Whether they’re 15 or 18, it’s still wrong

Spokane mothers, I learned in the days surrounding Mother’s Day weekend, possess powerful maternal instincts.

We scan the environment, not necessarily looking for other mothers, though that’s easy enough. (They’re the ones with graham-cracker fingerprints on their shoulders when they’re younger, and thin wallets and a certain rueful sweetness in their eyes as they age.) Our internal radar hones in specifically, instinctively, on potential threats to our children.

In the days after the Mayor Jim West story broke, our protective instincts leaped into action. We weren’t reassured by West’s explanations that he only sought out sex partners of legal age. That notion may satisfy lawyers; it doesn’t pass the mom test.

Over and over, moms of local kids, both straight and gay, tell me: A 54-year-old should not be seeking sex from Spokane high school kids — not from our sons or our daughters.

My reactions have rotated through a mix of shock, sadness and indignation. What pain must lie behind a life like the mayor’s; what anger I felt at the exploitive nature of his interest in our kids.

At one point, the image of a mother grizzly bear, towering over a mountain path, struck me. One of my daughter’s schoolmates from Lewis and Clark High School says West approached him when he was 15. I read that and thought of the benefits of bear claws and an unearthly growl.

But, fortunately, we human moms have a wider range of ways to protect our kids. They involve words, hands on hips, recall petition drives — and The Look.

The mayor claims he only pursued young men who were 18, but I’m not mollified. I think that answer deserves a fierce motherly glare. Here, the mom card trumps the law.

In the pit of my mother’s stomach, it doesn’t entirely matter whether these kids were 15 or 17 or 18 — the mayor’s actions were wrong. Eighteen-year-olds, still discovering who they are and where they’ll find love, only feel invincible. When you’re a mom, you also know their vulnerability.

When I talked with seasoned Spokane moms about this news story, their minds, too, leaped to protect.

One mother thought of her straight 18-year-old son and his friends and sighed. “They’re really not even ready to have relationships with girls that are 18,” she said.

I called Christie Querna, who has not only raised three daughters, but also serves on the Spokane school board. She agreed to talk to me only as a mom.

“I’m characterized as a mother lion,” she said. “Every mom’s the same: Don’t mess with my child. That’s part of the definition of being a mom.”

Like me, she responded to stories about the mayor with sadness. “I really feel bad for him,” she said. “In general I feel one’s private life is private.”

Yet Querna described current research showing that adolescence doesn’t end at 18, but extends as long as age 25. “When older adults prey upon them and their vulnerability, I have no tolerance for that,” she said. “This is a person that could be their father’s age.”

Tammy Babbitt and her husband headed up this spring’s Ham on Regal event, the huge parent fund-raiser at Ferris High School. They have two teen sons.

“Does it surprise me that this sort of thing exists in the world?” she asked. “No. Does it dismay me extremely that it involves a local leader? Hugely.”

The mayor thought he was communicating with a Ferris High School student in a gay chat room this spring. That was the identity taken by a forensic computer expert hired by the newspaper.

How would Babbitt feel if she learned a 54-year-old man had pursued one of her sons online?

“I’d be angry, I’d be appalled, I’d be sickened,” she said.

Andrea Parker, a single mom and a registered nurse in Sacred Heart Medical Center’s coronary care center, moved to Spokane from Portland because she thought this would be a safer place to raise her three sons.

She found the stories about West deeply troubling. She worried about the allegations of child sex abuse. Those aside, she assessed the notion of a 54-year-old pursuing an 18-year-old — male or female.

“It’s inappropriate. Period,” she said. “That’s way too young.”

Just before Mother’s Day weekend, the maternal instincts of Spokane moms were activated. With our city’s mayor turning to our high school students for sex, most of us had just begun to growl.