manvsbear – Wild Woman. Wild Minister. Wild Writer.

It’s amazing how many stories emerge when one thinks, “A bear would never…”

We had a neighbor who found boyfriends on dating apps, I suspect in the “bargain” section. Either that, or she waited for candidates outside the local in-patient psych ward. She didn’t date them long before she moved them into her house with her two young children, a girl and a boy. The first one allegedly molested the little girl and physically abused the little boy, and he was the least creepy of the lot.

The second one love-bombed her. He was a “godly man.” I’m not sure which god, though I suspected Molech. (He was the Canaanite deity to whom the Israelites made their child sacrifices in the Valley of Ben Hinnom.) He made her put PureFlix on her TV. He claimed to know the former president personally. He got her and the kids going to church–her parents’ church–and he bragged about how they were going to make him a Sunday school teacher. He gave both of my girls the willies. He would walk by our house every day for some reason.

My younger daughter had a younger friend, a very pretty little girl. This guy asked them to come play with my neighbor’s daughter at their house while the mom was at work. One day these two girls were outside in our yard playing when he went by with the little boy and girl. He stopped and talked to my daughter’s friend, and she was torn. Her sense of self-preservation was warring with having been taught to respect her elders and not to antagonize the male of the species.

See, this is what women deal with, what we’re taught from the time we’re little–respect our elders and make life as easy for men as possible. How many girls are told to get their daddy’s refill on their drinks at dinner or to wait until their daddy has his food before they can eat? How many girls are told to hug Uncle So-and-so when they feel uncomfortable around him? As you saw in part 1 of “Why I Choose the Bear,” we’re told to ignore him in hopes he’ll stop, give up, or go away. That only works with the bear. If we’re aggressive in the face of the danger, there’s a good chance we’ll get hurt.

My daughter wasn’t about to leave her friend outside alone with this guy. I saw what was going on and called them in, called the police, then called the girl’s mom to let her know her daughter would be a little late getting home but that she was safe. The girls were shaking. This guy walked back and forth in front of our house, shouting stuff like, “And she calls herself a Christian! My little girl just wants to play with friends!” He thought he could manipulate me into giving him what he wanted. He finally left when he didn’t get a response. The police came, and the girls did a great job answering their questions. The guy later went to the other girl’s mom and yelled at her about her almost getting him put in jail when she hadn’t done anything in this situation. My older daughter, younger daughter, husband, and I all walked that little girl home.

My neighbor’s little girl was already traumatized by the first boyfriend, and she had trauma responses to angry tones. It was nothing to drive by our neighbor’s house and see Mom and her boyfriend fighting loudly right under the girl’s bedroom window. Eventually the boyfriend got kicked out. The mom later said, “He was fine so long as he took his meds.” I was thinking, Honey, if he has to take meds to control his temper, you need to pay attention to that red flag.

The guy was in a plum situation. He went from working to afford his car and a room in a boardinghouse to living rent-free in a nice house in a quiet neighborhood with a sugar mama. How did he get there? By checking my neighbor’s boxes. She wanted romance. She wanted someone who’d treat her kindly and babysit her kids so she wouldn’t have to pay someone to do it or put them in after school care. Before they got together, my older daughter who was 17 at the time was nanny for the little boy while I tutored the little girl during the day. One day the little boy was sick and the boyfriend showed up to babysit with the mom’s permission. The boyfriend had no clue how to take care of a sick child, and he gave my daughter the creeps. There wasn’t anything overt he was doing; it’s just, all her spidey senses were tingling big-time! The mom thought my daughter was probably overreacting. Problem is, with guys like this, once they are settled in, their true colors come out. Things continued to deteriorate in this situation until eventually the police had to escort him to the house while he retrieved his stuff.

My daughters, the little girl, her mom, and I all let out a heavy sigh of relief once that guy was gone. We hoped the neighbor would take the advice I’d given her and spend some time working on herself and being present and affirming with herself so she would stop picking up psychotic losers and bringing them into her home with her young children. Sadly, such was not to be.

