life is hard & the lessons don't get any easier

Thursday, i served on a jury. i had heard the law in question, and before the trial, it would seem the case was cut & dried. and then i sat through seven hours of testimony, followed by me & five other people being forced to make a decision that, while easy to reach based solely on the law, was also unbelievably difficult to swallow for so many reasons.

i am undecided, at this point, how much of this case i want to share here. it's a sensitive subject, but one i feel is easy to judge from the outside looking in, yet when the details are presented to you, you can't even imagine how *not* black & white this really was.

i feel deeply compelled to share two thoughts, though, as a result of what i sat through today:

first, do not kid yourself. kids have sex. *eleven* year olds have sex. i'm not saying all of them, but it happens, more than we realize, and while they are not permitted by law to consent, that doesn't mean the sex they are having is against their will. they're still babies, but the hard truth is that these babies try to make adult decisions. more & more, parents need to inform their kids about sex, and at a younger age than ever before. i know you're recoiling as you read this. i know no one wants to acknowledge that kids this age know anything about sex firsthand. *please* don't stick your head in the sand and allow denial to lead to regret.

second, we warn our kids about the dangers of having sex. we talk about diseases. we talk about pregnancy. we even talk about the longterm emotional ramifications of making this decision too soon. something we *don't* think to mention is yet another way this choice can affect the rest of your life. it does not discriminate between boys & girls. the laws may vary slightly from state to state, but i can tell you that in Florida, someone between the ages of twelve and seventeen cannot engage in sexual intercourse with an eleven year old -- and it does not matter if that eleven year old begs for it, agrees to it, or lies about their age. (and take my word for it: there are absolutely eleven year olds of both genders that not only look, but talk & act older than their chronological age.) the older person is accountable. period. one bad choice, one lie when you don't really know the truth, can give you up to life in prison and label you for life as a sex offender.

we have so much more to protect our children from now than we ever did before. and we need to protect & educate them at an increasingly younger age. eleven years old is not what it was for me twenty years ago. preteens know more now than i did at almost twice their age. this is a scary world we live in, and sometimes the only way to protect our children is to inform them, to arm them with the facts. i know we want, more than anything, to preserve our children's innocence, but the facts are that they are exposed to so much outside the home now, that protecting them from the *real* thieves of their innocence becomes more imperative. it's hard to accept and even harder to do, but no child should ever have to go through what i witnessed two children live through today. one will have more severe consequences than the other -- and trust me when i say i have *very* mixed feelings about that, based on what i saw & heard today -- but rest assured both their lives have been irreversibly altered.

i'm sorry for being so heavy & controversial, but the world changes, not always for the better, and the best i can hope for, after a day like today and the way it has affected me as well, is that some child may be spared sitting in a court room, whichever side of the law they may find themselves on, because regardless of the verdict, no one wins. i would never dream of telling anyone how to raise their children, but please don't discard what i have said here without at least considering that sometimes silence hurts more than it protects.