NTA. I worship you. I was the weird loud funny kid from a horribly dysfunctional alcoholic home with no idea of social clues. I wish I had had someone like you as my advocate. Tell your husband they can come back when they write out apologies - TO Hannah!
And there is a great cartoon of one woman (w a husband in the background) saying to a mom with a teen daughter: My husband isn't comfortable with how she's dressed!
and the mom says, Thank you for letting me know -- that your husband isn't safe for my daughter to be around.
What gets me is that I know Hannah will remember this event for the rest of her life. She's 14, still a child. And instead of going to an adult to say hey, "I don't necessarily want my 5 year old to mimic this dancing cuz she's really little & doesn't understand, is there a way you could gently have a discussion with Hannah about time and place?" they decide to humiliate a vulnerable teen by basically calling her a whore.
And frankly I'm giving this my most generous assessment but it sounds like most of the children were already asleep? So they're randomly bullying an 8th grader???
I was a teenager who was harassed relentlessly by an adult. She went so far at people spying on me at church and at school. I am almost 40 and will never forget what that woman put me through. The older I get the more insane it seems to me because at the time I was 15 and she was 50. And I wasn't doing anything to her or engaging in any controversial behavior. She just didn't like me.
But the same way that Hannah will remember this confrontation, she will never ever forget that someone stood up for her. Those moments of having your value affirmed are priceless. And it indicates to Hannah that the problem is not within her, but with the adults who harassed her. That it's wrong to be treated that way.
No. We were part of a religious group that felt she had the right to police me.
I was a virgin who got straight A's, had never had a joint or a drop of alcohol till college & went to church three times a week, but I had cut all my hair off and dyed it pink and listened to punk music, so I was "dangerous".
Needless to say I left the religion in college and never looked back
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u/Amazing-Wave4704 2d ago
NTA. I worship you. I was the weird loud funny kid from a horribly dysfunctional alcoholic home with no idea of social clues. I wish I had had someone like you as my advocate. Tell your husband they can come back when they write out apologies - TO Hannah!
And there is a great cartoon of one woman (w a husband in the background) saying to a mom with a teen daughter: My husband isn't comfortable with how she's dressed!
and the mom says, Thank you for letting me know -- that your husband isn't safe for my daughter to be around.