How SUUSI ended.

[rivka]

SUUSI actually got better for a while in the middle, after I wrote my last post. But you're not going to hear about that, because what happened at the end overshadowed everything for our family.

After dinner on Thursday evening, Michael, bosssio, and I hung out in the SUUSI quad watching our older kids play while Colin slept on my lap. The quad was peaceful and uncrowded, so we could see everything that went on without getting out of our lawn chairs.

One little girl about Alex's age was playing with a wooden yo-yo by holding the end of the string and whirling the yo-yo around her in a big circle. She wandered aimlessly around the quad while she did this, and several times the yo-yo smacked into someone. She hit Alex twice. She hit Sio's son Ant three different times. She came very close to hitting a passing baby stroller. This went on for at least 10-20 minutes, increasingly catching our attention.

bosssio walked over to her, knelt down, and explained that she shouldn't play with the yo-yo that way because it was hitting people. As soon as she sat back down, the little girl continued swinging the yo-yo. She hit an adult walking by.

"Michael," I said, because Colin was sleeping on my lap. "Go ask that little girl where her parents are."

So he did. She told him she didn't know. So he took hold of the yo-yo string and told her firmly to give it to him and to "tell your parents to come get this from me."

She burst into tears and ran for her mother, who was sitting in a lawn chair about twenty feet away from where Michael had talked to her. The mother jumped up, stalked over to Michael, and yelled at him: how dare he tell her daughter what to do? Michael tried to explain what her daughter had been doing; she dismissed him because she hadn't seen anything. She and Michael went back to their respective lawn chairs.

Then bosssio went over to explain what she had seen. The woman interrupted her, shouting that she didn't want to hear it. She collected her daughter and went inside the dorm across the quad from ours. We shrugged it off.

...Until she came back out and accused Michael of threatening physical harm to her daughter. Michael, obviously, denied doing any such thing. She said he must have, because why would her daughter lie?! Because she's five years old and doesn't want to get in trouble, Michael suggested. The woman insisted that her daughter didn't even know those words, and could not possibly be making them up. She said she was going to call the police. Michael told her to be his guest.

And then, holy shit, she did. She called the police on Michael.

We took the kids up to our room and called a friend of ours who is on the SUUSI Board. A lot of things happened at once. We figured out who she was by asking Alex who the little girl with the yo-yo was and then doing a reverse look-up in the SUUSI participant directory, which has an index by first names. And holy shit again: she's a minister. An ordained UU minister. An ordained UU minister who called the cops because someone took a toy that her child was using to hurt people.

By the time the police showed up about fifteen minutes after she called them, we had involved the SUUSI Director, three Board members, and the Minister of the Day. The officer politely took Michael's statement. He explained that if she chose to make a push for charges to be filed, the issue would go before a magistrate who would decide whether to issue an arrest warrant. The Minister of the Day and some of the other SUUSI folks went over to talk to her, and by the end of the evening she had backed away somewhat from her hysterical accusations. The police report and the potential charges, of course, still existed.

SUUSI is supposed to be an "intentional community," and the Minister of the Day asked Michael if he would be willing to "work towards reconciliation" with her. They set up a meeting for Friday evening - which she cancelled Friday at dinnertime, claiming to be too tired and fragile for that kind of conversation. She admitted to the Minister of the Day that she had overreacted (with, as far as I can tell, overtones of "...but only in defense of my child, so it was totally noble") but it appears that she has no intention of ever saying so to Michael. Let alone apologizing to him. It appears that she'll be able to just waltz away with no repercussions except, possibly, some damage to her reputation with people who have heard the story.

The thing that chills me is how close this came to being something that would follow Michael for the rest of his life. He could have been arrested, and that would have been a disaster for us. (Try explaining to your boss that you haven't come back from your vacation because you were arrested for threatening a young child.) And if he had been charged with a crime... even if it were found to be unsubstantiated, that would follow him.

In the adrenalin rush of Thursday evening the story seemed funny in an "OMG I can't fucking believe this craziness!" sort of way, and all our friends were joking about it. It's gotten a lot less funny over time. Michael is feeling increasingly bitter and depressed; he isn't sure that he wants to go back to SUUSI next year. I'm feeling down about it too. This is definitely the most un-SUUSI-like thing I've ever heard of, and it makes me feel shaky in my trust for this institution we love.

Comments

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

How horrible. I can see why you both feel betrayed.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

"work towards reconciliation"?

It is at times like these that pacifism falls by the wayside and just PUNCHING somebody and being JUDGEMENTAL seems attractive.

