Sleepovers terrify me. Especially now that I am a mom. Kids are exposed to so much and if the sleepover isn’t at my house, how do I know the type of supervision they’re getting? Sometimes parents being in the house to supervise can also be a problem, unfortunately.

When I was 12, in middle school, I often slept over at a friends house. She was 2 or 3 years older than me, but I pretty much have always had friends that are older than me. Usually we slept in her room, falling asleep to the same Bring It On movie that we could recite every word to we’d watched it so many times. This specific night, we watched a movie in the living room with her parents and her little sister. We had made one big bed in front of the TV on the floor with blankets and pillows. It was a scary movie called “Candy Man” which is ironic.. I know. It was a scary movie and we were of course being dramatic girls squealing and coving our eyes at times.

After the movie was over, we put on a funny movie to “unscare” ourselves, and we all ended up falling asleep. Or so I guess I thought. My friends dad was not lying directly next to me. Between him and I was her little sister. I had never had any sort of strange or uncomfortable interaction with him before that night.

In the middle of the night, I was woke up by him rubbing my thigh. I gradually woke up, and when I realized what was happening, I was frozen. I started sweating and didn’t know what the right things to do was. I continued to lay still and try to keep my breathing calm so he didn’t know I was awake. Do I just pretend like I’m still sleeping?? Was that going to get it to stop or would that just prolong this? What was his plan? When would this end?

After several minutes, I faked a few coughs and dramatically wiggled around, hoping to wake up my friend next to me, and make it seems like I was doing this in my sleep, unprompted. Thankfully, it did indeed wake up my friend and the rest of the family. I stated “I don’t feel good, my stomach really hurts” avoiding any sort of eye contact with the dad. My friend suggested we move to her room and she would get a glass of water for me. We moved into her room and I tried my best to sleep, but of course, I didn’t feel safe. First thing the next morning, I called my mom to come get me.

To this day I have never reported that or have really even told anyone. I never stayed the night at her house again and I just started distancing myself from her, and eventually her family moved away.

Sleepovers will definitely be something that will realistically come up in the future with my kids. But it is my job to make sure they are safe and never put in a situation where they are taken advantage of. I will be the “mean” or “strict” parent every time, if it means my babies are safe.

-Kenz