My Thoughts on Forgive and Forget

One of the things I teach my children is the capability and the importance of forgiveness. When I was five or six years old, I was sexually molested by a man that lived next door.  It stopped when we moved away from that home when I was seven. When I was eight years old, I was a product of sexual curiosity from someone that will forever remain nameless. When we were about nine my brother and I were mutual investigators of each other. When we were caught, my own father decided to join the club and treat my body like his personal piece of meat. I told school counsellors when I was 13 and it came to a stop.

 

I'm not telling you any of these things for you to feel sorry for me, only so you can understand where I am coming from. I have walked a long road of twisted thinking, low-self esteem and a seemingly lifetime full of turmoil and being scared. Imagining that any other child should have to endure any of the things that I experienced or did would tear me to pieces. My husband and I made a conscience decision to keep our children safe from predators. When our babies were born and our children began growing, we knew there would be a stand that we would have to take.

I don't have any problems with forgiveness. I can forgive every person in my life that ever hurt me. I can actually say that I am glad I went through every experience that I went through. It has made me the person that I am today. I am a strong mother of five-wonderfully strong, and independent-children. I am a student of psychology and my only desire is to help children learn how to accept what has happened to them and to turn it into strength. I love my husband, my family and my life, and I love my God that I believe has brought me to this point.

I can forgive a snake for being a snake, but that doesn't mean he will ever change, or that I should allow my children to play around him. When I don't want to come to family functions because my father is there it is not because of forgiveness or the lack thereof. It is because no matter how much I would love to forget, I can't. I can't forget about how scared I was that he would trap me in the bathroom after a shower. I can't forget about the way he would touch me or the smell of his breath. I will still to this very day fight off panic attacks because of some innocent way that my husband puts his hands on me that reminds me of some of the things that I had to endure when I was just a child. I cannot not now, nor will I ever forget how dirty and ugly I felt when my husband (then boyfriend) told me how perfect that I was. How much I felt like I was a big lie that he would one day discover and hate.

When Tim and I made the choice to keep our children safe, we knew people would be offended. We knew people would think it was because of hatred and the inability to forgive. You are wrong. It is the inability to forget. I don't want another child to ever go through what I have been through. I want predators past, present and future, to see that this will not be tolerated by me and my family. That we will not allow them to get near our children. Taking a stand is the message I give my children, both my boys and my girls, that I will do what it takes to protect them and they should do what it takes to stand up for what they believe in.

I don't expect to change the world, but if I can make a difference in just one person at a time then I know what I went through was for a cause. So if my family and I discreetly get up and leave a family function, or a BBQ at the park, you know it is because of the stand we have chosen to take to keep our children safe and to send a message out there that this is not tolerated by the Watt family. Out of respect for us, you can choose not to invite them, or you can tell us they will be there. Out of respect for you, we will never make a scene. Just know this... It will never be forgotten. The predator has a choice to make. He can choose to take the innocence away from a child and forever be known as a sex offender. The child doesn't get this same choice. The child is unable to choose to keep their innocence safe from the predator. They don't get the choice of staying clean and happy their whole life. Why forget, when you can make a stand.