Dr. Phil Wants To Know ‘Where Are The Parents?’ In Steubenville, Something The Rest Of Us Have Been Asking For Months Now

Akexandria Goddard from Prinniefied will be a special guest on Dr. Phil today and a special guest on Mommyish, if she ever gets my damn interview questions back to me because she is obviously just too busy and too much of a fancy TV star to now do it. Just kidding, she has been traveling and she has dogs to care for and she has been totally swamped ever since she was the first person to notice that things weren’t quite right in a small town in Ohio after a teenage party. I promise the interview will be up soon, and not only does Alexandria have opinions on Steubenville, but she also has ways that we make our teenagers safe online and opinions on stopping rape culture.

The court of public opinion rages on in this case, with people divided between demanding justice for the victim and those claiming that “boys will be boys” and that the facts leaked about the Steubenville case are all wrong. I’m always going to be the person who tends to side with a rape victim, even without knowing all of the facts. I believe that women don’t lie about their rapes. Considering rapes are rarely reported, rapes are just not something a lot of people lie about. I believe our Jane Doe was sexually assaulted. I believe this was witnessed by numerous people who did nothing. I believe that people who witnessed the attack took to social media to “live tweet” it rather than call the police or another responsible adult for help.

I believe that the teenagers who attended this party were supplied with alcohol from somewhere, and I find it odd that no adults have been charged with supplying alcohol to minors. And I believe that we need to start doing something in educating our kids about how to stay safe and how not to rape people.

The only parents who have been interviewed about this case are the foster parents of Ma’lik Richmond, Jennifer and Greg Agresta, who were on The Today show speaking to Matt Lauer.
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And somewhere around the 5 minute mark when Lauer asks if they have asked Ma’lik what happened that night, Jennifer Agresta says no, and it doesn’t matter, because they love him anyway.

And as a mom, I think that is sort of part of the problem. We all love our children unconditionally. Parents all do. But the difference is many of us are explaining in no uncertain terms to our kids that if they rape, or victimize, or hurt, or murder others that as parents we find that unacceptable. It’s not allowed. We don’t offer to “love them irregardless” if they rape someone.

In the promo, Dr. Phil asks where the parents are and even though we all know that a lot of our kids will sneak out of the house and go to parties and drink when they are underage, the majority of our kids won’t be accused of rape. But if they ever are, they know that there will be very severe consequences, the very least which will be our not “sticking by them” if they rape someone.

(photo: dr.phil.com)