Unknown number unpopular opinions

[u/ohmyhellions]

Reading the comments here, most people agree Kendra is a psychopath and pedophile, which: yes absolutely. And I agree she needs to be locked away for a much longer time (and studied). But there are some other takes I had that I don’t see reflected. What do you think, and what unpopular opinions do you have? Please share:

1. Yes, obviously Kendra was fixated on Owen, even when he was still a little prepubescent boy (sick). And she was jealous of Lauryn for being with him. That’s all the comments I’ve read. But I believe it went much deeper than that. She was also deeply jealous that her daughter was growing into a pretty teenager who had her whole life ahead of her and hadn’t fucked up her marriage, finances and life like Kendra had. Owen was the target of her fixation but It wasn’t only about Owen. There’s a lot more going on. [Editing to add this thought: Kendra would have been happy to see her daughter or Owen die by suicide, so she could get closer to the other one and play the hero/get more attention).

2. I’m sorry but Owen’s parents/mother are not the heroes people are making them out to be. Why in the free world would they not take the kid’s phone away? He was being harassed into a place of suicidal ideation. They are terrible parents for letting him just deal with it while the mom pranced around pretending she was a star on Law & Order

3. Lauryn’s dad was an incompetent father and has some secrets of his own. I believe Kendra is a master manipulator but what the hell must he have been doing to not see signs that something was terribly wrong? I think he was having affairs/a double life or at the very least was willfully burying his head in the sand. What do you mean you trusted your wife to handle your daughter’s severe sexual harassment and abuse? You didn’t think you should help? You didn’t think the situation warranted all hands on deck? Where the hell were you the whole time? And all he could say about Lauryn now is that she’s “growing” and will be a “beautiful woman.” Something is also off with him.

4. Regarding Lauryn's non-emotional reaction to what her mom did to her: Lauryn never had close friends and was always quiet and withdrawn, per her peers. Owen said she was trying to isolate him from his friends so it was just “the two of us”. As far as we saw, Kendra was her primary parent, with barely any paternal involvement. Kendra’s sociopathic ways are normal to Lauryn because it’s all she knows. (I hope she gets a lifetime of therapy.) During the confession conversation, either she was in shock and, as any 15 year old child would be, confused and unable to process the emotions on the spot (and also focused on following an authority figure’s directions to call her dad) …or she knew or suspected her mom was behind this.

[u/pandorabach66]

I actually agree with all this except maybe I'm conflicted about Lauryn's dad. I think he was definitely avoidant and burying his head in the sand but I also had the impression he was working all the time.

I think you are 💯 about Owen's parents. wtf would you not at least change the kid's number? I think Mom was enjoying being involved in the drama a little too much.

ETA missing word

[u/QashasVerse23 → u/pandorabach66]

Agreed. One of the girls, Sophie I think, said that all the parents were gossiping and spending too much time on their phones. My guess is Jill (and Kendra for a long while) was reveling in the attention.

[u/EngineeringRight3629 → u/pandorabach66]

It was pretty clear to me that all of these parents never matured past high school and were living vicariously through their kids

[u/Meowmixkittycatcat → u/EngineeringRight3629]

In a blue collar small town? With nothing better to do?! pretends to be shocked

[u/Pink_Dragon_Lady → u/pandorabach66]

I do the bills in our house, but if we literally lost our house, my husband would jump in then. This guy was too out of it for too long.

[u/Party_Principle4993 → u/pandorabach66]

I read the original article from NYMag and it said his phone was the way he contacted travel sports team coaches and teammates, and accessed his school assignments on Google Assignments (or something like that). I am An Old and had no idea that was a thing in school now. TOTALLY agree there must have been some work around bc this kid’s mental health would have been my top priority as his parent, but I think it was trickier than just “take his phone away.”

[u/wideopenspaces1 → u/Party_Principle4993]

This is part of the problem, in my opinion. It’s insane that a 13 year old would be required to have a cell phone in order to participate in school and sports. Thankfully the tides are turning on this, with many people discussing the effects of phones and social media on kids’ mental health, and states banning phones in schools outright.

[u/Party_Principle4993 → u/wideopenspaces1]

Amen. My son is only 4 and this weighs heavy on my mind. I hope by the time he’s a teenager this mentality will be very different.

[u/Sycronovexar → u/Party_Principle4993]

if your child doesn't have a phone and 80% of the kids do have a phone, your child will be an outcast and get treated like crap by the other kids unless he/she has super high ability/charisma to overcome that which is almost impossible

so i suggest you think really well before doing something like that

in my case the only issue was that i had a computer not good enough to play the same games as my peers - even that was enough to get super me ostracized

all the free time during breaks they would talk about those games and i could play none of them so i just sat there with nothing to say

[u/pandorabach66 → u/Party_Principle4993]

Ah, I see.

