A Mom Tells Parents To 'Trust Your Gut' After Her Bad Feeling About Her Neighbor Turned Out To Be True
Our gut feeling is always there for a reason.
Nutlegal Photograogher / Shutterstock Have you ever felt a pervasive sense of dread when you see a certain person but had trouble putting your finger on why? This may be your gut instincts urging you to beware of this person and that there may be a sinister nature about them.
It is important that we always trust our gut instincts when they tell us that something is off about a particular situation or person.
One mother is proving just how essential it is to trust your gut after she felt uneasy about one of her neighbors who invited her daughter inside. She was unable to shake the feeling, and shortly after interacting with her neighbor, she discovered why.
The mother said that she suspected her neighbor was not as genuine as he seemed after he invited her daughter into his house to help bathe his dog.
Sharing her story to the subreddit r/amiwrong, the mother said that she and her husband live in a “very nice” and generally safe neighborhood with their two children, ages 7 and 3.
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Their 7-year-old daughter often walks down the street to her friend’s house to play, and most of the time, they allow her to walk alone while the mother keeps an eye on her from the front yard.
One day, as the woman watched her daughter walk down to her friend’s house and then start heading back once she realized she wasn’t home, she noticed that the little girl had stopped in front of another neighbor’s driveway and appeared to be chatting with someone inside.
“Honestly, at the moment, I thought nothing of it,” the woman wrote. “I know these neighbors; they have two adorable golden retrievers they walk often and love the young girls in the neighborhood.”
Photo: Anna Lurye / Shutterstock
The woman went inside briefly to check on her toddler, assuming that once she returned, her daughter would be back.
However, when she went back outside and saw that her daughter still hadn’t returned, her “mom instincts” kicked in, and she feared that something might be wrong. The woman left their toddler with her husband while she ventured down the street to search for their daughter.
When she arrived at her neighbor’s house, she noticed that the house was dark and appeared vacant. Just as she began to panic, her neighbor answered the door.
“He’s so casual and then seems to sense I’m freaked out because he laughs it off and explains that one of the neighborhood girls was helping him give his dog a bath when my child happened by, and they all went into the garage to dry him off,” the woman wrote.
“He said he was just about to send the girls home since they were finishing up. I follow him in, and yep, there is a wet dog and two laughing little girls.”
Photo: Dmitry Berkut / Canva Pro
Although the man was acting politely, the woman still had an unsettling feeling about him.
“The house was quiet and I just got this feeling like danger was close, and I just sort of rushed the girls out of his house,” she shared. “I don’t even know if I said goodbye or was rude.”
Even after she got her daughter home safely, she could not shake the feeling.
“I was so shaken up that I was physically shaking, my teeth chattering,” she wrote. “I don’t know why, but I have this terrible feeling in my stomach that something nefarious is going on with this man.”
“My husband says my past is clouding things and making me see shadows in sunlight,” the woman wrote, revealing that she was groomed by a family member as a child.
Unable to let go of her feelings, the woman spoke with her neighbor’s wife and her daughter’s friend’s mother, telling both of them that the girls were in the house alone with the man.
While both interactions were normal, the woman’s intuition continued to tell her that something was wrong with her neighbor.
As it turned out, a week later, she discovered that her instincts were right.
The woman learned that her daughter’s friend had self-reported the neighbor for abuse.
In a follow-up Reddit post, the woman shared that her daughter’s friend’s mother had called her husband to inform him that her daughter reported that the neighbor had abused her.
“It’s all very early in the process, but it appears my instincts were spot on,” she wrote. “I haven’t seen or heard anything else, and I doubt I’ll update except for this one to say … sometimes it’s right to trust our instincts. I had a bad feeling, and I’m glad I spoke up.”
While she feels heartbroken and disgusted on behalf of her daughter’s friend, the woman, and her husband decided to take their daughter out for the day so that they could have an open and meaningful conversation about it. This way, their daughter will know what behaviors to look out for in the future while interacting with adults she isn’t familiar with.
“This man is a monster if it’s true. He appeared so normal and kind,” the woman said of her neighbor.
Other Redditors applauded the mother for continuing to trust her instincts even though nobody else believed her in the beginning.
Her story serves as a crucial reminder to teach children the importance of stranger danger.
We often hear horror stories where children are lured into strangers’ vans or homes after they bribe them with the promise of candy or toys.
Like the woman’s neighbor, they can also use their pets and even other children to set the false impression that they are a safe person to be around.
When talking to children about safety, it is best to start off by teaching them important rules when they are around strangers. These rules include not accepting gifts or rides from strangers, not sharing personal information with strangers, and always staying in sight when playing outside.
Let your child know they can always come to you with questions or concerns about strangers or their safety.
Most importantly, remind them to trust their own gut instincts. They could just save themselves, or someone else, from harm.
If you or someone you know has been the victim of sexual assault, harassment, or violence, you are not alone. Call the National Sexual Assault Hotline 24/7 at 800.656.HOPE (4673) or chat online at RAINN.
Megan Quinn is a writer at YourTango who covers entertainment and news, self, love, and relationships.