I Am Not Brock Turner's Mother, But I Could Have Been His Victim

Why mothers have to talk to their sons about sexual assault

Brock Turner was the son every mother wanted—until he wasn’t. A Stanford swimmer, smart, talented, good looking, hard-working, and a rapist. As the world knows, Turner made a very bad decision at a party one night, a decision that devastated his victim and landed him in jail…for three whole months.

That’s right. A disabled U.S. veteran who grows a few pot plants in his backyard can get sentenced to life in prison. But for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman, quintessential white boy Brock Turner did three whole months in jail. He gets out today.

In the face of this absurdity, my friend and fellow blogger Elaine Ambrose joined forces with Audrey Hayworth to create the “You Can’t Rape Me Because I’m Drunk” challenge.  I hope that every woman blogger in the world writes something on this subject today.

The first thing I thought when I saw Brock Turner’s horrific story was, “Wow! That looks like my kid.” Then I called my oldest son, who like Brock, is a college student (though not at Stanford—they were the only school he applied to that rejected him, and seriously, it was their loss).

My son confirmed with a weary sigh that yes, I had in fact had “the talk” with him, several awkward times.

I’m not talking about the Sex Talk, where sex, like Lord Voldemort, is the Act That Must Not Be Named. I’m talking about the Consent Talk. As part of the talk, I routinely offer practical and well-meaning advice that my son should obtain a signed and notarized letter from any potential sexual partner stating the other person’s unequivocal wishes and also make copies of several forms of ID proving age, including but not limited to driver’s license and birth certificate. Vaccination records are a plus.

Am I joking? Maybe a little bit, but not really. The consequences to all involved parties are just too severe. I mean, yes, Brock Turner’s laughable prison sentence is the most insulting thing to women since that truly horrifying blog post on how to harass headphone-wearing gals who are clearly trying to avoid a conversation  and/or the most recent words out of Donald Trump’s mouth. 

But Turner will, in fact, face lifelong (and in my opinion, if not his father’s, well-deserved) repercussions for his decision to assault a helpless victim (you can read her powerful statement, if you haven’t already, here).

These frequent, blunt, uncomfortable conversations about consent are important for all of us. When I was a teenager, I was taught that “No means no.” Honestly, that didn’t always work out so well for me, or for many women. The times my “no” or my silence was incorrectly misconstrued as a “yes” include but are not limited to the following:

1. A late night living room in an off campus apartment at Brigham Young University when I was a sophomore. I was reported to the BYU Honor Code office and threatened with possible expulsion from school. Also, my Bishop encouraged me to marry the person in question (I didn’t). Apparently, this kind of thing is still going on at BYU today. 
2. A second class night train from Rome to Venice my junior year. The man in question, a stranger, made certain assumptions about American girls that were astonishingly untrue. Every time I look at pictures from that trip, I can see his leering eyes.
3. A co-worker repeatedly asked me out, and I kept refusing, so he reported me to Human Resources and accused me of sexually harassing him. Apparently, if you don’t say yes, that is harassment. I found another job.

(The worst time is not on this list. I save that one for therapy.)

Of course, I was also taught that if a man did sexually assault me, it was really my fault, for one or more of the following reasons:

·       I was wearing a short skirt or baring my shoulders.

·       I was alone with him in his residence.

·       I let him buy me a drink.

·       I went for a walk by myself.

·       When women say no, they really mean yes (see obnoxious headphone essay above).

·       And so on.

Now, as an older and wiser mother of three sons (and one daughter), I know that consent is not about “No means no.” It’s about “yes means yes.” Unconscious or sleeping women cannot say “yes.” The fact that Brock Turner did not hear his victim say “no” in no way excuses what he did to her.

There’s this whole separate conversation we need to have about the judge in this case, not to mention the legal statutes that influenced his decision. But I’ll save that one for the legal experts. I’m relieved to learn that the judge asked to be removed from criminal cases and reassigned to civil ones, so he can’t wield his bias to harm any future victims of sexual assault. 

There’s also a whole separate conversation we need to have about alcohol on college campuses. Did alcohol impair Brock Turner’s judgement? That seems likely. According to the National Institute of Health, 97,000 students between the ages of 18-24 reported that they had experienced sexual assault while drinking.   In the aftermath of the Turner assault, Stanford has taken the bold step of banning hard liquor from campus parties in an attempt to “meaningfully change the campus culture around alcohol.”  

Of course, some worry this move may only exacerbate the problem of alcohol and sexual assault by driving it underground. And at some schools, sexual assault continues to be a problem even in the absence of alcohol (see BYU above).

But at the end of the day, as a mother of boys and as a sexual assault survivor, I feel that the solution to this problem starts at home. It is my duty to stand with all the other strong women who are framing this conversation on our terms. And it is my duty to talk with my sons and teach them what consent really means. The problem ends when my sons--and every mother's son--respect the women in their lives as equals.

Here’s a resource I use to jumpstart this crucial conversation: “Consent: It’s Simple as Tea.”   One notable line: “Unconscious people don’t want tea!”

