If a Registered Sex Offender Lived Next Door to You....

RedBedroom wrote:I live in a very nice suburb. I have a sex offender living right next door. He lives with his parents since he got out of prison. He was there for having child porn or distributing porn to minors. I would have to look it up again to remember for sure.

I have never talked about this to anyone because it is such a touchy subject. But really, it does not bother me at all. My son is 11 and so he knows all about it and what to do if he is ever approached by the guy. The way I see it...I let my son go to the park with his buddies alone. I live in more fear of any creepers that are out and about that I don't know about. So my son is educated on all the dangers.

Now, if my son was younger and just at the age that he is allowed to be outside alone, I probably would look at it differently. The girls who live across the street from us...ages 11 and 13 have not been able to play outside without one parent out there since the offender moved to his parents', two or three years ago. So, these girls are spending their summers not even in their own yard to play, without a parent. That is overkill to me. I won't knock their parenting, but if I was that paranoid, then I would move.

An ironic part of this is that I knew about him while he was still in prison...parents in the area (who lived here before we did) knew the story and knew his release date. What he did wasn't involving any neighborhood children, but somehow, they all knew the details of his conviction. All the paranoid parents were talking of forming a neighborhood watch. But the lady who was to start it kept procrastinating.

I was all for a neighborhood watch because I feel like no one here has any one's back in general and I had really shitty neighbors, at the time, on the other side of me, so I volunteered to take over the reins of getting a watch together. I know someone who knows the owner of a nearby sports bar, with a banquet room. She (the owner) was willing to let us meet there for meetings. But none of the folks around here would join a watch that met in a tavern.
It was the biggest b.s. thing I have ever seen. They were so worried about banding together against the sex offender, but were choosy about where to meet. And this place was a preppy sports bar, with banquet rooms, not some seedy backwoods bar.

I really do not like this suburb where I live. I only moved here because the elementary school is the best in the district.

Nystyle709 wrote:
It sounds like you're doing such an amazing job with your son RB. And I'm glad you have a level mind cause if I was in that situation and the sex offender did that.....I'd feel that exact same way you would. I wouldn't stop my child from playing or keep him inside either. I would be conscious but I wouldn't be a freak about it. If he was a child killer (he prob. wouldn't be out anyway) then it's a different story.