It's looking like the worst scandal and saddest, most bizarre tragedy imagineable. Although I haven't read the indictment, I've heard enough about it to know it's heinous what went on, but I won't go into the details here.
The other side to this story that occurs to me as a mother of a son: The person that puzzles and saddns me is the mother who was interviewed. Aside from her blitheness, she talked about her son asking "what does sexual pervert mean?" or something along those lines, and when she asks why, and he says, Oh, no reason, she lets it go. AND THEN she lets the kid go off for overnight visits with the coach?!? NO! That should not happen. Where was she?
Kids don’t come to parents to reveal these things. It’s up to parents to find these things out. Over the years I would often ask my son (now 25) to share with me if anybody tried to touch him, did touch him, or talked about touching him. Anybody make you feel uncomfortable? Scared or annoyed? And you have to ask these questions gently, but parents have to ask them. "Are you sure...?" "You can tell me." "You be sure to tell me if anything like that does happen, okay?" I promised him I'd protect him. I hope he believed it, and I hope it's true that he's always promised me it hasn't happened. And I believe him. My spidey sense never did go off.
So why did that mother not only not ask but then ignore pretty clear warnings until she was forced not to ignore them anymore?? When does parenting come in?? When do we grow up? Nobody has mentioned that…
Howard Stern is right. There's a collective mental illness in our society.