Comments

1
um, this is a catholic organization right? Maybe the priests are just frustrated by the extra competition...
2
So what's the big deal? Why is the volunteer lashing out at this agency via the Stranger for putting a policy in place to help safe guard children? So he's anti-keeping kids safe I guess. You'd think he'd appreciate it as measures are being taken to ensure everyone is acting in an appropriate and safe manner. It's mentoring not having pillow fights and having slumber parties...mentoring.
3
BBBS of PS is not a religious or religious-affiliate org.
4
How can the sleepovers be so crucial that this guy would cut off contact with the boy he has been mentoring? Surely they could keep going on bike rides, go to movies, restaurants, museums, whatever. If he's that irate about not getting sleepovers and not getting to take the kid to Canada, I dunno, that seems weird to me.

I'm a mom to a girl scout and a cub scout, and in both cases, there are rules about who can sleep in a tent (in girl scouts, it's only the girls, and no adults; in cub scouts it's only family members, and no other children), who can give rides, who can lead meetings without another adult present. All adults are fingerprinted. It's a little off-putting to realize that these policies mean that the organization is treating you as a potential abuser. But you put it in perspective and realize that they're just trying to make sure all the children enjoy their years as scouts, and it's not a big deal, really.
5
Hmmm... it's more disturbing to me that someone would be that irate that he cannot have a sleepover than about keeping ALL kids safe! I realize not all potential inappropriate behavior would happen at a sleepover - but it certainly must help cut down on the potential for it! Be disappointed... but be grateful that BBBS recognizes the potential for harm.
6
Organizations like BBBS have enough trouble getting and keeping funding. Unfortunatey, decisions like these have to be made to limit the opportunity for damage to the group's reputation. There's also nothing stopping him from taking the kid on an overnight outside of the involvement with the organization as a friend of the family... just not as a big/little. So now that he's gone and thrown his bitchfit and likely caused a headache for the local BBBS, he can take the underaged kid wherever he likes, provided the child's parents also pull him from the program.
7
So that's how an organization whose leadership actually cares about the well-being of children responds to allegations of abuse.
8
Maybe someday there will be a pill to take for all those adults suffering from arrested psychosexual development as a result of bizarre or abusive parenting, or for those who just feel they were somehow cheated out of some part of childhood and are determined to "experience" it as adults no matter what the cost to others.

Fuck. Leave kids the fuck alone sexually, even if in your warped and needy perception you think they are "coming on" to you.

The need is so great for nurturing, companionship, security among all the neglected children out there (many more on the way if forced-reproduction conservatives have their way). It's too bad all the damaged adults can't recognize their own narcissism and just be there for kids.
9
So, the organization allegedly overreacted with their policy change (but look at it from their perspective, and the "overreaction" is perfectly predictable), and in response, Robinson is going to overreact by resigning from the group.

It seems like someone who is participating in the program for the good of the children would continue on with it for the children, even if he's going to complain about the new policy. Even if the policy is a hindrance as he suggests, I can't imagine the children are left better off by his dropping out entirely.
10
All adults molest children, you guys. We have to just accept that and start putting kids in situations where they have zero individual contact with adults.
11
"All adults molest children"? All? I guess that includes you, Soupytwist.
12
Note to David Robison: Child rape is not "sexual activity".
13
Maybe the guy resigned precisely BECAUSE he wanted to take the kid along on his trip and he couldn't while they had a formal Big Brother/Little Brother arrangement?

Tough call. I had a couple of Big Brothers when I was little and had sleep-overs with both. One actually was pervy, in a working-up-the-courage-to-molest-me kind of way, while the other was a Big Brother superstar. Sleep-over visits with the awesome BB were very rare, but they made sense when they happened (like, my mom took off for a weekend once in a blue moon). I wouldn't have wanted that option removed.
14
I'm David Robison and let me be clear bout two things: 1. I will continue to see my Little regardless of whether or not we're in the program; 2. It's not just that BBBS of PS overreacted, but as Dominic's article makes clear, it's also being treated as a commodity by the organization. I've " just been there" for my little for 9 years, and will continue to do so.
15
" amounts to a fraction of a percentage point per yearโ€ฆโ€"
means abuse occurring at the same rate as for Youth Pastors.....
16
The whole thing starts with the Seattle Adult Child. Once you get a 34 year old "woman" walking around using web language and saying "everyone thinks I'm 22" its not too far from the next step where she's got her hand up a GS uniform.

17
This certainly makes sense from an organizational standpoint, for normal interactions. And for the particularly close bonds, there's no need for the organization and its little rules at all. My boyfriend has never met his father and hasn't seen his mother for ten years, but he still sees his old Big Brother at least once a year. The guy is practically his dad - helped him out financially in a big crisis recently, always there for him, but doesn't quite absorb that he's all grown up already. And my boyfriend's 34! It's kind of awesome, really. But that's not really the way things turn out normally, I gather.
18
@10: We're on to you, Soupytwist. You and your molester's eyes.
19
@11, @18 - It's time for all of us to come out of the closet, you guys. I mean, seriously, you guys, this closet is full of molesters.
20
@10 @19-Molestation is not a joke or something to be made light of. It steals childhood and changes a child forever. The impact on the child's family is serious trauma I hope you never have to experience. With that being said - even if someone passes a background check- fingerprints and all- it is not possible to know that they are waiting for the right situation to come along and unfortunately a sleepover provides just that. It would have made sense for the sleepovers to occur well into the time the relationship was being established- perhaps one year and with all parties accepting it to go to the next level.
21
My Husband was sexually abused by a volunteer in this program, they knew of overnights within the first week of pairing and sleeping in the same bed, this was all documented by their organization, which we hold all the documents. page after page and DCFS even stating abuse by this volunteer by another boy and saying BBBS needs to terminate this relationship, that BBBS is held legally responsible. This abuse started within the first week and went on for years and many victims/now survivors were abused by this volunteer because of their lack of concern for the children, they wrote down and documented all what was going on, and there concerns and teachers concerns that contacted the program at the time of all this happening,, and nothing the program did to protect my husband, nor his brothers and all their friends,, NOTHING they did, they swept all under the rug and allowed the abuse to continue. I am sure there is good in this program, but the abuse my husband endured has left nothing but wounds that have been cleaned out through a lot of therapy and now he lives with large scars. I have not had anything good to think of this program nor say of this program, just like Jerry Sandusky who opened up his own organization the Second Mile that was similar to BBBS.. These programs are supposed to help not take away children's innocence, and destroy families. BBBS has policies like every other company around, unfortunately they failed time after time, page after page of documentation, they failed to enforce their policies at the expense of innocent children, who are left with the aftermath.
22
I was sexually abused by my Big Brother when I was a child back in 1966-1968 and so was my brother, he told our mother and when we got with the BB rep or supervisor in San Fransisco, he said that my Big Brother denied everything and case closed. You cant imagine how it changes your life when that happens to you. Taking chances with someone you don't know, with your child, my heart goes out to anyone who is even in a situation where they might consider it.

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