My mother pulled this sort of shit concerning my father-in-law. I nailed her to the wall, told her she was setting herself up for a slander lawsuit, and told everyone else in my family what kind of utter claptrap she was spewing.
You’ve got to fight fire with fire Dutchman, evil winning when good men do nothing and all that.
Get a lawyer.
Quick.
Make certain he/she is a good one.
Dutchman, I know you and I aren’t exactly the best of friends, but I am so sorry for what happened to you, and I really wish you luck. I hope everything works out.
While I cannot proclaim to have any legal knowledge, I will align myself with the others to express my sympathies and simple wrongness of what you’ve gone through.
I have always thought of such situations as truly terrifying.
Proof for or against is virtually impossible to find, and in the meantime the victim (you are certainly a victim) is labeled and subjected to a devestating study of character and conduct.
Frankly, it scares the Hell out of me.
This should scare the hell out of everyone.
Someone to whom I was once very close is in the midst (going on 3 years) of this sort of thing, and I cannot even begin to describe the devastation. It has destroyed relationships, finances, peace of mind, mental health - you name it. Almost three years because the prosecution has a weak case & they keep extending the torture.
Please - seek legal help now. Be ready. I hope to Christ it never comes to what I described above.
VCNJ~
That is so, so sad. America (I assume that’s where Flying Dutchman is) has gone way overboard in seeing molesters everywhere, and the zeitgeist enables behavior like that exhibited by Flying Dutchman’s sister.
I wish I had advice, but I don’t. All I can say is, America is just wierd. I am American, but my 9 year old son has spent very little time in the US. I consider it so wonderful to see how easily he gives and receives affection … to his peers at school, to his parents, to grown-ups he cares for. He and his friends think nothing of hugging each other for joy if they are happy, or walking down the streets holding hands. If the building security officer picks him up and carries him into our apartment on his shoulders, he loves it. If he wakes up in the morning before his parents do and wants a cuddle, he jumps into bed with us.
Maybe I’m wrong (I hope I am) but it seems to me like this is no longer possible in the US. How sad.
I thought he was Canadian, but I could be wrong. Dutchman, sorry to hear you’re dealing with someone who’s that whacked-out by paranoia, and I hope that this all works out for you and your entire family believes you.
This is the very first thing I thought when I read that part.
I used to have a downstairs neighbor, who was a single mom with 5 sons and a daughter (no husband or baby-daddies to be found). It was well known that she was homophobic and believed men were men, drug-dealing and killing people for territory were respectable pursuits, and time in jail was a badge of honor.
The 4th son son was particularly precocious, charming and outgoing and loved to interact with people of all ages. He could carry on intelligent conversations that would put most adults to shame.
One evening when he was about 8-years-old, I stopped to sit and talk to him on the front steps. This time, as well as a few times before, he ended up leaning against me and propping himself against my leg, as he showed me the book he was currently reading.
Now, I had always been leary of the impression that might be made by this, me being a gay man (and his mother with her attitudes). Any wariness I had felt was confirmed as his mother, coming outside, saw him and screamed for him to get inside.
It didn’t bother me for myself as much as I felt bad for him. It was obvious he longing for a little intellectually stimulating interaction and a lot of male attention and warmth he just wasn’t getting at that point.
Let’s just say I kept my distance after that.
Guin, your post above means a lot to me, especially when I think about it, I’ve never felt as mean to anyone as you because no one has SDMB ripped into me like you, but it never made me feel better. Please though, continue to rip me when you feel I deserve it, but I’ll never respond in kind again.
Not to ignore everyone else, but I am slightly embarrassed to admit that I am enjoying the tremendous positive sympathy based on my word. Kind of feel like an attention whore, but it does make me feel more positive.
I do feel for you. when you actually see that there is a role for you to make a child’s life positive, it sucks when someone else takes it away from you. I didn’t mention it previously, but the “incident” of my OP, the canoe trip, was partially a result of my desire to participate more fully with Sister’s kids, because their father , a serious drug adict was now out of their picture. I thought it would be a good thing to have a family male in their lives. As others have mentioned, I still worry about her kids, though I hear she’s getting married again.
Yes I’m Canadian, but I don’t think I’m all that different from an American 
. And thanks.
The incident I referred to has changed my life both positive and negative, but I never faced legal action since the investigation into the accusation was completed before I was aware of it and promptly closed. But yes, there are innocent guys much worse off than me that have to face court .
I think there may be some parallels between your situation and what 5-4-Fighting mentioned. I’m not a single parent, but I think that being the only parent combined with being “on call” all the time plus some paranoia (for whatever reason) can create a control freak. It could be that your sister feels that she is > < this close to “the edge” and anything beyond her control (you, for example) will push her and her children over. Or, she could be lacking in the mental acuity department and has some loose ideas flying around in her head that she can’t deal with. In any case, I’m sorry you’re going through this. It is nigh-impossible to defend yourself against emotionally-driven, fact-poor accusations. There’s a game going on your family, and you are not playing it, which is IMHO why you’re being excluded from family functions.
Vlad/Igor
I think I did do some good; among other things, for a moment at least, I gave the kid an outlet to display his love of reading, something I’m positive he would never get in the environment he lived in (they’ve since been evicted from their apartment). I hope to Og, with all the gifts he has, he makes it in life.
I posted too quickly before, so I just wanted to give you a little feedback. Even though your situation got a little, no, a lot, more out of hand than mine, sometimes the only thing you can do is just walk away. I hope you can find a way to resolve it that alllows you to be in your nieces’ and nephews’ lives, but if not, you must do what’s best and safest for you.
Just don’t let this cause you to feel bad about yourself and what sounds like good intentions.
Vlad/Igor, you’re right about the parallels.
I agree. She’s a Concerned Mom and you’re just a man. Stay away.