Why I’d Choose the Bear, Pt. 2

Content/Trigger Warning: This entry contains mentions of child sexual abuse. Be kind to yourself; it’s okay if you need to skip this.

In the continuing debate of “man versus bear,” there are millions of stories about why women choose the bear they’d meet in the woods. Even men are saying they’d choose the bear. Here’s another one.

It was summer 2016, and I was taking a walk through the neighborhood. It must’ve been a particularly mild day because our summers are usually suffocatingly hot and humid. I had my phone and was listening to music. A text came through from a former neighbor who had moved: “What is going on there???”

I shot back, “What do you mean?”

She sent a link to a news article from one of the local outlets. A neighbor, the man who lived behind us with his wife and their two daughters, had been arrested and charged with eleven counts of variations on sexual assault of a child–his older daughter. The charges ranged from statutory rape to indecent liberties with a minor to child molestation, and later his sexual offender’s profile page would indicate this had been going on the majority of her teen years, from when she was eleven to sixteen.

Of course, the link found its way to the local Facebook page (not by me; someone else in our town). People whose lawns this guy had mown were chiming in with, “He’s such a nice Christian man.”

And that’s the thing. He presented as this “nice Christian man.” He was that one glad-handing people at HOA meetings and around town. He was very vocal about his religiosity. My older daughter mowed lawns around the neighborhood, and she was out mowing ours one day when Bob came by. He offered her his hand to shake, but she got a funky vibe from him and backed away. She wasn’t rude, but she put up a boundary. Both of my girls got this strange vibe from him.

At one point Bob mowed our next door neighbor’s lawn. Bob didn’t know crap about taking care of grass. He couldn’t identify grass types so didn’t know how to adjust his mower accordingly. He also left a mess of clippings. Our neighbor’s lawn had weeds; our lawn has professional weed control. Bob had mown the neighbor’s grass and blown the wet clippings–seed heads included–into our lawn. I thought Bob was going to swing back and take care of the mess. After half an hour of not seeing him, I asked him to take care of the mess he’d left in our yard. He gave me push-back. I told him I’d take pictures of the mess and post them in the neighborhood Facebook group. A little bit more back-and-forth let him know that not tending to his mess would ultimately be bad for his business.

He looked at me aghast and tried to manipulate me. He put his hand on his chest and said, “I thought you were a Christian!” Ugh! The very nerve of this man to question my faithfulness when he was committing atrocities against his own daughter!

He spent a couple of years in jail. In the meantime, his wife sold their house. The older daughter moved out as soon as she could. There were never any charges brought against him. His wife didn’t. In fact, she welcomed him back into her home–an apartment by this point–when he was released. I’m pretty sure at least the older daughter has gone no contact. She’s since gotten married.

The family was a homeschooling family. The older daughter would have people over to study; they always sat outside on the back patio. When Bob was mowing lawns, his wife and both daughters accompanied him. I guess he couldn’t risk leaving them home alone where he couldn’t monitor their activities. Another neighbor told me at the beginning of our homeschooling journey that the girls used to take dance, but their mom eventually said it was “too much.” They were isolated.

Later Bob and his wife–the daughters were both gone by this point–took mowing back up. She had kept the business going while he was locked up. They had some customers in our neighborhood who still stuck with them. My girls didn’t want to go outside at all if he were within sight. They wouldn’t even go out into the yard to play, and if we had to go from house to car or car to house while Bob was around, they ran between the two to minimize their risk.

You know what else bears don’t do? Bears don’t molest their children. Bears don’t pretend to be holy and righteous while committing grievous sins.

I don’t see either Bob or his wife in the neighborhood anymore when I’m taking a walk on a warm spring day. I know which lawns they used to take care of, and I see other people tending to them now. A couple of years ago Bob was involved in a vehicle accident that nearly left him crippled. I’m just gonna keep my thoughts about that to myself.

Enjoy this blog? Please spread the word.