made me proud. I am happy with them today.

[pat]

Agree with you Squidge, Rich and Old Marine - blame the parents, if they do not know what their CHILD is doing all the time they are not being being responsible parents teaching youngster how to behave, what is correct, what is unacceptable, all areas have to be monitored at all times, along with nurturing to ensure a rounded, grounded, caring member of society and an adult you are happy to call your child.

Definitely blame the parents for how the CHILD turns out - its like anything you make you have to be very careful with the ingredients, how you carefully mould it to the shape you like and when finished you should be happy with the result, if not happy YOU are responsible for the result.

[squidge]

Im not blaming the parents Pat - not entirely - it is massively more complicated than that. There are a lot of parents who are just struggling with how to parent their children and thats not entirely their own fault. Changes in society mean that parents that are struggling have nowhere to turn for help. We seem to have lost the knack of saying no to our kids and isolation or poverty mean that people often have little or no support. There are few areas where the extended families of grannie, aunties, sisters and cousins are there to step in when trouble starts. Where there is support either from families or early years workers, family support centres, sure start types of things then we often see a difference in the behaviour of small children and the confidence of parents but many of the support organisations are struggling for lack of funding in this time of austerity.

The easy availabilty of pornography, the objectification of women through mainstream mags like zoo and nuts and through the airbrushing of pictures of models also contribute. Dare I suggest that it objectifies women without being accused of sounding like a nutter? It does encourage boys to be part of the "get yer kit off" culture that seems a bit too prevalent for me. It sometimes seems to me that we are letting young girls down these days - so many of them seem to measure their own self worth by how they appear to boys and nothing else. Where are the aspirations to achieve success and independence? Feminism is a dirty word today and our daughters may be paying the price for that. The celebrity culture and some reality tv is obsessed with sex and voyeurism and this is also influencing our young people.

So yes - parental fault is there but there are massive problems elsewhere which contribute to all this.

[newweecroft]

At 14 we have major hormonal changes male or female and our bodies begin to demand sexual excitment. If the victim was pubesant you could blame the parents the world the internet and the sentance would at least have a little credibility but she wasn't, she was a little girl a baby. He should be treated as a child rapist and threat for life whether this would include a long custodial sentance or not? It should at least require a short one with intensive psychological analysis to find out if the attack was oppertunist or whether the boy is a paedophile with a preference for the particularly young so his future can be monitored accordingly.

[baileys Bhoy]

At 14 we have major hormonal changes male or female and our bodies begin to demand sexual excitment. If the victim was pubesant you could blame the parents the world the internet and the sentance would at least have a little credibility but she wasn't, she was a little girl a baby. He should be treated as a child rapist and threat for life whether this would include a long custodial sentance or not? It should at least require a short one with intensive psychological analysis to find out if the attack was oppertunist or whether the boy is a paedophile with a preference for the particularly young so his future can be monitored accordingly.You put my feelings down exactly!!!

[rich62_uk]

I do not blame the parents at all .... Some children are just made a certain way and nothing the parent can do can alter that. Obviously that is not the case in every situation as you cant tar everyone with the same brush it just is not like that in life.

At 14 they know right from wrong if they dont then they definitely need help and to be punished to learn right from wrong and to also give the victims some sort of closure and to know that justice has to a certain extent been done.

[RecQuery]

Pornography, video games, the internet, violent movies and television programmes, metal music, rap music, rock music. Some people would have you believe that these are to blame for all the 'problems' of society.

If a mentally unbalanced person happens to do something heinous it's because they're mentally unbalanced not because they happen to like any of the above. In some situations you can't even blame the parents. Granted in a lot of situations you can. Society should not be censored because you happen to be a bad parent.

These offences are nothing new either, violence, murder, rape and child abuse have been around for a long time. Actually they were much worse in the past but these same people view the past with an idealised, rose-tinted mindset.

[squidge]

I was not talking specifically about the case in the paper but i do beleive there is a wider issue around pornography that is worth discussing outwith this particular case. Society should not be censored???? What - at all? Im not sure that pornography is the cause of violent rapes and murders at all but i have a concern that it objectifies women in an unhealthy way and that our girls are worse off because of it.

[RecQuery]

I was not talking specifically about the case in the paper but i do beleive there is a wider issue around pornography that is worth discussing outwith this particular case. Society should not be censored???? What - at all? Im not sure that pornography is the cause of violent rapes and murders at all but i have a concern that it objectifies women in an unhealthy way and that our girls are worse off because of it.

Men are massively objectified. Everything objectifies somebody - not always sexually - though I don't view it as necessarily a bad thing.

Sometimes women are sexual objects, as are men. It's only a crime to think they are only that; which most people do not do. I've watched porn, I've also watched science fiction and fantasy shows. I - obviously - realise that both are fictional.

If I were uptight I'd make an argument that the majority of Disney programmes, romantic dramas/comedies and romance novels paint create unrealistic portrayals of men but, well as above if you're the sort of person who can't separate fact from fiction then that's the problem, not your choice of media.