I Still Don't Know What I Would Have Said

but I wish I would have said it

The pool is pretty much my happy place. It's my piece of heaven on earth.

I love my town, my mountain, my church, my people, and really love my pool. 

At 39, I’m finally building my happy place. 

But tonight, a black cloud rolled over my happy place. Literally and figuratively. 

And I just got home and I felt sucker punched with it and I think I'm still trying to process it. 

I'm so angry, for so many reasons. Y’all. I don’t usually struggle with words but I’m gonna have to write this way that in thinking it. Which is…an emotional mess. 

I'm angry at the stranger, I'm angry at myself, and I'm angry that I missed my daughters race after standing in the rain for two freaking hours because of what just happened. 

I guess I should probably explain. 

I was standing there waiting for Holland to swim when I heard a little kid crying. Not a super uncommon thing at 9 o'clock during a swim meet. 
But because it’s a cry and I am a mother, I turned to see what was happening. A child, maybe five, was having a hard time dealing with things, which seemed reasonable to me. 

The thing had been going on for four hours already. Never mind that it was 66° outside and raining nonstop and the kids had been in and out of the water, probably not eating very much, definitely exhausted, and wrapped up in wet towels. So the kid was crying. 

But his dad, who I guess was also having a hard time handling his big feelings, didn’t like that he was crying. So he got down in the face of his son and gave him a shake that clearly meant “straighten up before things get bad” here. 

That was a trigger I hadn’t seen since childhood, and I found myself dissociating as my daughter dove into the water.

By the time Holland came running up to me, wearing her cozy shark onesie, I hugged her and watched over her tiny little shoulder as this man started hitting his child. 

“Spanking.”

Okay. 

It made loud sounds. The child was screaming with every strike. It was the kind of spanking that only comes from anger, because there was one hit with every syllable. And I watched, as he hit this child no less than six times and then gave him that look that made me think maybe things get bad in a lot worse way when there's not 200 people watching. 

Holland asked if the child was okay, and I’m pretty sure she knew that none of this was okay, and she was looking for me to say, no sweetie it’s fine, don’t worry, but I could not do that.

Because I know better. 

No baby, that is not okay. It’s not okay at all. 

I won’t sleep tonight. I feel accountable for not speaking up and at the very least making that man feel ashamed. I don’t know who I was trying to protect, because my feelings shouldn’t have mattered.

I broke the golden rule of child abuse prevention tonight. “When you see something, say something.”

And before you come at me like “it’s not abuse if it’s legal” let me assure you that I don’t give a shit about penal codes. Not a single child advocate defines abuse against what is permitted by law. From a legal standpoint, our country is extremely dangerous for children. Child marriage is legal in 43 states. So, yah.

Let’s not talk about “legal”.

Every body of science, every academic consensus, and EVERY OTHER DEVELOPED COUNTRY calls spanking what it is:

ABUSE. 

And before you reach for the block button let me be clear. 

I’ve done it.

It was abuse.

As a SURVIVOR of abuse do you know how horrible it feels to admit that I didn’t know better. 

But here’s the thing: now I do.

I should’ve spoken up. Somebody should have.

I’m sorry it wasn’t me, kiddo.