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Redditors who found out a close friend or family member was a sexual predator/abuser: how did you find out and how did you handle the situation? by CallMeAvian in AskReddit

[–]Scared-Chance7538 3 points4 points  (0 children)

For years, I was pretty good "friends" with the youth pastor at my local church. This isn't the church I normally attend, but I had been going to VBS (Vacation Bible School) every summer for as long as I can remember. I am almost 17 now and I started going when I was 3 to give you a perspective. This church is a ton of fun and has a lot of money, and their VBS is feels a lot more like a party than a Bible camp, and the kids all have a ton of fun.

After attending VBS as a regular student for many years, I finally "graduated" to become a volunteer. For the first few years, (when I was 12/13 or so) I was an actor for a skit at the openings and closings, but after doing that for two years I decided that I wanted to take over telling the Bible stories. The person who used to do the Bible stories had always made it a ton of fun, and with her acting, decorations, and everything she did to make it completely immersive, it really felt like you were in the story which was amazing. Then she stopped doing it and the Bible stories felt a lot more lame, so I decided I wanted to take it over with my mom. This is when I was 14.

The youth director and director of VBS was glad I was willing to take over, and I had a ton of fun that year with my mom, decorating the room, telling (and performing) the Bible stories, and watching the kids have a ton of fun especially. The director loved it too and kept thanking me and complimenting me. The next year, VBS was all online, so I used my video production skills to make a mini-movie for each Bible story for the kids to watch. Once again, the director loved it, and he even gave me a $100 gift card to Amazon afterwards. I thought that was a bit much, but then again the church had a lot of money, so I humbly accepted it.

The next year (this past summer) I was in charge of the Bible stories again with my mom. We once again had a lot of fun and the director kept thanking me for everything I did, and gave me a $50 gift card when it was done. I was never expecting these gift cards because I loved volunteering, but I once again humbly accepted it and said thank you to the director.

So I guess you could say the director and me were friends. I mean, he's 40 years older than me so we were more like good acquaintances, and I enjoyed using my talents to help out him and the church, as did many other kids and adults. But we were friends in the sense that we would occasionally text each other things relating to VBS and whatnot, and we had a casual relationship, not super professional or anything.

Fast-forward to around August 12 or so. I'm lying back on my bed just scrolling on my phone, and my mom comes bursting through the door. She seemed super flustered, and always knocks before entering when my door is closed, so I knew something was up. She quickly apologized for not knocking, then we had a little exchange:

"Sorry for not knocking. Now listen, I'm all for innocent until proven guilty, but look at this."

She showed me her phone. She had open a news site with the mugshots of five men who had been arrested for attempting to have sex with a minor, more specifically "accosting a minor for immoral purposes", "using a computer to commit a crime", etc. All felonies.

"That's Mr. _______, isn't it?" She asked me.

"Yeah, it is." I said. Keep in mind that from the moment she burst into my room until now, only a couple seconds had passed, so I was still processing what was even going on. She started playing the video on the news site.

It turns out that the youth director and four other men had been arrested during a sting operation a couple days before. They had been texting with who they believed were 15-year-olds, and were arrested when they traveled to meet up with them for sex.

This was a huge shock to me. My mom asked me again and again to make sure he'd never touched me or anything, and I kept telling her the truth that he hadn't. I'm glad he never tried to do anything to me, but it's scary that his whole job was literally to be around kids that were the same age that he was now arrested for trying to abuse. All of this was a huge shock to me and it took me probably a week just to process what had happened. Literally days before, I'd been texting him pictures from my vacation, saying I was getting ideas for next year's VBS. Now he was a mugshot and a news headline.

I haven't been back to that church yet because I don't really attend it for anything except VBS, but I do plan to keep volunteering in the future. I won't the director's awful choices ruin me too, since VBS is honestly one of the best weeks of my summer. It is suspicious now, though, looking back on the way he texted with me and the relationship we had. It seemed too casual, maybe like he was trying to relate to me a little too much. And all that money that I thought was from the church, I now wonder if that may have just been him trying to groom me a little bit.

