Leave my 10-year-old daughter alone, Mister

On weekends after she does her homework I play hopscotch, football or moral with her. Or maybe we lie on either side of her mother while reading, watching TV, or inventing some ridiculous game. Her body is changing so I cannot roughhouse with her too much anymore.

The point of all this? I love my daughter and she is happy.

She still has that childish innocence.

She knows where babies come from but the idea of it is so foreign to her young mind she’s barely curious about it.

Why? Because she is only ten.

So when news comes out that an eight-year-old girl is sexually abused over and over again, it rocks me to my very core. When an adult plies a child with alcohol with hopes of drunken sex, it hurts us all.

When a woman lures a child so her man could fulfil his crazy fetish and fantasy, it kills us all a little inside.

How could a grown man — really, a two-legged, human- shaped sack of depravity — watch an eight-year-old with lust and not love? How can a man watch an 11-yearold girl and deprive her that age of jump-rope, ponies and rainbows? Why would a logical, sane adult destroy that innocence? Can’t get a woman? The child is pretty? She didn’t say no? Abused as a child? Voices in your head? No! You are just sick and sick-minded.

We have progressively gotten more depraved as a society where anything can happen once the opportunity is there.

Everyday I open the newspaper to see another young girl missing. Some of the missing girls left voluntarily and misguided, some were forced.

Parents, please foster a good relationship with your children.

Let them not be afraid to speak up and speak out. Something could be happening with your child and you don’t have a clue. Love them, hug them, reprimand them, whatever, but talk to them.

Men, let’s stand up and be men. Court a woman and if you are so inclined court a man, but leave the children to be children. Please.

There are good husbands out there, good fathers, good men. Maybe when my daughter grows up you can introduce her to your son or maybe your grandson. But in the interim, for my sake and especially yours, leave my ten-year-old daughter alone.

NIGEL NEVERSON via email