Monday Claire came home from her friend's house a little upset. She had been over at her bff Lady's house practicing for the Pop Show coming up in choir. No that is not really her name but that is what I am going to call her. Anyway, I had texted her earlier asking if she was eating with us that evening or over there. She responded and said there so I began putting everything away. Not even 10 minutes later she came home and said Lady's dad sent her home because he was screaming at Lady about her uniform for Silver Air Patrol. I asked Claire if she even got to eat and she said some soup so I warmed her up some of our leftovers.
While she ate she continued to tell me how it really upset her that Lady's Dad treated her so badly. Now I personally have seen him get in her face and scream at her, literally spit flying from his mouth. I have talked to Bryan about it and he told me not to get involved. I was happy when the parents seperated for awhile and he moved out but they have since reconciled and he is back. Claire said he screams at her, hits her, spanks her with the belt but often misses and ends up hitting her on her legs. She said she had seen the marks. My heart went out to this girl because I had been in her shoes with my Mom. I asked if he was the same way with Lady's brother and she said sometimes but Lady gets the worst of it. I told Claire if she wanted us to help her we could but I didn't want to step in and call CPS right away because I know once you get them involved, it is hard to get them out of your business.
Claire said she would text Lady and let her know and share that I had been through this too and I wanted to help her. Lady texted back that she wanted to talk to me about it in the morning so I said I would take her to school with us. She went on to text other horrible things he had been doing like pushing her, slapping her in the face, and calling her a bitch and a whore. No one should be treated this way, especially not a child!
I did talk with her the next morning as we drove to school. She said her Dad knew he had a problem and that he said he was going to start going to counseling. He said he behaved that way because he was raised my the marines. I told her that was no excuse and it was clear her Dad had an anger management issue. She agreed and I told her she could start hanging out more at our house so she wasn't always with him, especially when her Mom wasn't home. She said it was a little better when she was home but she was only off 2 days out of 7.
I mentioned what was going on to someone I work with and they told me I needed to call CPS because by law, if I know abuse is happening, I have to report it. But yesterday after school, Lady told Claire to tell me how much my talk helped and also how great it was to know someone was there looking out for her. I also offered to take her to school for the rest of the year and she took me up on that. Bryan and I are going to give it a week or two to see how things progress and if things still aren't better, then we will reach out to CPS because like I told Lady, she should not have to grow up being treated like this.
*When we took her to school yesterday, she seemed so very sad. This morning, she seemed a little better though.*
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