(edit: Apart from my rage, by the way, I am really really sorry that in the place you went for love and community you were betrayed. ove to you.)

[curiousangel.livejournal.com]

Pacifism holds no appeal for me, but if I spent my life punching people who deserve it, I'd never get out of jail. :)

For me, "reconciliation" implies "forgiveness" which also implies "contrition". I wasn't really expecting that first link in the chain, but telling her just how irresponsible her behavior was in a private setting with a respected minister held some appeal. I was also hoping to seek clarification about whatever it was I was supposed to have said to her daughter RIGHT THERE ON THE DAMN QUAD IN FRONT OF DOZENS OF ADULTS; now, I'm going to have to rely on the good offices of the Radford University police officer to find out about that.

I'll be writing my own post in the next few days, when I'm a little less fried, but I do want to express my appreciation to the RU officer who responded. He was very professional, and didn't jump to any conclusions either way. His interests were protecting a five-year-old and in seeing a conflict get to a stable situation; he managed both things very deftly. He let me know where things stood, and he didn't try to be a hardass; he was in charge, and since nobody was starting anything with him, he didn't feel like he had to start anything himself. He'd obviously handled a lot of "your word against his" situations, and he handled it with finesse.

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

Well... what can you do?

Can you emphasize to UUfolks how terrifying this is, and how unsafe it makes you and Michael feel? Can you make sure the organizers realize that the root problem here was that a child was left without any supervision, and had there been supervision, this would have ended very differently?

For me, it would be awful to try to just swallow this, and doubly bad if I let myself feel driven away or afraid to return... I hope you can find a better answer than that.

[naomikritzer]

OMFG. I want to punch that woman in the face.

I don't believe in hitting children so I merely want to ground the child for life.

[saoba.livejournal.com]

Oh honey, I'm so sorry.

[ratphooey.livejournal.com]

Holy moly. Unbelievable. What is wrong with that woman? What was she doing the whole time her child was causing mayhem?

Clearly she knew she'd been negligent to begin with, hence her totally bizarro overreaction.

What kind of poor excuse for a minister is she? Sheesh.

[naomikritzer]

Yeah, I SERIOUSLY would NOT want to go to this woman's church, like, EVER.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

Gaah, how awful.

Sorry I don't have any better words to offer. That's just SO awful. And so not-UU.

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

wow. wow.

that's really awful. i'm so sorry.

a thing i have done with some events that i have been unsure about is decide to take a year off and see if i missed the event.

[journeywoman.livejournal.com]

Are you kidding me? She called the COPS?!

For violating the spirit of SUUSI, I think the SUUSI board ought to ban her from future attendance. Or put her on probation or something. At a bare minimum, apologize to Michael before she's allowed to attend again. I'm sure they've never had to consider a situation like this one, but I'd be pressing for some sort of reckoning with her, once I got over the initial vision-blurring rage.

[kiya]

Seriously. This. My gods.

[guruwench.livejournal.com]

...

................

......

Good gods, this is horrid to read, and I'm so sorry to hear it. I can well see why you might feel betrayed, and I'm hoping the ultimate resolution to this helps restore some of what you've lost.

[bigscary.livejournal.com]

If a child dies not know where their parents are or when they're coming back, that child has been abandoned. In an environment like SUUSI there should be someone responsible for that sort of problem. If there isn't, there are relevant government authorities.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

The kid knew where her mother was - she was sitting in a lawn chair twenty feet away.

Of course we wouldn't want to leap to "contact the authorities," just as we wish she hadn't. The thing about a community like SUUSI is supposed to be that we watch out for each other's kids.

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

Good God in heaven. I'm so sorry that your family had to deal with this shit in an environment that is supposed to be safe.

[ailbhe]

Oh my goodness. That's so horrible. I cannot imagine where SUUSI can go from here, on this one. How can they make anyone feel safe like that?

And that poor child. A bit of wandering around with a yoyo got her involved with the police. I can't imagine how she can put that in some sort of logical perspective.

Edit: I don't mean poor child because M intervened, I mean because instead of having the yoyo taken away and being carefully watched to make sure she didn't hit anyone else, her transparent cover-story got the *police* involved. Children that age *want* their parents to be able to magically discern the truth, even when it means small trouble.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I hope the police officer didn't actually question the child.

But yes, I agree that it must have been overwhelming and confusing to her. I'm sure she didn't have any idea what she was starting with her lie, and how much more enormous it would sound to adult ears than to her own.

