Posted on 02/04/2005 11:07:23 AM PST by Servant of the 9
"Guess who came over with his kids," my son said, when he came home from his friend's house -- and by the tone of his voice, I knew something was not right. Call it maternal instinct. My son is 11, and his friend's dad is very wealthy. It's not easy raising sensible children in this town, but that's another story.
The guest, the dad's "friend," was Michael Jackson, who'd come over with his children to play. I cannot duplicate my reaction in print. My son happens to be the most adorable, most precious, most delicious 11-year-old boy in the world. I am no more biased in saying this than any other mother, and the fact that my son looks young for his age only made me more upset. The very notion of my boy being around Michael Jackson is something I think every mother reading this can understand that no mother would want for such a son.
So I explained to my son, who up to that point had only a vague awareness of the charges against Michael Jackson, what it was that he was alleged to have done, and to whom. And my son, thoroughly and totally repelled and disgusted, not only never wants to be in a room again with him, but hopes, as he put it on the first day of jury selection, that "he gets punished and goes to prison if any of it is true."
I don't claim to be the "mother of the year." Not even close. I don't want to count how many times I've sent my son to school without lunch because I thought it was pizza lunch day and it wasn't. My daughter broke both wrists, and both times I told her to be tough because they were just bruises. But it doesn't take a course in parenting to know enough to keep your kids away from Michael Jackson, much less to keep them out of his bed. After what he paid the last time around to avoid a criminal trial, what kind of mother would let her son "play" with Michael Jackson?
In adult sexual assault cases, the routine defense these days is to attack the victim, to try to question her motives and undermine her credibility. The only difference here, where the alleged victim is a child, is that the target of the attack is his mother.
The defense has made clear that they intend to go after the mother, to portray her as a gold-digger and fame-seeker, a liar and worse. She may be some or all of those things. Perhaps that explains her decision to accept Jackson's hospitality in the first instance, and her willingness to lie to protect him and to remain in his good graces. But having a child with cancer is every mother's nightmare, and I don't ever want to walk in her shoes.
She is not claiming to be the victim; she is not the person the law here was intended to protect. Laws protecting children from molestation are there precisely to protect those children whose mothers and fathers are NOT behaving responsibly. Too often in such cases, they are the actual molesters or their silent accomplices.
Destroying the mother as a defense strategy in these circumstances may prove risky business. You destroy her credibility, and then what? She is not on trial, and her consent is not a defense. Portraying her as a bad mother doesn't make the man who took advantage of it more sympathetic. A boy without a mother on his side is the one who most needs the other mothers and fathers to protect him, as we instinctively do our own children.
To find out more about Susan Estrich, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.
I've never heard a normal person describe a child as
delicious. . . very wierd.
I think she's saying is that her son would be "delicious" to a pervert like MJ and she is still shaken at them being in the same room.
LOL!
The mother SHOULD be on trial, in a separate proceeding, for child endangerment.
That's for sure. I still can't get over that she is a mother.
Oh boy, I'm with ya on that. That voice! Eeek!
Susan Estrogen is a mother? That's creepy.
"Estrich is currently the Robert Kingsley Professor of Law and Political Science at the University of Southern California and a member of the Board of Contributors of USA Today. She writes the "Portia" column for American Lawyer Media and is a contributing editor of The Los Angeles Times. She was appointed by the President to serve on the National Holocaust Council and by the mayor of the City of Los Angeles to serve on that city's Ethics Commission.
A woman of firsts — she was the first woman president of the Harvard Law Review and the first woman to head a national presidential campaign (Dukakis)— Estrich is committed to paving the way for women to assume positions of leadership.
Books by Estrich include Real Rape, Getting Away with Murder: How Politics is Destroying the Criminal Justice System and Dealing with Dangerous Offenders. Her book Making the Case for Yourself: A Diet Book for Smart Women, is a departure from her other works, encouraging women to take care of themselves by engaging the mind to fight for a healthy body. Her latest book, the Los Angeles Times bestseller, Sex & Power, takes an impassioned look at the division of power between men and women in the American workforce, proving that the idea of gender equality is still just an idea."
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,34757,00.html
I can't listen to her either. It's not so much her voice as it's what comes out of her mouth! Bleck!
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