My girl Oprah...

Oprah and I have a love-hate relationship. Love, because I find her show compelling and educational and I believe she illuminates important topics and has enough viewership to really make a difference with the information she puts out there. Hate, because sometimes I become more of a drastic person as a result of watching her show. I think that it is commonplace for a deranged, baby-hungry person to c-section a pregnant lady using Internet instructions, and therefore I feel I have to lie when random people in public question me regarding when I'm due.

I do DVR all of her new shows, and I'd say at some point while I'm proofing a shoot or sewing or otherwise spending time alone, I'll get around to watching maybe 1/2 of her shows. I skip the ones about celebrities, movies, Dr. Oz, makeovers, etc. and I don't miss the ones that are about more interesting topics, like the two I watched recently about modern geisha lifestyle and registered sex offenders.

It's the registered sex offender episode that leads me to this post. I feel as though I'm pretty on top of protecting my children from gross people, or trusted people who don't appear gross but really are...those are the real ones to watch for. After watching a full hour of Oprah sitting down with four diversely different sex offenders (no audience, just the five of them and a therapist) and grilling them about their behaviors, I was happy to feel as though every situation where these offenders were able to victimize a child would never happen to my child. What I mean is, these were children who were not being protected by their parents and the situations they were allowed to be in are situations that I would never be idiotic enough to allow my child to be in.

I would never feel okay about a 65 year old man I'd known just a short time, babysitting my five year old and being alone with her in bedrooms and under blankets. Ever. I think I'd draw the line somewhere before my child being alone in that way with any person of any age of the opposite sex related or not related.

I would never let my five year old sleep in the same bed as her eight year old cousin. Or her eight year old brother. Or anyone...how about that? No, I do allow Ruby and Alice to share beds with each other when we are away from home, and I'd likely allow them to share beds with other sameish age female cousins too.

I just feel very hopeful that I actually can protect my children from abusers because I feel there's a big difference between choosing not to trust anyone and distrusting everyone. I don't feel distrust for the vast majority of every person on the planet that I choose not to trust. It's not about suspicions of all the great people in our lives, it's just about not taking any chances.

I have a friend who were abused in the middle of the day by an older neighbor boy, and a friend who was abused by her family's close family friends and neighbors, people they totally trusted. In fact, trust is the key element to most of the offenses committed!

I have not had issues with people being offended when my child can't play at their house because of an older sibling being home, or dad being around or whatever. People just get it. Ruby has a good friend whose daddy has a Tuesday/Wednesday weekend. Her mom asked if he could take our two daughters to a movie on one of their weekend days. Ummmmmm...NO!!! She asked me privately because she knows where I stand on these issues, and didn't want to get child hopes up unnecessarily. She wasn't in the slightest bit offended.

When my kids get invited to overnighters, that's an easy no. As many of Ruby's friends are children of my closest friends, it has worked well for us to have slumber parties where I'm there and sleep in the same room as my kiddos.

Anyway, my brother is a counselor at a lock down facility for youth sex offenders, and knowing what he knows, he's a helpful resource for me regarding boundaries for my kiddos. He can't even have a picture of his kids in his office!

That's all. While I found parts of the interview disturbing, I value the information and hope to see more of my children's peers protected from scenarios that are most likely to breed abuse.