T A B L E++T A L K

Why do people get married, quickly have kids, then split up? Discuss disposable families in the Mothers area of Table Talk

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R E C E N T L Y

Go with the flow
By Jenn Shreve
A small, vocal group of women wants you to toss out your pads, tampons and liners and go -- no joke -- reusable
(11/30/98)

Thanksgiving
By Anne Lamott
If I can muster the love and patience it takes to deal with my mother, does it still count if my hands are trembling with rage?
(11/25/98)

Turkey fry
By Jennifer Reese
An old lover taught me the sexiest type of Thanksgiving cooking and how to do something sacrilegious and preposterous to a national symbol
(11/24/98)

Faraway, so close
By Debra Gwartney
Coming home causes my oldest daughter to withdraw into corners, turn her face and back up toward the door until she can run away again
(11/23/98)

"The Rugrats Movie"
By Andrew Leonard
These babies rule! A 4-year-old and her dad give the new "Rugrats" brand extension a big thumbs-up
(11/20/98)

BROWSE THE MOTHERS WHO THINK FEATURE ARCHIVES

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Mamafesto
By Camille Peri
Why it's time
for Mothers Who Think

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THE MEN'S ROOM | PAGE 1, 2
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"There is potential for abuse in restrooms and I don't really think it matters where they're located," said Officer Rosalind J. Johnson of the Atlanta Police Athletic League, a law enforcement group that works with inner city kids. "I don't think a mother can ever be too overprotective when it comes to safety concerns." There are no national statistics on how many children are molested in restrooms. But reported cases occur with alarming regularity in the news. For example:

• The 1997 case of Sherrice Iverson, a 10-year-old who was molested and choked to death in the restroom of a Nevada casino. Jeremy Strohmeyer, 19, of Long Beach, Calif., pleaded guilty and was sentenced in October to life in prison. He killed Sherrice after luring her into the bathroom with a game of hide-and-seek. (You can donate to a memorial fund for Sherrice at www.iverson.org.)

• In 1996, a Kansas City, Kan., man was hunted by police because he was molesting girls who entered public restrooms alone. His first victims were molested at a bowling center; he subsequently attacked a girl in a Catholic church recreational center after a basketball game.

• This April, the Orange County Library System in Orlando, Fla., agreed to spend $1 million to move its children's departments to more visible areas of the library buildings. Part of the plan requires that no adults be allowed into the children's section restrooms unless accompanied by children. Local police report one call a month to check out victimless sex crimes in the libraries' public restrooms or book stacks.

• Last year, a man was tracked by police after he sexually assaulted at least two boys in Los Angeles McDonald's restaurants. In the second case, the assault was interrupted after the boy's mother called his name and knocked on the door. The man was caught on videotape as he rushed out of the bathroom, brushing the mother aside.

• And two weeks ago, on Nov. 14, 9-year-old Matthew Cecchi was murdered by a 20-year-old transient in a Southern California beachside bathroom while attending a family reunion. Matthew's murderer, who was arrested within minutes after running out of the bathroom where Matthew was bleeding to death, his throat slashed from ear to ear, confessed that he was looking for an easily subdued victim when he settled on Matthew; the circumstances of the killing -- considered murder by ambush and torture -- may lead prosecutors to seek the death penalty. At Matthew's funeral last week in the Northern California town of Oroville, one mourner had to be helped out of the church as she wailed uncontrollably: It was Matthew's aunt, who had escorted him to the Oceanside Harbor beach bathroom and then waited outside the door to ensure his safety.

Caught in the glare of a nightmarish case like Matthew Cecchi's, the expert-recommended precautions are pitifully weak, at once obvious, inadequate and frequently impractical. Some groups, such as Protect Our Children, a nonprofit organization that provides family referrals and monitors legislative bills on sexual abuse, maintain that parents should simply never allow their child to roam alone anywhere, whether it be a public restroom or their own backyard. Meanwhile, the parents' guide in the Boy Scout Handbook advises that children should be taught to yell "Stop it!" loudly if a stranger tries to touch them inappropriately.

Officer Johnson, mother of a 10-year-old, says that she would not recommend that children go alone to a public bathroom until they are 6 or 7 years old; one of her fellow officers does not allow his 7-year-old daughter to go by herself into the ladies' room, preferring instead that she go into the men's room with him. Sgt. Stephen Beatty, a community relations director with the Waco (Texas) Police Department, recommends that parents ask an employee or salesperson to check if anyone is already in the bathroom and to pick small, single restrooms rather than larger restrooms with many stalls. Also, says Beatty, children should be told to go into a stall and lock the door immediately.

Despite the rising concern among parents, police, child protection groups and even commercial builders (an article in a 1996 issue of Buildings, a trade magazine, lists a number of suggestions for locating and designing public restrooms to maximize safety, especially for children), there will always be someone who will label the rest of us as suffering from unwarranted paranoia. "There are not sexual predators behind every tree," says John Rosemond, a North Carolina psychologist, author and syndicated columnist known for conservative child-rearing practices. "We really are getting rather hysterical about the issue of safety."

Rather hysterical? Maybe so. Maybe it's unlikely that my son will be the next victim of a men's room stalker; no doubt that's what Matthew Cecchi's aunt was thinking to herself as she walked away from the family party and marched her nephew to the bathroom at the beach. But what parent or care-giver is going to take a chance with their child's safety? Obviously, parents need to use common sense (in the case of Sherrice Iverson, casino security guards reprimanded her father three times for leaving her unattended), but the kind of common sense our mothers used when asking a well-dressed grandfatherly type to look after our brothers in the bathroom just cannot apply anymore. The current statistics are that one out of four girls and one out of seven boys will be victimized by sexual predators -- and at least half of the sex crimes against children are committed by someone they know, according to Jennifer Mitchell, vice president of Child Lures, a Vermont business designed to stop child sexual abuse.

Has any of this information affected my own decisions about restrooms? Well, yes. Where I used to let him go alone freely, now I pull him back. But the decision is tinged with sadness. I already believe fear of others is being injected too deeply into all of our lives. I hate that Halloween, the only holiday where a neighborhood opens its doors for its children, is slowly morphing into an evening of little home parties. And although I do it, I hate that in teaching Ian about his private parts I must also instruct him who's not supposed to be touching them. As I steer Ian away from the men's room, he quizzically stares at the sign of the triangle-shaped woman on the door. "Why?" he asks. It's a question with an answer even I don't feel ready to know.
SALON | Dec. 1, 1998

Diane Lore is a medical writer for the Atlanta Journal Constitution.