My children mean the world to me. Like any good mother I try to support them as much as I possibly can; I work 60 hours a week just to make ends meet. However, I am not like most mothers. No matter how hard I try, I’m not able to be there for them the way I know I should be. What keeps me from being a normal, supportive mother is something intrusive, something I have absolutely no control over.
I do my grocery shopping early on Sunday mornings. With my work schedule, it’s the only time I can get there when there isn’t a crowd. The other day I was in line behind a woman with a 4 or 5-year-old little girl in her cart. The girl was breathlessly chatting her mom up about her favorite breakfast cereals. As I was going over my list making sure I hadn’t forgotten my daughter’s juice boxes or my son’s English Muffins, she looked up at me and asked, “are those Lucky Charms for your kids?” It’s a simple enough question but one that stopped me in fear and created a pit in my stomach. I am not allowed to have contact with minors.
I felt that pit again the next evening as I helped my daughter get ready for her softball game. After helping her search for that one lost cleat, I put her hair into a ponytail and filled her water bottle. Then, I hugged her goodbye, wished her luck and could only stand back and watch as she and my husband walked out the door without me.
My husband must support our children in everything and anything that happens at a school. I am not allowed to step foot on school property. The repercussions have been extensive over the years, because with school-age children that includes almost everything that they do. Over the last eight years that I have been forced to register as a sex offender*, my children have become victims as well.
My children will have lived through practically their entire childhoods without having their mother at a single football game, baseball practice, talent show, choir concert, softball championship, awards ceremony, volleyball try-out and truly countless other events that have mattered to them. These experiences that help create family togetherness and build bonds have become a hollow place in our lives. And that pit that lives inside of me grows each time I have to look at their faces and tell them that I can’t be there.
I have not been to visit my aging parents where they live because If I spend more than 48 hours at their home in the state of Florida, I will be forced to register there as a sex offender for the rest of my life. That is not something I am willing to do, nor is it a choice that I or any person should have to make. So when my family gets together each year to vacation and visit my parents, I am left behind once more-- and that pit inside of me grows.
I had no idea when I plead guilty to second degree sexual assault that these generic rules for every person who commits any sort of sex crime would dictate so much of my life. There are 24 enhanced probation restrictions for everyone that’s put on the registry. These restrictions limit everything from where I can go, to my possession of a camera, to my ability to possess children’s games. None of these restrictions consider the nature of the crime, or the risk of re-offense. My sexual relationship was not with a minor, nor was it violent or even a second offense. And yet, I am forced to abide by the same rules and stipulations as individuals who have a higher risk of re-offending or offending against young children.
Being a good person who made a bad decision over ten years ago, my only legal option was to plead guilty to second degree sexual assault. I am treated like a predator to society when I am nothing more than a person whose life got out of control, leading me to make a regrettable mistake. I’ve paid for that mistake and want to move on with my life and focus on raising my family. However, the rules and regulations that I am forced to abide by make this utterly impossible and hurt my children.
How can a society treat a person like a predator, forcing them into isolation from the community, from family and friends all the while expecting them to be productive members of society? Last year, after dropping my kids off and picking them up for 6 years without incident, I received a call. I was told that if I continued to drop my children off at their schools I would be arrested. When I asked what I was supposed to do with my then ten-year-old daughter, I was told by the local police department to drop her off on the street. Once again, I must choose between my family and my freedom. And the pit inside of me solidified at this point.
My sex assault case involved an eighteen-year-old student at the school at which I was a teacher. Why would it be assumed that I pose a threat to a young child? Being treated this way for eight years now, I have hit a breaking point. The strength that has carried me through this far is waning and that pit inside has taken up the space of all the good that remained.
This article was written by CWS, a volunteer member of One Standard of Justice who must keep her identity private to protect her family.
* One Standard of Justice uses person-first language, but has left the author’s term of ‘sex offender’ for readers outside of our community.