I Was That Daughter
I smiled at breakfast. I said "I'm fine" every time I was asked. I went to school, came home, ate dinner, and said goodnight, and everyone at home believed my world was perfectly okay.
It wasn't.
I grew up in a home where we talked about school, chores, and church, but never once about boys.
So when a boy first showed interest in me at fifteen, I didn't run home to tell my mother or my father. I already knew what would happen if I did. I knew the shouting. I knew the shame. So I said nothing, and I carried it alone.
Around that same time, I watched my friend go through the exact same thing, except she went straight home and told her mother. They sat on the bed and talked it through. No shouting. Just two people figuring it out together.
I remember the ache I felt watching them. Not jealousy. Longing.
Because I didn't have that.
So, like most girls without a safe place to ask, I went looking for answers somewhere else, friends, older girls, the internet, and slowly, without even realizing it, I was walking toward a mistake that could have changed the entire direction of my life.
I grew up and made a decision.
No daughter should have to go through what I went through, alone, afraid, and searching for answers in all the wrong places. That decision became this book.
“"Your daughter is not hiding things because she doesn't love you. She is hiding because she doesn't feel safe telling you. There is a difference."
