The recent resurrection of molestation accusations against Woody Allen got me thinking about how abuse allegations are such a slippery slope.
For those of you who don’t know, Dylan Farrow is the adopted daughter of Woody Allen and Mia Farrow, I’m not quite sure if she is Mia’s biological daughter but I know she was definitely adopted by Allen. Anyway, after Woody Allen took up with another adopted daughter of Farrow’s Soon Yi Previn (whom at the time was 20 years old), then Farrow accused Allen of molesting their daughter. A three month long investigation by health professionals and law enforcement alike deemed the claims unfounded. Now at 28, Dylan is speaking out about her abuse, you can read about it here.
Then I read an interesting article in the NY Daily news by Denis Hamil, who gives his reaction to Dylan Farrows letter, and his opinion that he doesn’t think she was molested. You can read that article here. I think he has some very valid points. Especially when he makes that point that he does believe that Dylan actually believes she was molested. But it could have also been suspicion-made-fact by her Mother or just the circumstances.
Now hear me out… I’m not saying she made it up or that Mia forced her to lie. I don’t know, it could all be true or it could be Dylan and her Mother have convinced themselves that it happened. I know that I am convinced that I went to Mexico when I was a kid, (on one of our many trips to Tucson, AZ) however my parents and siblings assured me that we never did go south of the border, ever. So where did I get that from? I even have visions in my head being in our car going through customs worried about the cooler of food we had because you’re not supposed to do that. So, what the hell?
And yes this goes against what I normally believe, I always want to believe an accuser because that’s why people don’t come forward when sexual crimes are involved because the victim seems to be under the most scrutiny. I know, I have been a victim.
Back to the slippery slope, I had to address suspicions once that someone was acting inappropriately with one of my children. According to the child, no contact had been made but indeed they felt there was something a little creepy about the person. I saw things that I perceived as red flags. This person was giving a barely pubescent girl very grownup underwear and signing the tag of the underwear with “Love, (and their initials)”. According to the child nothing had happened. But I confronted the person and asked them to stop with the racy underwear because the child was embarrassed. That person and their spouse immediately got defensive saying my kids were ingrates.
That kind of sealed it for me. To err on the side of caution, I wasn’t going to wait until something did happen. I started to distance the kids from them. Then they began to distance themselves from us, which was just fine with me but they were a relative of my kids, did I maybe make a mistake? In my gut I don’t think so, but I’m not a mind reader I will never know 100%.
I guess I don’t know how this all ties in together other than this is such a difficult subject. It’s hard enough to talk about to begin with, then it’s mostly a he said/she said thing. Unless of course it is reported right away and there is physical evidence (bruises, blodd, semen) it is a really deep dark layered thing. The fact that someone would molest a kid makes me want to throw up. Often our first reaction is denial because it is such a sickening subject and hard to broach.
Yea, Woody Allen dating his ex-girlfriend’s 20 year old daughter is extremely creepy. Whether the relationship started before or after Mia and Woody’s was over, it was still a really poor creepy insulting choice, thus making one wonder what else has he done? I’d definitely want creepy away from my kids. I was lucky I caught the signs. But what do you do when something is just… “off”? I guess I’ll just keep doing what I did and keep my eyes open… and never give any creepy people lifetime achievement awards.
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