[matthewwdaly.livejournal.com]

Who gives a yo-yo to a four year-old and then walks away? Who cancels out of a reconciliation when she realizes that is wrong and did harm but is too fragile to apologize? Who on earth does this woman minister to?

I feel rotten for the two of you and for the spirit of SUUSI, but even worse for that girl. Someday she's going to hurt a kid whose dad isn't Michael.

[lerryn.livejournal.com]

What the hell? Has this woman not heard of such crimes as slander and perjury?

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

I am ever so sorry this woman acted as she did; and I can understand if you don't want to attend another event with her present, given her lack of willingness to work through this.

This sounds like a great challenge for SUUSI and the UU community: the community needs to create a safe space - a safe space for adults to address other people's children in a community setting without being afraid to have the police called upon them; a safe space for parents to know their concerns about community members will be taken seriously.

It sounds as if nobody was at fault initially. The mother was present (so hadn't abandoned the child) and can, in that setting, be forgiven for not watching her child like a hawk; and it's very much the right thing for responsible adults to interfere when a child is hurting people inadvertedly; *particularly* in a community situation like this.

She then overreacted; and I think this would probably have been a good point to call in a mediator, to not let the situation fester, but it's easy to say that with hindsight :-(((

I hope this finds a good resolution, and I really hope that it doesn't make SUUSI a no-go zone for you.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Actually, no. There is a difference between "not watching your child like a hawk" and "allowing your child to hurt other people". This was not a sudden out-of-nowhere minnow-dash into danger; this was twenty minutes of hurting other children. So the mother was wrong to begin with, for being present but not paying attention.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry your vacation ended on such a sour note. That must have been pretty awful to experience. I can sure appreciate Michael's lack of desire to go back next year.

[eeyorerin]

Yeeesh. I'm so sorry.

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

Sheesh. If that had been my child, I would have been thanking Michael and bosssio profusely and apologising abjectly to the people who got hit, and the child would have got a telling off for not doing what bosssio said. The way Michael and bosssio acted would be absolutely normal in my church - we expect that children are everyone's responsibility, both to protect and to guide.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

we expect that children are everyone's responsibility, both to protect and to guide.

Yes, exactly. And I would have said that this expectation is one of my favorite things about SUUSI. It's not that I abdicate responsibility for my own kids at all, but it gives all of us so much freedom when we can trust that other people will look out for our kids - their behavior as well as their safety. I thought this was absolutely routine for SUUSI parents.

[shandra.livejournal.com]

That's awful. I think Michael's actions were very appropriate, and I think it's pretty crazy that she went so far as to call the police. I can't believe how he must feel to have been accused in that way and for the whole incident to have been handled the way that it was. 5 year olds do tell wild stories regularly even without the fraught issue of the toy etc.

Insert pointless rant about how men are often disenfranchised from childrearing communities in the worst and most brutal ways. (Not that there are not dangerous men out there, but come. on.)

I do think from reading your post there are points where the community's response could have been stronger and I am saddened that they didn't take the opportunity to support Michael and you better. I understand the desire for reconciliation, but it seems to me that skips a few steps in the necessarily emotional process both for her and for you.

I also hope it doesn't taint the whole experience for you long-term, but I can understand how it might.

[treadpath.livejournal.com]

Oh, Rivka. That is beyond awful. I am so sorry that SUUSI had a bad ending this year and I hope the UU community addresses these issues so that SUUSI can continue to be a safe place for you and your family in the future. Your posts about it in the past were so full of anticipation and joy! *hug*

[acceberskoorb.livejournal.com]

Mouth. A gape*.

*Maybe you should come over and hold babies and see if it makes you feel any better. ;)

[rivka.livejournal.com]

As soon as I stop coughing and the kids' noses stop running, we will be vastly excited to come visit the babies. Michael is healthy now, so he might be giving you a call. In the meantime, I'm refreshing Little Beans a jillion times a day. Colin likes to wave to the babies.

[ranunculus.livejournal.com]

If you can remember any individuals who were actually hit by the yo-yo you should ask them for a statement. I totally understand why you didn't at the time, but any time someone threatens to call the cops you should get statements to support your actions.
That is a horrible thing to happen on such an otherwise wonderful event.

[taeraresh.livejournal.com]

This is absolutely horrific. I hope some kind of discipline is forthcoming for that woman, especially considering her position and what SUUSI is supposed to be about.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

I've been trying to come up with something useful to say. Thus far, the sum total is "That sucks."