A Valiant Effort

“Mrs. Norman…” I said and she turned around.

“Jillian! Where’s Lydia?” She asked as she took a sip.

“She’s in her room.” I tried to remain polite but I needed to be a bulldog right now. Lydia needed me to.

“She should be out here entertaining you. I’ll go get her.” She started to walk away.

“Mrs. Norman, what you’re doing to Lydia is going to ruin the rest of her time in school, maybe even her life. She’s not strong enough to handle this and even if she was this is still an overreaction.”

She turned back and looked ready to scream. I could tell what she was thinking. She wanted to question my judgment, make me feel immature and inexperienced like she always does with Lydia, but the problem of viewing me as the perfect daughter was that she didn’t have any leverage in that regard.

“Jillian, she humiliated our family. She was caught giving oral sex to a boy in school. Do you know what that’s going to do to our family’s reputation? She needs to be punished.”

I nodded.

“Maybe she needs to be punished, but going naked to school is excessive. She’s going to be bullied and humiliated.”

She took another sip.

“She needs to know the consequences and toughen up. She’s not the first person who’s received this punishment, it’s an option that’s on the table according to my judgment.”

I tried to treat her like she was a reasonable person, but she wasn’t being reasonable.

“This would be the first time since 1977 it’s been used in our district and it was done for one day against a boy who caught peeping in the girl’s locker room. That actually makes sense as a lesson and the boy got to have a normal life after. A lot has been changed since then like computers and the internet. There will be pictures that follow her for the rest of her life. She won’t be able to find a job or meet anyone who can’t find out what happened to her from a simple Google search. More importantly though, she’s your daughter and she may never forgive you for this.”

She took another sip and paused.

“This is a Christian household and I am not raising a slut. She will attend as we have decided and she will learn and grow from this. She doesn’t need a job she’ll be a housewife so that won’t effect her. I know she’ll thank me one day.”

It was clear she wouldn’t drop this for Lydia’s sake so I had to change strategies.