By Danielle . . .
I pled guilty to having a sexual relationship with an 18 year old student. My lawyer never explained what that would mean for my and my family’s future. If I had known that we would all be paying for my mistake for years and years, I would have fought it with all I had. The only thing making what I did illegal is the ASSUMPTION that I used my position of “power” to coerce him into a sexual relationship, which was the farthest thing from the truth. Now, ten years later, I have had my rights as a mother stripped from me. I still have custody of my children but I am not allowed to support them the way a mother should. I have never been to a single softball game, school concert, graduation, can’t help support their friendships, and when they call from school because they are sick, I have to tell them to hang in there because I am not allowed to step foot inside of their schools. In fact, I was even threatened with arrested if I continued dropping them off at school. I was told to drop my elementary school child off on the street. I did end up writing to the superintendent of schools and at least got that one “privilege” back. I thought it would get easier as I got closer to the end but the truth is, I’m struggling just to make it through the day at this point. The only reason I haven’t ended it is because I won’t do that to my kids. But sometimes wonder if no mother would be better than the version of me that they got (beaten down and defeated, working two jobs just to scrape by). I made a mistake at an extremely low point in my life and went to prison for two and a half years. Why are we still being punished? I know that we don’t deserve this. That’s what makes it so hard to deal with. People convicted of taking other people’s lives get out of prison and walk away…. How is that?