Slice of Life
The month of January, where we advocate for the unborn, and bring awareness to the scourge of human trafficking, it is imperative that we pay attention to what our gut us telling us...that is a mother's intuition!
My children are now adults, but when they were 2, 4, and 5yrs old we had them enrolled in a lovely little Christian school. At the end of the year, the school brought in a national chain who takes school pictures.
As a part-time enrichment teacher there, I was on the list to go at the end of the day with my children, just like the other teachers, in-order to take a family photo.
For some reason I was placed last with my children, and the principal who had stayed for every other teacher's photos, did not stay for me and my children with the photographer.
This photographer made the hair stand up on the back of my neck the minute I met him. Something was off. He refused to look me in the eyes or respond to my questions without a scowl.
He picked my 2 year old up by her ankles and hung her upside down in her dress while I was getting the coat on my 5 year old daughter, bopping her up and down like a toy.
I grabbed her away from him and while I was putting her coat on, he chased my 4 year old son out of the room and down the hall. I'd never been so scared.
Grabbing my girls hands and running down the hall to find my son, I found this man grabbing my son's ankles and pulling him down and under a table he was hiding behind.
I was shaking at this point, and petrified. This man was on his knees. He wrapped my son in his arms, and finally looked me in the eyes and said, "Where's the duct tape?" There is no-one that could ever convince me that I was not encountering evil that day.
The teachers aid in my daughter's class had a similar experience with the same man the prior year, and was told to leave the room when she expressed to the principal that she thought he was being inappropriate with the children.
If others choose to ignore signs of evil, signs of grooming, you must stand up and speak the truth. I was treated like a pariah from that moment forward for shedding light on this man, and sadly we felt we no longer belonged in a school we had loved.
There was no amount of shunning though, that would have kept me from speaking the truth. Just remember that you don't need permission to protect your child, or someone else's child...ever! This is one of those moments when I was "swimming upstream," and I would do it all over again if I had to!
~ Karen ~
