I know this is a romance blog and all, but we talk an awful lot about sexuality and gender roles and cultural mores in real life and in fiction, and then I read “What Happened to Hope Witsell” today (one week late!) on my friend Sylvia’s blog while taking a brain-break from studying, and it made me so incredibly sad and angry that I kind of want to break something. This is more than a serious story; it’s a tragic story. I also think it’s an important story—one that warrants being passed around and read, and hopefully shocking the shit out of you—which is why I’m linking to it here.
I don’t have much to add that Sylvia hasn’t said already, other than to echo her words: Stop killing our daughters.
Roslyn, my girls all had phones from 11, when they started ‘big’ school. From my point of view, it keeps them safe – if they’re stuck somewhere, they can phone home, or phone for a taxi.
My daughter got her cell phone this year (at 13) because we moved to a new apartment and don’t have a land line. (We don’t have a land line because believe it or not it was *cheaper* to get her a cell—the next town over, where she goes to school and where all of her friends live? LONG DISTANCE.)
But we had quite a talk about the camera function.
Just the act of having the talk goes a long way towards making kids think twice, IMO. They can’t live in this blissful fantasy world where they think you don’t know what’s going on. Combine that with making sure they know that you are genuinely there to help and advise and support them, and you’re at least halfway to having a smart bitch of your very own. 🙂
tell93 – tell 93 people you know this story, and encourage them to talk to their own daughters!
Thanks Candy for posting this story. It was heartening to read the comments, to see the clarity and different perspectives.
I raised 4 daughters and they are all smart bitches, the youngest turns 21 in July so I am thrilled sexting, cell phones and the internet weren’t an issue when they were 13. My issues as a mother were schools empowering kids to turn in their parents for abuse, and the early DARE programs which instructed 12 years olds on how to do drugs. When our oldest took us through a horror story one year, I had to fight to get the school counselor out of our family life. My daughter’s infraction in 1996 was bringing a wine cooler onto school property.
What I felt from this Hope Witsell story is that we were very lucky because it was early in the cover-thy-ass judgmental attitude from the school that is now the first priority. In the Hope story, this attitude is now mirrored by the students, and that’s really scary. No high school students bullied my daughter about being a drunk or alcoholic for her wine cooler incident.
Of course, our horror story was just beginning, and got to the level of having a team of psychologist do an analysis. They determined our daughter was a thrill seeker personality and as parents we were applauded that she was still alive, healthy and happy at the age of 16. But, she could end up dead on the side of the road any time and there was nothing we could do about it. Yeah, those actual words.
However, our daughter did grow out of it, and now has a great career and 2 sons. She’s also stepmother to 3 boys. Twelve years ago, drugs, abusive relationship, police and family court services… Today, 29, dynamic, an Optician and mother to 5 boys from 1 to 9 years old. 🙂
That’s the saddest thing about Hope’s story to me. Her mother will never be able to relate it with a happy ending.
I’m a little concerned with some of the comments above that make the leap from “expression of burgeoning sexuality” to “damaged, fragile, low self esteem.”
Playing Doctor is natural and normal. “Show me yours and I’ll show you mine” is natural and normal. So is masturbating—toddlers do it. Figuring out that boys like boobies and maybe you have some power over boys because they are curious—also normal and natural. It’s likely that Hope started out feeling quite powerful that a boy liked her. It’s a giddy feeling, isn’t it? But nobody taught her how to deal with that situation, it seems.
Adolescence is the time when boys and girls (and boys and boys and girls and girls) start learning the steps to this strange, wonderful and oftentimes maddening dance. And really, very few of us become very good at it, even as adults.
So to cast this girl as being damaged somehow because she wanted attention from a boy? Which, again, is totally normal and natural? Terrible thing to do. Just terrible.
I do not know how I feel about this.
As the mother of daughters, I am appalled at the sexting culture where a boy can harass a girl to show her breasts and apparently he walks away with no consequences. I am appalled that she apparently sent nude pictures of herself TWICE to different boys. I am appalled that the school and Hope’s parents apparently thought a week’s suspension from school during the crucial first week, and months after the fact, would do anything more than bring up the issue all over again. I am appalled that Hope was barred from running for student advisor. If it was an elected position, surely the student body would vote one way or another on her credibility. If she were willing to take the risk of being rejected by her peers for her behavior, why prohibit her from running at all?
I am appalled that Hope had nowhere to turn. She quite obviously felt she could not talk to either her parents, the school counsellor, or the Christian therapist. (What makes a therapist “Christian”? Is there some kind of bizarre view that thinks “non-Christian” therapy would sanction and/or encourage destructive, anti-social, out-of-control behavior? Perhaps, if the “Christian therapist” – however well-intentioned – was not helping, a therapist without a religious agenda might have been an alternative choice?)
I don’t want to condemn the parents out-of-hand, who must be devastated, but I cannot help but wonder if they are the type of overly-righteous Christians for whom anything outside of a very narrow range of options is automatically condemned and hell-worthy? Was she prayed over every day and god beseeched to mend her ways, as if she were hopelessly evil and condemned already? Was Hope’s “quiet summer doing her good” or was she simply getting too depressed to continue fighting?
I don’t think anyone will ever know the answers for Hope, and I am sure there is no one simple answer to the problems of growing up in the cyber age, although I am pretty sure that relying only on bronze age ideas will not be a panacea.
I am reminded of this quote:
“Anger had cooled, and she was afraid with a helplessness she was not accustomed to feel … a wish that by someone very wise and at some time long ago, other choices had been made, which would have saved them all from this moment, and this place, and the choices they had left.”
Signy Mallory, Downbelow Station (CJ Cherryh)
The lesson seems to be that people should talk to their children about sex, and the emotional issues that come with it—what it’s okay and not okay to do. Sexual culture among teens has changed from when most of us were at school, and will keep on changing, but to simply let a child know that they have the option of talking to their parents with the promise of no judgement or outrage goes a long way. If sex seems like a taboo subject among their family, children will keep it hidden while they get their information from their peers, media or guesswork. It’s not safe to assume that children will magically morph from asexual innocents into responsible adults when they pass the local age of consent.
One thing I don’t get in situations like these is how much the blame is placed on the school and administrators. I do agree in this case there was a mistep in suspending the girl, but always the first thing people say is “why didn’t the school put a stop to this?”. There seems to be a huge onus on educators in our society to be responsible for every action a young person takes regardless of where it occurs, so I can almost understand where this reactionary approach comes in. The school will be blamed regardless, so they feel they must take some action.
Also I don’t mean to sound callous, but I always wonder what exactly people want teachers to do to “stop the bullying”. I went to a school where the teachers were involved and obviously made attempts to stop bullying wherever they could- they were in the majority wonderful, caring people who were dedicated to their students and obviously didn’t condone bullying. But in the end a class of 40+ young adults cannot be constantly under watch by one person. It takes more then just “The School” to stop bullying. The only way to stop bullying in my opinion is for parents to raise children who know that bullying is wrong, in a society where it is not a tolerated behavior.
It just seems unfair to me that the blame always seems to land square on the shoulders of teachers. It’s obvious even here from the comments that it’s a fine line to walk between “why do they never get involved to stop the problem?” and “how come they are meddling in problems that aren’t any of their business?”.