I dunno, perhaps I have a bit of OCD, but I can't help but get thoroughly ticked off when I read stuff about Matthew Koso. I posted on his, er, situation a number of times.
Good Morning America had Matthew and his 14 YEAR OLD "WIFE" on the morning of 9/13/05, along with their baby Samara (isn't that the name of the freaky scary girl from the well in The Ring?). You'll have to read the summary, but I found some of the quotes and information just, well, awful.
Matthew first met Crystal through her half-brother when she was 8, and they began dating in the fall of 2003 when he was 20 and she was 12.
Oh my God...think about this for a moment. The difference between 12 and 20 sounds bad enough, but 16 and 8? He would have been thrown in some juvenile detention had they suspected he did anything to her then.
Crystal's mother, Cecilia Guyer, filed a restraining order against Matthew Koso on Sept. 17, 2004.
"He needs to hang around girls and boys his own age group," Guyer wrote in the complaint. "He needs to seek counseling. He has a history of the same, similar with other young girls, and he needs to be stopped here and now."
They knew the pregnancy was wrong, because they hid it. Then Crystal's mother found out when she saw the girl's stretchmarks. Remember, he impregnated her when she was 13 years old and he was 21. That's statutory rape in Nebraska, my friends.
"At that time, our options were limited," Matthew's mother, Peggy Koso, said today on "Good Morning America." "It was either abortion, which was well past due; adoption, which was out of the question; and then it was to marry her, which we thought was the right thing to do."
WTF?!?!?! Let me say that again...WTF???? "adoption, which was out of the question." HUH? Let the child be raised by ADULTS, who have the financial means, the security, and above all the maturity to be responsible parents. Adoption is NEVER out of the question, especially in a case such as this. A 13-year-old is selfish, that's what 13-year-olds do. Heck, 21-22 year-olds can tend to be selfish. My gut feeling is perhaps the grandmother didn't want to give up her grandchild, so to speak. So for HER, perhaps adoption was out of the question. If so, how selfish is that? What a troubling situation her son, his child wife and the grandchild are in now.
What people don't realize, too, is that Matt is not emotionally 22. He's not mature like other young men his age are, so he is really at the same level of maturity as Crystal even though there are those years between them."
Point one, his age is such that he is an adult, and he committed a crime (little Samara being evidence of that). Point two, who cares...and do you really think, as "mature" as she thinks her daughter is, that her daughter would want to stay with a man who is "not mature" when she grows up? This ain't Barbie and Ken here. the drama doesn't go away when Barbie is thrown in her box and shoved under the bed...this is REAL LIFE and two children are in the middle of it.
Here is an amazingly mature comment from 14-year-old-Crystal:
"Here in Falls City you have two choices: go get drunk or high and die in a car accident or of an overdose, or go get pregnant," she said. "So which is the wrong choice?"
Ding, ding, ding. All of them are wrong, Crystal. I grew up in a small town here in Nebraska, not too far from Falls City. There's plenty to do, if you aren't seeking trouble.
...and the most brilliant comment of all:
She added that if Samara starts dating a 20-year-old when she is 12, she will "send her to her room."
I can't help ranting about it. As a parent, I would not allow this to happen with my daughter. What lessons do we teach kids when we file a restraining order because we know that an adult and a child should not be having sex and then turn around and "bless" a marriage because the sex resulted in a pregnancy? Isn't our obligation as parents to teach our children right from wrong? As much as I would want to be with my grandchild, it's plain common sense to know that adoption would have solved so much of this.
...and this cycle will continue. A child should not be raising a child. And a man should not be allowed to commit these crimes, whether there is a pregnancy or not.
Tracked over at Beth's Open Trackback Party.
Show Comments »
That whole family sounds like they'd be right at home on Jerry Springer. Both the child mother and the child child should be relocated, Crystal to -- I don't know, where would you send someone like her{definitely as far away from her mother as possible, forever!} -- to get her head straightened out? The child to a foster home undisclosed to both mother and grandmother several states away and the Koso into a serious inpatient psych program where they won't let him out anytime soon.
Sheesh!
Placing this confederacy of morons in front of a microphone, when they have already displayed their inability to think intelligently, highlights the incredible poor taste of Good Morning America.
Posted by: BobG at September 16, 2005 12:59 PMSeth, Bob....I agree with both of you. Seth, these people clearly do not belong together. Bob - I never watch GMA - haven't watched it in years. Blech.
Posted by: Merri at September 16, 2005 06:35 PMAs an adoptee, I, too, am baffled as to why that was "out of the question." I feel blessed to have been adopted.
