I'm exhausted. Just finished catching up on 28 pages. Now we have to wait for the next airing of this in court except if he makes bail! Thank you to all you wonderful people for sharing your horrible experiences. I am so happy that you have all come out of it at the other end as caring people. God bless you all.
bbm ~ :thinking:. lol!
May I share one please? When I was a little girl, 1st or 2nd grade, I always walked home with my neighbor who was one grade up - so two little girls walking home from school together. That's how it was back then.
One day, the only day, we stopped by my friend's classmate's house which was along our route home. The boy and his brother had been walking with us. Here's the part I can't put together though, where was the boys' mother when we got to their house?
We entered their house with them and there they had a little sister who was a toddler - I'd say under two years old for sure.
One of the boys wanted to show us something and the other one joined in while they took their little sister's diaper off and located her vagina with a finger. They were laughing as they showed their discovery to us.
As soon as this happened, I pulled my friend's arm to leave and we did. I knew instinctively what was happening was wrong and wanted out of there. I was so young (not much older than Jenise) that I didn't know what to call whatever happened but knew I didn't like it. That was it though. I never told anyone and didn't think about it again until much later when the memory surfaced. At that point, I wondered and worried about the little sister and if, in her life, she continued being abused by her two brothers whose ages were a year apart from one another. When this happened, I don't think the brothers were thinking about a sexual act. I believe they found out their little sister was different than they were but wonder why they would show this to girls close to their own ages?
My point of telling this is, if you are raising a family with several siblings close in age (or not), if they are mixed gender, keep an eye on them and don't let boys spend time alone with little baby girls who aren't verbal or can't defend themselves. The scenario kind of haunts me and I hope it was a phase and those boys didn't progress to doing worse behaviors to their little sister. I truly don't think, at the point this happened, their behavior was sexually driven but was definitely a boundary violation to the baby girl.
What mother would think her seven or eight year old sons would think to do that to her baby daughter?
Plus, I still can't figure out why the mom wasn't home while the baby sister was home when we arrived there. Maybe she went upstairs or downstairs and they knew she'd be awhile because their actions happened quickly and we left immediately. I knew immediately something was wrong with the picture before me but wouldn't have been able to explain why. Sexuality was unknown to me back then. TV was pure and I was only child at that point. I hadn't heard good touch, bad touch or anything - not even stranger danger at that point.
These boys may just have been inquisitive I guess but they knew what they were showing us was somewhat scandalous because, well, I could just sense so as they giggled. And, if their mom had approached, I bet they knew to stop and cover-up what they were doing. Do people believe, if this behavior didn't continue beyond what I've described, the little girl would be cognitive of and damaged by what her brothers did to her? This has always bothered me but I couldn't/didn't process it until years and years after it already happened.
We really do carry crap around with us for as long as it takes to process the situation. Awareness can't hurt.