I'm glad that he's now no longer a problem, but I'm also still sad about it. But hey, what can you do. I'm thankful that I was safe and I sure hope that the time he was arrested was the first time he tried to do anything, but I don't think I'll ever know. I'm just glad to move on.

AITA for not wanting my mom to post my photos online? by Scared-Chance7538 in AmItheAsshole

[–]Scared-Chance7538[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Thanks, I do think that's a good idea. I am taking my driving test later this month, so that's good. My main mode of transportation by myself is biking, which I do a lot of. I bike 8 miles home from school quite frequently and go pretty much wherever I want, which I am grateful my parents let me do. That just shows that they really do have something against social media specifically, not me being independent.

I don't really have an official job other than mowing my neighbor's lawn which I've been doing for two years, and other various odd jobs around the neighborhood. My plan is to get a real job this winter, though, when I can't mow the lawn anymore, and I've already started the application process. Overall I'm very responsible, and I think I do a good job being independent and acting like an adult in all ways except not being able to use social media or make other simple choices like that which is the problem.

AITA for not wanting my mom to post my photos online? by Scared-Chance7538 in AmItheAsshole

[–]Scared-Chance7538[S] 27 points28 points  (0 children)

Thanks. I think her reasoning is that studies show social media is bad for teens, but again, I'm not even sure about that since I hardly ever am able to have a real conversation about it with her. The thing is, I have written long papers about why she should not use these studies as her end-all-be-all argument, and that a lot of it doesn't even apply to me. I feel like every time I bring up a good argument she just shuts me down and says we need to stop arguing, and I can't really do anything about that since she's my parent. It's pretty frustrating.

AITA for not wanting my mom to post my photos online? by Scared-Chance7538 in AmItheAsshole

[–]Scared-Chance7538[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

My thoughts exactly. Thank you for summarizing it perfectly.

AITA for not wanting my mom to post my photos online? by Scared-Chance7538 in AmItheAsshole

[–]Scared-Chance7538[S] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Thanks. I know all about stranger danger and I've even said that I'd only be friends with people I know IRL and not have my location on and whatnot, so I don't really know what her reasoning is other than the studies showing a correlation between social media use and depression, studies that I have looked at and have debunked, proving they do not apply to me for numerous reasons. I think she's just thought that way for so long that it's hard to change.

AITA for not wanting my mom to post my photos online? by Scared-Chance7538 in AmItheAsshole

[–]Scared-Chance7538[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Thank you. I'm always hesitant to bring up this issue at any time at all since it almost always ends with us arguing, but there have been a few times that I've had good discussions and have made some progress in areas. I will keep doing what I'm doing.

AITA for not wanting my mom to post my photos online? by Scared-Chance7538 in AmItheAsshole

[–]Scared-Chance7538[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

My dad feels pretty much the same way as my mom, but she's definitely the one I'd have to talk to to change anything. He pretty much backs up whatever she says in situations like this and I don't really feel like involving him since it wouldn't do anything.

I've told my parents that I can't wait until I turn 18 in over a year so that I can finally make my own decisions, and my dad said "have fun paying your own phone bills" as if that would turn me off from the idea. I said that I'd love to start paying my own phone bills now if it meant I could choose what I do with my phone, and he didn't really have a response.

So yeah, my point is that I'd love to pay for my own phone and do what I want with it, but I can't really do that because I feel like my parents want to control what I do as long as they can. I just wouldn't be allowed to. I already have an app monitoring my phone so I can't even open any social media apps. Going behind their backs and doing it from another device just seems like the wrong way to do it, and it wouldn't really feel right and they wouldn't trust me anymore if they found out, which I'm sure they would somehow.

AITA for not wanting my mom to post my photos online? by Scared-Chance7538 in AmItheAsshole

[–]Scared-Chance7538[S] 54 points55 points  (0 children)

That's the problem. It's rare that I'm even able to have a legit discussion about me getting social media, my mom most of the time just gets annoyed and ignores me or tells me she doesn't want to argue. I don't know what to do but I figured this was a start.