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I didn't realize my brothers were molesting me until I was 26 years old and my daughter just turned 5. I know how that sounds. How do you not know? How do you not realize something like that is happening to you? But that's the thing about being a child. I didn’t have words for what's happening. I didn’t have context. I didn’t have anything to compare it to. I didn’t know something felt wrong, but everyone around me was acting like everything was normal. So I start to think maybe I’m the problem. Maybe I’m the one who's broken. I bring this up because I was at my daughter's kindergarten parent night when another mom asked me, "Do your kids do sleepovers with cousins?" A bit confused on why she was asking me that.. I said no. She looked confused. "Even with family?" I said, "Especially with family." She gave me that look. The one I've gotten used to over the years. The "you're one of those overprotective moms" look. The "you're being dramatic" look. The "what could possibly happen at grandma's house" look. I didn't explain. I never do. Because here's what I never told anyone. Not my friends. Not my coworkers. Not even my husband for the first two years we were together. My two older brothers abused me throughout my childhood. It started when I was 5. Maybe earlier. I don't have clear memories before that. Just feelings. Feelings of something being wrong. Feelings of wanting to disappear. Feelings of shame that I couldn't explain. We lived in a normal middle-class home. Two-story house in a nice neighborhood. My parents both had full-time jobs. We went to church on Sundays. We had family dinners. From the outside, we looked like the perfect American family. But behind closed bedroom doors, my brothers were doing things to me that I didn't have words for. I was 5. They were 9 and 11. They told me it was a game. They told me it was normal. They told me all siblings did this. And I believed them. Because I was 5. Because they were my big brothers. Because I didn't know any different. As I got older, the "games" changed. Got worse. But by then, I was trapped. Because now they had a new weapon. "If you tell mom and dad, they'll think you're disgusting. They'll think you wanted it. They'll give you away." I was 7 years old and I believed that if I told my parents what was happening, they would throw me away like garbage. That I would lose my family. That I would be alone. So I didn't tell. Not when I was 7. Not when I was 10. Not when I was 13 and it finally stopped because my oldest brother moved out. I just... buried it. I told myself it wasn't that bad. I told myself I was making a big deal out of nothing. I told myself that since I couldn't remember all of it clearly, maybe it didn't really happen the way I thought it did. I spent my entire teenage years feeling like something was fundamentally wrong with me. I was depressed but I didn't know why. I flinched when boys touched me but I didn't know why. I had nightmares but I didn't know why. I sat in therapy at 16, at 19, at 22, trying to figure out why I felt so broken. I never told any of them what happened. I didn't have the words. And honestly, I still wasn't sure if what happened was "bad enough" to talk about. That's what abuse does to you. It makes you question your own reality. It makes you minimize your own pain. It makes you think that what happened to you doesn't count because it wasn't violent enough or because it was family or because you didn't fight back. I tried to tell my mom once. I was 23. We were in her kitchen and I don't know what came over me, but I just started talking. I told her that my brothers had done things to me when I was little. That I'd been carrying it for almost 20 years. She put down the dish she was washing. She looked at me. And she said, "That doesn't sound like something your brothers would do. Are you sure you're not remembering it wrong?" That was it. That was all she said. I never brought it up again. I spent the next three years trying to convince myself that maybe she was right. Maybe I was remembering it wrong. Maybe I made it all up. Maybe I was crazy. But the body keeps score. That's what my therapist told me later. Your mind can try to forget, but your body remembers. The flinching. The nightmares. The panic attacks when someone touches you unexpectedly. The way you can't be in a room alone with certain people without your heart racing. My body remembered what my mind tried to bury. Then I met my husband. And for the first time, I told someone everything. I was terrified he would leave. That he would think I was damaged goods. That he would look at me differently. He held me while I cried for three hours. He told me it wasn't my fault. He told me he loved me. And slowly, I started to believe that maybe I wasn't broken. Maybe I was just a little girl who had something terrible happen to her and never got the help she needed. We got married. I got pregnant. And when I found out I was having a daughter, something shifted in me. I was terrified. Not of being a mom. I was terrified of having a daughter. Of bringing a little girl into a world where the people who are supposed to protect you can be the ones who hurt you. Where your own family can be the danger. She was born on a Tuesday morning, 6 pounds 4 ounces, and the moment they put her in my arms, I made a promise. A promise that whatever happened to me would never happen to her. That I would protect her in ways no one protected me. But I didn't know how. The first few years were okay. She was always with me. I could watch her every second. I could control who touched her, who held her, who was alone with her. Then she turned 3. Then 4. Then 5. And I started to panic. Because 5 was the age I