Protecting Kids Is Bottom Line For This Mother

Police responded to a Coeur d’Alene mother’s call last week and took a report at her insistence. She called them to show her daughter that police will uphold the child’s right to life without violence. Here’s the letter the mother might have written after their visit, with names changed to protect the children:

Dear Coeur d’Alene police officers,

It was obvious you thought I overreacted when I called you after the neighbor boy threw rocks at Shelly. He wanted her kite. She said no. He hit her and she hit back, so he threw a handful of rocks. They cut and bruised my beautiful 9-year-old’s face.

The boy’s parents didn’t seem to care. If they’d just said it was wrong, I wouldn’t have called you. But our society seems to believe it’s OK for males to abuse females.

I wanted Shelly to know that that boy couldn’t get away with hurting her, that she has rights. If you knew Shelly’s playmate, you’d understand.

I won’t let my daughter be a victim, but I couldn’t keep her friend safe.

Terry was a tender 18 months old when someone crept into her room, violated her sexually and disappeared.

As a toddler, Terry already wore the victim look. She was abused again, this time by someone she loved. Child protection officials said she was too young to testify. The man stayed free.

At 6, Terry tried to kill herself by jumping off her bunk-bed. She was so young, she thought it would work. Instead, she ended up on antidepressants in a psychiatric hospital where Shelly visited her.

My daughter has questions I can’t answer about a system that allows her little friend so much pain. Like Terry, I had been raised to feel like a piece of property, abused in an unloving home. How do I answer Shelly’s questions?

I try to give her constant reinforcement that life is valuable and that might doesn’t make right. But I need your help.

The rocks may seem to you an insignificant thing that happens in a child’s life. But it wasn’t insignificant to Shelly.

Tutor time

You know that great feeling when a person finally understands what you’ve been trying to teach him or her? You can feel that over and over as a tutor for North Idaho College’s learning center.

The center needs volunteers to teach basic reading, writing, math and English as a second language. You don’t need experience; NIC will train you. Call 769-3205.

Money for Melodie

Melodie Hewitt, the Fernan Elementary fourth-grader whose brain tumor was removed two months ago, was happy just to be back in school. Then last week, her classmates gave her $268 they had raised from lunch-time ice cream sales to help with her medical expenses.

Makes you feel good about today’s kids, doesn’t it? Who says there’s no good news in the newspaper…

Critter call

The Silver Valley isn’t the only place with backyard wildlife. Oldtown’s Betty Paulus writes that a bat swooped through her son’s house a few years ago while she was visiting. He caught it and set it free.

I wonder if she ever visited again.

Coeur d’Alene’s Tom Nash adopted some raccoons that ate the cat food on the deck of his Fort Grounds home. These raccoons were more ham than ringtails. When Tom pulled out the video camera, they didn’t run, they performed their feeding act for him.

Any strange critters stop by your place lately? Tell the tale to Cynthia Taggart, “Close to Home,” 608 Northwest Blvd., Suite 200, Coeur d’Alene, ID, 83814; fax it to 765-7149; or call 765-7128.