Little Blue Dress

When Cupid strikes a second time, you can wear any color you want

“Know, first, who you are, and then adorn yourself accordingly.”—Epictetus

Author’s note: This week is National Suicide Prevention Week, a time to focus our efforts on preventing the tragic deaths of more than 800,000 people around the world who die each year by suicide. Many of them have mental illness and lack effective treatments. This week, I am in New York City with my second husband (we married in June) to promote my book on children’s mental health, The Price of Silence: A Mom’s Perspective onMental Illness, from Hudson Street Press.

Once upon a time, I wrote a blog about thrift store wedding dresses and second chances. It became a book called Little White Dress: Women Explore the Myth and Meaning ofWedding Dresses. This book earned me, my 25 co-authors, and Mill Park Publishing a 2012 Bronze Ippy Award in Women’s Issues from the Independent Publishers Association of America. This post is a follow-up to that original post. It is also an expression of immense gratitude for the life I have today, and for the man who chose to share it with me and my children.

A few years ago, anticipating what would have been my sixteenth wedding anniversary were it not for my divorce, I wrote a nostalgic post about thrift store wedding dresses and second chances. My essay sparked a steady stream of wedding dress stories—some bitter, some sweet, some funny, some achingly sad, all revealing various aspects of a woman’s life and experiences with love. I was so touched by these stories that I thought, “Wouldn’t it be great if we could collect them in a book?”

So I called Elaine Ambrose, Midlife Cabernet blogger, owner of Mill Park Publishing, and a woman whom I think deserves the title of “Erma Bombeck Part II: The Sassier Sequel.”

“What if we do a book about wedding dresses?” I said.

“Sounds great!” she replied.

“And what if we put the book together in one day?” I was pressing my luck here—I knew it. But I had this vision, born of too many writing workshops where I left feeling unfulfilled and empty-handed, of creating a physical book in one sitting as tangible proof of my friends’ formidable writing talents

Any other publisher would have said, “Hell, no! There’s no way you can put a book together in one day.” 

But not Elaine. She didn’t even blink. “Sure,” she replied. “Let’s do it. I’ll supply the wine.”

And so Little White Dress: Women Explore the Myth and Meaning of Wedding Dresses, was compiled on August 8, 2011, three years after my divorce. It took a few more weeks to edit, lay the book out, and print physical copies. But start to finish, we completed the entire project in just a few weeks. Elaine hosted a swanky country club “book reception,” with proceeds benefiting Dress for Success, and I wore my original white wedding dress, a bit snug after four kids, but I could still zip it up if I only took shallow breaths.

I still remember when Elaine called to tell me the book had won a bronze 2012 Ippy Award in Women’s Issues. I was in the grocery store, looking for ketchup. “Do I still have to bag my own groceries?” I asked, so giddy with excitement that I announced the news to everyone on my aisle. I did still have to bag my own groceries. And I still do. But the medal looks really cool hanging on my office wall.

Now, of course, Elaine has surpassed our project with her own silver medal for Midlife Cabernet (the book version of her delightful blog), and I’m sure a gold is in her future.

And last June, I decided to put on a wedding dress again, this time, a blue one.

In August 2011, this is what I wrote about what that day, if it ever came, would mean to future me:

Will I ever wear another off-white dress on a day of goofy rituals? I can’t say right now that I see the attraction to that particular fairy tale. These days, I prefer the one where Cinderella breaks through the glass ceiling. But if I do decide again to don the costuming of love, I’m pretty certain of two things: first, I will love someone enough to wear a silly dress for him (this is no small amount of love), and second, I will buy the dress at a thrift store. Because every wedding dress deserves a second chance. 

At that time, I had officially resigned from the dating scene. Unpredictable, shallow men felt like a waste of time compared with my kids or my job. And besides, I was spending about half my time at IEP meetings, and the other half at the Ada County Juvenile Detention Facility or Intermountain Hospital, trying desperately to get help for a sweet little boy who sometimes flew unto uncontrollable violent rages.

Little did I know that the whole time I was crying in my cubicle, wondering how I would take care of my son and my other children, I was actually working right next to the person who would be my future partner in crime, Ed Pack, a red-headed Woodpecker who would promise to aid and abet me in a new set of life adventures (yes, that’s a Tom Robbins reference right there, folks).

I guess in hindsight, I should have known I had a thing for Ed when I offered to drive him to his colonoscopy in October 2011. I thought I was just being a nice boss—I was Jack Donaghy picking up Liz Lemon when she had her root canal on Valentine’s Day. The nurse called me “Mrs. Pack” that afternoon, and I didn’t correct her—maybe her comments got us both thinking.

Since we worked together, a romantic relationship wasn’t possible. But we built a solid friendship, sharing hiking stories and swapping books. Several plot twists later, I was working someplace else, and Mr. Pack called me up asked me out for a beer. It was the first of several—okay, four—dates before I couldn’t keep my hands off of him any longer. Yes, he really is that cute! 

And yes, it is no small amount of love that led me to a beach in Surf City, New Jersey, to wear a stunning light blue silk charmeuse hand beaded dress (new with tags) that I bought at, you guessed it, the Idaho Youth Ranch Thrift Store for $15. It’s my second-best thrift store find ever. The first was a 1925 Model M Steinway piano, in case you are wondering.

