A Risk Worth Taking

What was he thinking?

What could the man who opened the door to the biggest scandal in Rochester at this moment have been considering when he chose to act.

Former Monroe County legislator and Irondequoit town councilman Bill Bastuk stands accused of raping a teenage girl during a party at the Rochester Yacht Club last September. The girl's statement to police was released during Bastuk's court appearance Tuesday. Bastuk has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.

http://www.rnews.com/Story_2004.cfm?ID=62452&rnews_story_type=18

If the allegations are true, the weakness with which Bastuk acted would be made obvious.

Contrast that against the strength demonstrated in this case by another man. For, in her statement, Bastuk's accuser reveals we wouldn't know any of this had her father not read her diary.

Imagine encroaching on your daughter's most personal thoughts, the ones she's supposed to be growing on her own. The ones that're supposed to help her become an independent-thinking person.

The relationship between a father and teen daughter is one I'm learning to grow.

Meg Meeker, M.D., and her book "Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters 10 Secrets Every Father Should Know" are helping. Meeker writes about a father's need to be her daughter's hero and the space Dad should maintain through his little girl's rough-and-tumble teenage years and beyond.

http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl/9780345499394.html

Establishing the right distance (which Meeker advises can never be too far away) no doubt helped the father move on his instincts to investigate his daughter's behavior and move toward her diary.

Did he think he was violating her privacy and jeopordizing his relationship with her? Was being the over-protective father worth moving through her personal thoughts? The discovery answers the question, but what if he had found only musings of adolescence, stuff one would expect to find.

Even if it was an impulsive act on his part, it surely saved his littler girl in many ways.

Hopefully, it opened conversations about what is in bounds and what is not when it comes to the privacy a child should expect from her or his parents.

And move parents to consider whether they're close enough to their teenagers' lives.