As parents, there is often a short list of people we trust with our children. Because of that, it can be frustrating and scary when they break that trust. A woman in Australia had to grapple with that after a family friend betrayed her trust. She discovered her friend alone with her young daughter in a compromising situation.
And while she doesn’t believe anything inappropriate happened, she’s still concerned about how to handle her feelings.
More from CafeMom: Couple Charged With ‘Horrific Crimes’ Against Baby Police Found Nearly Dead in a Motel Room
Even before she knew something had happened, she felt uneasy.
The woman’s story was shared on popular Australian parenting site Kid Spot. She explained that she asked her mother-in-law to watch her children while she worked.
“I’d only done a couple of hours of work when I got this uneasy feeling and wanted to pick up my kids,” the mom wrote. “I don’t know if you’d call it a mother’s instinct or what, but I just felt like I needed to collect them.”
When she got to her MIL’s home and asked where her 6-year-old daughter was, she was told the little girl was “in the bath” with family friend “Amanda.” They had been swimming in the pool “all morning.”
The mom admitted that at first, she didn’t “get upset” at the idea. She “assumed” that both Amanda and her daughter were still wearing their bathing suits. Because of this she “didn’t even knock” when she entered the bathroom.
Unfortunately, she couldn’t have anticipated what she saw.
When she got into the bathroom, she saw her family friend “standing there with a towel wrapped around her naked body.” Her 6-year-old was “still in the shower without clothes on.”
She describes herself as feeling “stunned.”
When she was able to regain her composure and ask what was happening, Amanda told her, “we just got out of the pool and so we jumped in the shower.”
Everything changed in that moment.
“I stood there frozen looking at her, then down at my daughter. I felt sick to my stomach,” the mom wrote.
She quickly got her daughter out of the shower, adding that her “hands were shaking” while she got the girl dressed. Throughout it all, her daughter “seemed completely fine and was unaware” of mom’s concerns.
More from CafeMom: I Was Afraid of the Answer but I’m Glad I Asked My Daughter if She Was Being Abused
The mom had to grapple with her feelings.
After the shower incident, the mom spoke with her husband. He called the behavior “a bit off,” but also admitted he thought his wife was overreacting.
However, the more time the mom sat with it, “the angrier I became.”
“I would never ever in a million years get in the shower with someone else’s child. Not even my own nieces,” she said.
And while she claims, “I don’t for a second think that she’s a [pedophile],” she said the situation was “still inappropriate and wrong. It’s too familiar, too intimate.”
It’s caused her to reevaluate her relationship with her family friend.
Naturally, the mom sat down to talk with her daughter, asking the girl if anything happened. The little one reiterated that they had been in the pool, and afterward, got in the shower to rinse off.
“I explained to her that her body is her own and that she has the right to privacy, and that no one should shower with her,” the mom said. “We talked more about personal boundaries, too, and about trusting your gut if something feels off.”
She said she’s only seen her family friend one time since the shower incident. She confessed that the interaction was “very awkward,” and knew that if she wanted to continue the relationship, she would “need to sit her down and explain some basic boundaries.”
“But the fact that I have to shows I really don’t know her at all,” she said.
