Maternal Mentoring

Is it not every parent's duty to instill in their children sound values? After first imbuing them with the ability to make sensible choices in life. And prioritizing their needs, and leading them toward becoming intelligent adults. Of course this would have to have been preceded by the early nurturing years where the child's emotional needs are recognized and supported, and that child encouraged to learn social and educational-attainment skills. For the greater purpose of achieving success in life.

What a profound failure some children's lives become, as a result of parental indifference. Or ignorance leading to demonstrating for their children how not to value themselves and their futures. With parental values completely defunct, establishing no guidelines of any ethical purpose, no yardstick of achievement, no respect for self. These failures of guidance resulting from parental lack of responsibility are pitiful, and plentiful.

In Ottawa, a mother has reported that her 17-year-old daughter was abducted and raped. The trauma to the young girl was obvious in her having escaped her abductor to appear at her mother's home "screaming and crying". The girl appeared bruised, she said she had been given cocaine, then sexually assaulted, according to the mother and the mother's boyfriend. A social outrage, one that infuriates those who learn of it, and baffles the conscience.

That society, even such a one as ours, that values human connections, purports to care, recognizes the equality of the genders, does its utmost to protect the vulnerable, still grapples with violent crimes against women and girls. But, in fact, violence between men and women is covert and universal, discreet and ongoing. Surfacing to public attention when violent sexual assaults occur and are brought to light.

But this young girl was inebriated, when her mother and her mother's boyfriend decided to take her and another young girl along with them for a night out at a local bar. Arriving at Grace O'Malley's at 12:15, fifteen minutes into another day. The mother confided to authorities that she hadn't realized the girls had been drinking beforehand, that her daughter was "tipsy". What might horrify most mothers, seemed of little concern to this one.

The two adults and the two underage girls were admitted as a group into the bar. The adults noted that a young man appeared to be fixated on the daughter. In response to the attention, the girl left the bar with the man. The mother and her boyfriend discovered the 17-year-old sitting in the man's vehicle, and they recovered the girl, returning to the bar, where the doorman, discerning the state the girl was in, declined to allow her entry.

Nonetheless, the mother and boyfriend entered the bar to retrieve their belongings along with the daughter's friend, and when they returned to the parking lot there was no sign of the daughter. A nearby security guard claimed to have seen a vehicle matching the description the adults gave of the young man's car, leaving the area. The adults informed police, calling from the bar, at about 1:45 a.m.

What kind of future is in store for this 17-year-old girl, under the tutelage of her mother?