Movies on Lifetime do an exceptional job of causing its audience to walk away with a heavy heart when they portray the sad reality of child abuse. We watch, teary eyed, as innocent children are tortured with no way of knowing how to escape. All we want is to reach into the television screen to rescue the victim. However, a whole new feeling arises when you witness it in real life. When we are thrown in front of the situation, many suddenly question, “Is this any of my business?” Last year, I was an eyewitness to an incident which took the phrase, “That’s none of my business,” out of my vocabulary forever when it comes to child abuse.
I was at the happiest place on Earth — Disney World. A place where all kids are supposed to be smiley and hopped up on sugar from eating too many Mickey-shaped snacks. A place where kids are supposed to be kids.
I went to the restroom with my aunt. As expected, the line was just as long as the ones for the rides. We were waiting silently when all of a sudden a loud banging noise erupted from the back of the bathroom. It was ignored, as people thought someone had just dropped something. But a few moments later, it persisted. The same violent noise over and over again like someone was hitting pots and pans together. This time everyone on line started looking at each other, more confused than anything. As the noise continued, all the women in the bathroom started listening more closely. We all heard the faint whimper of a child.
At this point everyone in the room had figured out what was going on and their hands were covering their mouths in shock. By the sounds, this was not just a child getting spanked for talking back. There was a child suffering a full on beating behind this bathroom stall door.
All the women exchanged looks of, "What do we do?" To be honest, we were hesitant to do anything at at all — if she could hit her child, she probably would have no issue hitting one of us. The hitting continued.
“Mommy, please stop.”
OK, this was the last straw.
One mother on line, half teary eyed and half red in the face from anger, stormed over to the bathroom stall and began pounding on the door.
“Are you abusing your daughter?!”
There was no response.
“How dare you lay your hand on your daughter like that?!”
One spark starts a fire. Everyone on line began to antagonize the mother.
“Yeah lady, come on out and show your face!”
One by one, everyone in line approached the door and began to bang on it, urging her to exit the stall. As this was happening, me and my aunt ran out to notify Disney security so they could handle the situation properly. We gave security their location and a description of the abusive mother’s shoes — since that was all we could see.
Eventually the mother elbowed her way passed the crowd of women banging on the door, dragging her frazzled little daughter out with her. Immediately security approached them.
Honestly, the little girl probably thought we were the bad guys for getting her mommy in trouble. She has been taught that anything that her mother does to her was deserved. But whether or not our actions were appreciated by anyone isn’t what is important at all.
The point is, if you see a child getting abused, say something. As a young college student, it can be nerve-racking to approach this kind of situation directly, so report it. Whether or not this girl is still with her mother is unknown. But, what everyone does know is that we won’t be kept awake at night wondering, "What if I had spoken up?” Because we all did.
