TEACHING RESPECT — Mike
Domitrz, a nationally recognized authority on healthy
dating
and sexual assault awareness, speaks to middle
school students at St. Mary School in Hales Corners
in April. Domitrz is a member of St. Mary Parish,
Hales Corners. (Catholic Herald photo by Sam Lucero)
HALES
CORNERS — Society bombards us with messages
about sexuality. Scantily clad celebrities and television
programs and movies laden with sexually suggestive
scenes are commonplace.
Take heart, however. Though our popular culture sends out complex and confusing
signals, parents can focus on basic issues of respect and consent to help our
kids make the right decisions.
To help clarify issues, Mike Domitrz, husband, father of four and a parishioner
at St. Mary Parish in Hales Corners, has spoken on dating, respect and sexual
assault to youth in middle school through college, and even professional athletes,
for 14 years.
His journey began in 1989 at college in Chicago, where a call from home “abruptly
halted his world.”
“ My mom called to tell me that my sister, Cheri, had been brutally raped,” Domitrz
recalled. The ensuing two years would take him from “wanting to kill my
sister’s rapist to questioning myself and saying, ‘Am I any better?’”
Catholic
Herald Parenting is a supplement of the Catholic Herald
published eight times annually, September to May. It is
intended to help parents pass on the Catholic faith to
their children.