was when it started. I would look at her, this tiny little person with her pigtails and her missing teeth and her complete trust in the world, and I would think about myself at that age. How small I was. How innocent I was. How I had no idea what was about to happen to me. And I would cry. In the shower. In the car. At night after she went to bed. I would cry for 5-year-old me who had no one to protect her. But I couldn't let my fear become her prison. I couldn't keep her locked in a bubble forever. She needed to go to school. She needed to have friends. She needed to live her life. I just needed her to have something I never had. Words. I needed her to know what was okay and what wasn't. I needed her to know that her body belonged to her. I needed her to know that she could say no to anyone even family. even adults. even people she loved. I needed her to know that if something felt wrong, she should tell me immediately. Not in 20 years. Immediately. But I had no idea how to teach her all of that without scaring her. Without dumping my trauma on her. Without making her afraid of every person she met. I didn't want her to grow up afraid. I wanted her to grow up informed. That's when I found Safe Kids Path. It's embarrassing but I was sitting in the target parking lot after getting groceries and just taking a minute to scroll on Facebook. This post came up from a mom talking about body safety books. I almost kept scrolling but she said her 5 year old daughter shut down something inappropriate.. She used words from these books they started reading. The kid actually said something and then told her mom right away. I sat in that parking lot for like 20 minutes going down a rabbit hole reading everything about it. Then I ordered them before I even started the car. I didn't even tell my husband. I just needed them. When they arrived, I read through them myself first. I sat on my bed and I read every page, and I cried. Because these books taught everything I wished someone had taught me. Correct body terms. Boundaries. How to say no. What manipulation looks like. That secrets about bodies should never be kept. That uncomfortable feelings get reported immediately. If I had known this at 5, everything might have been different. If someone had given me these words, I might have told. I might have been saved years of abuse. Years of silence. Years of thinking I was broken. But I couldn't go back and save 5-year-old me. I could only protect 5-year-old her. So I started reading them to my daughter at bedtime. She loved them immediately. She asks for them almost every night. She thinks they're just fun stories with silly rhymes. She has no idea she's learning how to protect herself. She has no idea that while she's laughing at the illustrations, she's absorbing lessons that could save her life. She now knows the correct words for her body parts. Not silly nicknames. Real words. Words that would let her clearly explain to a doctor or a teacher or a police officer exactly what happened if something ever did. She knows her body belongs to her. Not to me. Not to her dad. Not to her grandparents. Not to anyone. Her body is hers. She knows she can say NO to anyone. Even adults. Even family. Even people she loves. And that no one has the right to be upset with her for protecting her own body. She knows that if anyone ever tells her to keep a secret about her body, that's a red flag. That's exactly when she should tell me. Not keep it to herself for 20 years like I did. She knows that uncomfortable feelings get reported immediately. That she doesn't have to figure out if it was "bad enough." That she just has to tell me and I'll help her figure out the rest. She's not scared. She's informed. Last month at my sister's house, my brother-in-law thought it would be funny to flip up my daughter's dress in front of everyone. "Just joking around," he said. Laughing. Before I could even react, my daughter pulled her dress down, stepped back, and said, "That's my private area. You're not allowed to look there." Dead silence. Then she walked straight over to me and said Uncle David lifted my dress and tried to see my underwear. That's not okay, right?" She's 5 years old. She didn't laugh it off. She didn't freeze. She didn't wait until bedtime to tell me. She shut it down and reported it in front of everyone within 30 seconds. My brother-in-law tried to laugh it off. "I was just playing, she's so dramatic." I looked at him and said, "She's not dramatic. She's informed." We left. I couldn't do that at 5. I couldn't do that at 15. I couldn't even do that at 25. But she can. Because she has words. My brothers stole my voice when I was little. They made me think that what was happening was normal. That I would be thrown away if I told. That my silence was the price of keeping my family. These books gave my daughter her voice before anyone could take it. She will never sit in a therapist's office at 22 wondering why she feels broken. She will never question if what happened to her was "bad enough" to talk about. She will never carry a secret for 20 years because she didn't have words to tell. That doesn't mean I let her go everywhere. I'm still careful. I still watch. I still protect. But now when she is away from me at school, at a friend's house, at a family gathering, she has protection I never had. She has language. She has permission to say no. She has a voice. I didn't have the words. My daughter will never have that problem. You don't have to tell anyone your story. But you can make sure your child never has to live it. These books gave my daughter everything I didn't have. And she thinks they're just bedtime stories. So here is the link for you 💛 https://safekidspath.com/products/child-body-safety-protection-system