As my parents told me (at a young age, while informing me of the adoption) I was chosen.
Posted by: PC at September 16, 2005 10:00 PMMy Dad's adopted, too, and had a wonderful life. He's shared with me that he never had an interest in finding out about his birth parents because his real parents - his adopted parents - were so good to him.
Posted by: Merri at September 16, 2005 10:17 PMAt first I was appalled, now I'm wondering if the mother got the order wrong, and meant to say, "It was either abortion, which was out of the question; marry her, which, if he wasn't a moron and she wasn't a child was well past due; and then there's adoption, which we thought was the right thing to do." 'Cause some people have a hard time with multiple-choice questions.
Posted by: tee bee at September 17, 2005 03:30 PMYou are much more "gracious" than I, trying to rationalize this, tee bee. LOL
Posted by: Merri at September 17, 2005 05:27 PMRight on the money, Merri.
This kind of stuff makes me embarassed to be a Nebraskan.
Posted by: Abe of Lincoln at September 19, 2005 11:07 PMThis is an example of what happens when the creeps from the extreme religious right take over a state government. Nothing positive can or will come out of this prosecution. These kids deserve the same 50/50 shot every other married couple has. Whatever Mrs. Guyer may have said before, she should be applauded for standing behind her daughter and son-in-law now (as should the Kosos as well, for standing up against the lynch mob.)
Posted by: D.J. at October 6, 2005 06:15 AMThat's the problem I have with people who are trying to justify this act of crime, D.J. First of all, religion has nothing to do with this - it's a crime. This adult man had sex with a minor - as an adult, he should know better. Criminal acts need to be handled judiciously. Lastly, in the end game it isn't about Koso - it is about the well being of two children here - his child wife and the baby.
Posted by: Merri at October 6, 2005 06:37 AMWHOA! What the fuck? Extreme religious right? What is this DJ fucktard, some kind of child molester?
I can't believe any sane, rational adult (maybe DJ's a child him/herself) would actually defend this Koso freak OR think it has the slightest thing to do with the "religious right."
Let me guess, DJ got here doing a search on Crystal or Matthew Koso, because he's obsessed with the case. Probably either a clueless child him/herself, or is a child molester just like Matthew.
OBVIOUSLY, DJ hasn't anything even approaching adult mentality, much less that of a parent.
SCUMBAG!
Posted by: Beth at October 6, 2005 06:59 AMMy first instinct is to lock this guy up and throw away the key, which I am not convinced, is the wrong thing to do, however my mother in-law told me about this story and she did bring up some good points I guess. It was not uncommon for older men to marry young girls many years ago. I guess that is why Kansas has such a law. Many or our grandparents were part of these unions and their marriages lasted unlike today. I still do not feel like it was right and now that I read about the restraining order I can't understand why Crystal's mother would let them marry she be as crazy as he is. I almost feel like they should take the baby and remove Crystal from her mother because it is obvious that she has no experience at raising children.
This whole story is just so sad, I fear for the baby and pray that this child will not be abused as Crystal will likely resent all she is missing.
I myself had a baby at sixteen my husband and I were high school sweethearts and amazingly 20 years later are still together, however I believe that if we had got married like we'd wanted to when I was 16 we would not have been so successful. I am from Kansas and my mother would not allow us to be married just because I was pregnant. Adoption was an option for me but didn't feel like I could go through with it and abortion was totally out of the question, although my mother said she would support anything I wanted to do, I could never have lived with myself. I guess I just hope the best for the child who is innocent and didn't ask to be brought into this world. Again I don't understand why the parents didn't do something about this when they found out they were seeing each other.
Posted by: Very Disturbed at October 15, 2005 04:13 PMVD - my grandmother got married at 14 (not because she had children, but because it was the thing to do). Her husband was much older. While their marriage did not survive, I know many in the day did back then. But the maturity level of a 14 year old back in the 20s-30s-40s in distinctly different than it is today - that's the difference to me. By the age of 14, my grandmother knew how to manage a household, take care of children and be in charge, because everyone pitched in to help back in those days. In this day and age, a 14 year old can't even get a "real" job to support a family due to the various laws that weren't in place back then either. And so on, and so forth. Life is much different now than it was back then.
And I'm with you - I'm unclear why the family decided that it would be okay to allow this marriage to occur when all it can possibly do is create even harder circumstances for everyone involved - mostly the baby. What a sad, sad mess.
Posted by: Merri at October 15, 2005 11:32 PM
My blog is worth $198,153.54.
How much is your blog worth?