I wrote a bluegrass song for Ed and played it on the iPad. He wrote a poem for me, describing all the adventures we had shared, from backpacking the Washington Coast (“embrace the mud!”) to turning off our cell phones the night my “I Am Adam Lanza’s Mother” post went viral. My kids fought to read us our vows (we had “officially” tied the knot a few days before at City Hall). We took silly beach selfies and watched my younger two play in the waves. I wasn’t too worried about my dress getting wet, because as I mentioned, it was $15. My new sister-in-law provided an elegant touch with peach-colored rose bouquets for my daughter and me, and boutonniers for the boys.

It cannot have been an easy decision for Ed to give up a comfortable solitary existence for the hustle-bustle of my busy life. Similarly, it was very hard for me to develop enough trust in a man to tie the knot again. We both had to be sure we were in this for the long-haul. Everyone has baggage at our stage in life; you just want to be with someone who carries his or her own.

This week, I’m profoundly grateful for that god of second chances, and for a partner who inspires me, supports me, challenges me, and excites me about the possibilities of life. His overarching credo is a sense of wonder, and we share profound gratitude for “all things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small.” I’m sure we’ll face challenges—all couples do. But I feel confident in our combined ability to weather storms and marvel at sunrises and sunsets—together.

Write Your Truth

How to make your blog go viral in three easy steps

A few weeks ago, I had an opportunity to do something I had secretly wanted to do for a long time. No, I’m not talking about skinny dipping at a secret Idaho hot spring (though it’s possible I did that too). I was invited to speak to an audience of talented writers at Elaine Ambrose’s annual “Write by the River” retreat in Garden Valley, an event which has previously hosted literary luminaries Alan Heathcock, Tony Doerr, Jennifer Basye Sanders (one of my short stories appears in her Miracle under the Christmas Tree collection), A.K. Turner, Gretchen Anderson, Stacy Dymalski,  Doug Copsey,and of course, the inimitable author of Midlife Cabernet, Ms. Ambrose herself.

I’m sure I’m missing someone here, and please forgive me. Boise has a lot of world-class writers on first-name bases. We’re kind of like Iowa, only our writers’ workshops are supportive and polite in the “constructive feedback” process. Also, we have lots of brew pubs.

The lineup for this season’s blogging-themed retreat was intimidating. Stephanie Worrell, PR maven and founder of Red Sky, kicked off the show with a 42 page comprehensive guide to writing, producing, and starring in Your Blog. Stephanie was followed by writer Ken Rodgers, who independently produced (with his talented wife Betty) a moving documentary about the siege of Khe Sanh called Bravo: Common Men, Uncommon Valor. Then there was The Anarchist Soccer Mom. I described how to get yourself a publicist and hide under a rock when your blog about a controversial topic—your son who has mental illness, for example—goes viral.

I can’t really tell you how to make your blog go viral, by the way. As for handling the media, well, let’s just say that I didn’t even know who Anderson Cooper was until my friends told me. I haven’t had commercially broadcast television since 2002. But I learned this: stick to your message. You don’t have to defend yourself for saying something that needed to be said!

I can tell you this: we live in an age, as former Vice President Al Gore has said, when a single blogger can influence the course of a national conversation.

What does that mean for you? It means that you had better write your truth as well as you can, each and every time you Tweet, post on Facebook, or compose something for your blog. Because you just never know when something you say will change the world.

Blogger Arlee Bird has been exploring the topic of blogs as an essential part of every writer’s platform in a recent series of posts on  Tossing It Out. He had this to say about “making” a blog go viral: “In answer to the question "Did your blog post go viral?", the answer is no.  Nor did I expect my Monday post to go viral.  The content for virality wasn't there [emphasis added].”

I don’t personally think any one of us has the power to “make” a blog go viral. But Arlee has hit on the writer’s main job: provide meaningful content. As I learned with my viral essay about my son with mental illness, which was picked up by The Blue Review and Huffington Post under the title “I Am Adam Lanza’s Mother,” one of the most meaningful consequences of sharing our truths, even when our stories are painful, is that we can actually change the world. I mean, I spoke at a TEDx event in San Antonio last week with some of the coolest people I will ever meet in my life! I never could have imagined that kind of platform for my mental health advocacy. But it happened (and yet just days later, so did another tragic school shooting). 

So with this post, I’m officially adding my name to my blog. Yes, I’m THAT mom, the one who shared a story that made some of you wince and many of you cry. I started blogging in 2008. I’m a lazy blogger, posting whenever I feel like it—no content schedules for me. And I write about whatever I want to, from yoga to kids to grammar lessons to thrift store wedding dresses (Little White Dress, a collection of essays and poems I edited, was conceived from that 2011 blog post). 

Arlee interviewed me recently about my viral blog post and its effect on me as a writer. You can read my answers to Arlee’s interview questions about viral blogs here.  The advice I gave both to Arlee and to the would-be viral bloggers at Elaine’s retreat was simple: “Write your truth. Write it well. And accept the consequences.”

It’s that simple. And it's that hard.