[u/Additional-Mud-9765 → u/pandorabach66]

i think lauryn was bullied by one of them girls in the team or treated her like a outcast and kendra noticed and decided to cyber bully

[u/otherwise_data → u/Party_Principle4993]

there are other means. none of those needs require a cellphone. google assignments can be accessed via laptop or pc or tablet. get a prepaid phone and only have coaches and teammates with the number. or text his mom. i mean thats just a lame excuse.

[u/Stressy_messy_me → u/pandorabach66]

I do feel quite sorry for Lauryn's dad. Yes he definitely should have been there more but he was probably desperately trying to keep a roof over their heads and wondering wtf was going on with their finances while all this was going on and trusting in Kendra (who was home 100% of the time) to look after Lauryn and keep him in the loop.

[u/MiserableCourt1322 → u/pandorabach66]

According to the NY article he didn't really know anything about the texts for a long time because all school communication ran through Kendra. Ppl who knew them said he basically relied on her for everything and bought every excuse for why they were in such financial trouble.

Honestly I got the impression Kendra picked a co dependent partner who she could easily manipulate. There was a big power differential in terms of career and money. She was a college grad with a job in IT and he was oil change tech. Even if she was at the lower end of an IT salary she was easily making double what he did. Her not bringing in any income and Lauryn being involved in travel sports would send them into poverty real quick.

[u/MsTrippp → u/pandorabach66]

I think they mentioned he didn’t even have a phone at one point but yeah change the number get him an android phone where you can manage the settings so he can only receive messages from people on the contact lists , with android you can even remove the messaging app too

[u/No-Flower-4751 → u/pandorabach66]

I will say I also would have wanted to keep my phone number and get to the bottom of who it was that was sending the texts. The things that were said it was obvious it was someone they knew from the beginning so I wouldn’t be able to just change my phone number and let that go.

Not to mention, now that we know it was Kendra she likely would have just gotten ahold of his new phone number somehow, seeing as she for SURE would have just kept texting Lauryn regardless of a new phone number cuz it’s her daughter ofc she knows her number.

[u/ImGonnaCreamYaFunny → u/No-Flower-4751]

Exactly, she even said this in the documentary. She didn't just want to make the texts stop, she wanted to know who was saying that nasty shit to her kid. She said something like, "I want to know who it is, what if they're someone I've invited into our home?". She was wanting to get to the root of the issue so she didn't accidentally let the person have access to her child, and the cops didn't care because they thought it was just kids talking shit to each other.

[u/No-Flower-4751 → u/ImGonnaCreamYaFunny]

Ugh what’s wild is she was letting that person into her home too and had no idea. Apparently this is becoming more common than we thought, I went down 2 tiktok rabbit holes of people in random places in the US not Michigan but the same thing happened to them but with close friends parents and it’s like a push to make laws stronger cuz MI is one of the few states that actually recognizes stalking against minors as a worse crime than stalking adults.

[u/Icy_Independent7944 → u/pandorabach66]

Just said same regarding the number change thing. 👍🏼

[u/iridescent_felines → u/pandorabach66]

I don’t understand why Owen apparently hates Lauryn now – because she still loves her mom or he thinks she has something to do with it, or he’s just taking it out on her??

[u/Zissou_Belafonte → u/iridescent_felines]

I think It’s easier to stop speaking to someone when it’s not your own mom, so I could see him not wanting anything to do with Lauryn if she’s still talking to her mom and then that brings up resentment of its own towards Lauryn

[u/CowFinancial7000 → u/pandorabach66]

As a man with financial problems in a small town Sean was probably thinking that he had to keep his head down and work to keep the roof over their heads. He trusted Kendra to manage the finances and the phone situation. I'm not sure he knew how bad the texts got because he believed his wife was handling it.

I know what its like to be hardcore betrayed by someone you trust. In hindsite all of the fishy stuff seems obvious, but when you trust someone you don't question what they're telling you. It isn't even a "trust but verify". Its "This person who is my best friend/spouse is telling me X, why would they lie to me?"

[u/otherwise_data → u/pandorabach66]

when your kid comes to you after a YEAR of these messages, you dont take the phone and you dont go to the police???

[u/CaptainCatButt → u/pandorabach66]

In the cut article they mention that they did change Owen's number but that he kept receiving messages after joining group chats.

Their reasoning for not removing his phone entirely was that it was his only way to connect with friends, coordinate sports dates (apparently)