A 4-year-old little girl went to school one day and got hit in the face with a rock. She was so badly hurt that her mom had to take her to the emergency room for stitches. Traumatized both physically and emotionally, they went to check in when they arrived at the hospital. Standing there with a swollen eye, bruised and clearly hurting, the man behind the desk looked at this 4-year-old and said, “I bet he likes you.”
Somehow I think this man believed that he was being of comfort to this child; somewhere in his life he had learned or come up with the equation, that a girl being hit hard enough in the face to require stitches, meant that the perpetrator “liked” her. It is truly horrifying that an injured, impressionable young girl would ever receive such a terrible message.
The fact that any adult would tell a child that being hurt by someone was a sign of affection is just so disturbing. We all know that children hit each other when they are young, and part of our job as adults is to teach them that hitting is not an acceptable way of expressing their emotions. It should never be tolerated or rationalized. Her mom, who was outraged by the man’s comment wrote the following:
Source: Merritt Smith
This was posted on Facebook, and really says it all. “I bet he likes you” are not words of comfort at any age. Would he actually say those words if a young woman came in battered and needing stitches? Is it ever okay for a girl or woman to rationalize abuse as being a sign of affection?
The answer is a clear NO. The same answer applies to boys and men. In the video below watch the responses of little boys when they are asked questions about aggression towards girls.
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