What does a monster look like?

Re: What does a monster look like?


Probably the most important word of the post.

You are hearing things second and third-hand - from the kids, from your daughter, from the community, etc., but you were not there and you did not see first-hand what their homelife was truly like.

- Was he a grief-stricken father without the ability to give his kids the basic attention they needed at that age? Possibly.

- Was he desperately poor at the time without the funds to purchase enough food to feed his family and also, at the same time, pay for the hospital bills of his dying wife? Could be.

- Was he personally incapable of providing love to his children? Probably.

Was he a monster? isn't that a little strong when you truly don't know?

If you abhor so completely this man, then avoid him. If he is a substitute teacher at your school and you cannot avoid him, then just do not communicate with him. It is perfectly acceptable to speak to and socialize with only those people you want to. If he were a convicted molester you could outwardly show your disgust with him but you only suspect him of the shameful negligence of his children and don't absolutely know for sure what he and his children went through during that time so it would be inappropriate to sully his name in your school.

So, his kids, who sometimes ate at my house lied to me? Or do you consider them third hand sources?

Look, this guy was well employed at the time. Bringing home tv dinners for himself and not feeding his kids is unforgiveable.

Different people, different stories.

I am not defending him, if he did what you think he did (or didn't do).
I am saying don't rush to judgement about a household other than your own. We really and truly do not know what goes on, based on only getting one side of the story.

The kids told you one thing (you are hearing it first-hand from the children, a one-sided story) and the father told you ......? Did you get the other side of the story? It's not impossible for kids to berate a parent? color them neglectful? show their displeasure of what they don't get and compare their parent to anothers (you)? If they are seeing you taking good care of your daughter/children, is it not possible that they will want that attention and be jealous of what she has and possibly paint a worse picture than is actual?
Anyway it's all moot at this point. If they had dreadful lives as children, it is good that they came out well on the other side and are getting on with things. Holding a grudge against the father for perceived wrongs (only hearing on side of a story) .... well, this is up to you. I find it exhausting to have to do battle every day without creating more demons to fight with.

BTW I speak from experience, of a mother who was accused of child abuse because of a vengeful child who lied. It destroyed both their lives.

The child, when innocently injured at play, was questioned and asked if the mother had caused the injury and said "yes" because she was still sulking at being (verbally) chastized by her mother earlier in the day. The mother was promptly arrested and the child taken away by social services. It took years for them to resolve/get back together and they never returned to the close mother/child relationship they'd had before.

A comment or opinion or even an exaggeration can destroy a reputation unfairly and, even when proved otherwise, never fully recover.

Hmmm, 66 views and no-one else is venturing into the fray .... are you guys skeert?

Do you think POM and I are 'fighting'?

Differing views folks, that's all.

I'll definitely be steering clear of medium height men with salt and pepper hair.

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I'm of the two sides/three stories mind to this kind of initial post.

Most stories of DSS (as it is called in Massachusetts), tend to involve its failure to act and not its excess of zeal.

I should add a few things. One is that as a former journalist, I tend to use the word allegedly automatically.

The other is that this man was not grieving when his wife's illness manifested itself: the woman had left her husband and taken her kids away prior to any manifestation of the disease. The kids began to live with their father only when her hospitalization was necessary. Rather, he may have been bitter over having to assume care of the kids.

As I read Heeven's comment, I wondered for the first time why no one ever reported this man to DSS. I certainly never thought to do so. When I consider the other families involved with his family, I can only conclude that such an action hadn't occurred to them: this was a fairly sophisticated group.

My former neighbors in Dunstable decided to report us to DSS. The reason? I was then going to business school and my babysitter stopped by my house on her way home from school, while I was talking (surprisingly for Dunstable!) to a neighbor. We lived in a Cape-style house and had hollowed out a space below the eaves which we eventually planned to use as a place for a built-in desk (the current owner made it into a built-in bureau). In the meantime, the kids -- then 2 and 4 -- used it as a play house and had plastic kitchen gear in it. They called it, "the cave." I said to the sitter to let them watch Sesame Street, then give them a snack and take them upstairs so that they could play in the cave. The woman -- who never failed to express her jealousy over my mobility (she was positive that she would be mugged if she went into Boston or Cambridge) -- told DSS that I said to put the kids in their cage.

However, I believe that these kids were generally neglected by their father: the kids were too big a part of our lives and we didn't take as much care of them as others did.

I'm one of the views (well, sets of views), so I'm saying something just because Heeven asked. Heeven covered it pretty well, I didn't really have anything to add.

There's a willingness to leap to judgement here that bothers me. Could go any of a number of ways, and maybe this guy really was that bad, but there is a whiff of "I am better than this person" that makes me resistant to affirming that view.

A whiff of I'm better than this person? Wow! What an off the wall interpretation! No, the whole thing is that it took me a bit of time to figure out that this was the infamous Dad -- believe me, the whole community was up in arms -- and I thought of accompanying other women to court during their divorces and seeing performances by their husbands that were at least successful interviews, if not quite Oscar worthy.

What struck me is how meek and colorless he seems.

The perception should have been the absolute horror I feel at meeting him.

Just answering Heeven's question. Really don't have a good sense of the whole thing, which is why I didn't say anything until then.

I'm glad that the community was able to provide for the kids, and admire that you were part of that.

I'm glad everyone stepped in for the kids. I'm particularly happy that the girl received a college education and I like the way the middle child, a boy, was able to get himself out of town and into a place that helped him win success.

I wonder what happened to the oldest boy.