I had a conversation this morning with Betty, whose son got into trouble with some other young men in a few incidents about a year ago. Some marijuana was involved but there were other issues that I won't go into here that led to more serious charges being filed.

Betty had heard about "Saving Carrick," but she said she was not able to watch it. The wounds from her own experience with the police, high school administrators and neighbors are still too raw. Her son was held in custody for more than eight hours before she could see him; then was paraded into the courtroom in shackles. A compassionate judge, seeing a scared boy before him, demanded that they be removed immediately.

Betty experienced people looking the other way when she walked down the street. One neighbor expressed his amazement that the family had not moved out of town, verbalizing what she feels was probably on the minds of others. Her son was "blackballed." Everyone acted as if it could never have happened in their households. Only one friend lent a sympathetic shoulder, and the whole experience left Betty reeling.

Our conversation reminded me of an exchange of posts in the Discussion area last night between Linnea and Mary Kennedy. Although they were directly addressing heroin addiction, their points ring true to me on a larger scale. Why are we so unwilling to discuss our loved one's missteps with the same candor we show toward their winning fifth place in the second-grade potato sack race? Making mistakes are just as much a part of the human condition as small triumphs.

"...It's clear most of us have gone beyond the self-imposed shame-game of a loved one's addiction," Linnea wrote. "The lifestyle that addiction ultimately leads to is what gets most of the press and attention, and the Carricks of the world (along with our own very beautiful sons and daughters) have remained faceless, with only their criminal behaviors being the source of information, judgment and decision-making."

Mary responded: "I pray for the day when we "auxiliaries" in this mess can stand together IN PUBLIC and declare that little battle on drugs that continues to be called a WAR, is a very bad joke. "

I urged Betty to come to this site, and to watch "Saving Carrick." I told her, as I've told others who have told me that they don't want to be "voyeuristic" by watching Dateline's report, that the whole reason we did the show was so that people would watch it and talk about it, whatever their opinions, and stop sweeping these issues under the rug.

There are many sides to a story like Betty's, of course. The police, the school, and neighbors no doubt see things differently. But when we don't talk openly about what's happening on our Main Streets, all we get is half-baked rumors, distortions, denial, and more of the same in the future.

Betty is well aware that her son did something wrong. So is he. Her son is doing very well, she says. Although his legal troubles are far from over, he's remorseful, excelling in college, and wonders who that kid was who acted so stupidly. But the heavy-handed process of accountability did nothing to help him, or the family, or their community to address the larger issues that, like it or not, involve every family in America.