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Sometimes a girl notices something about an adult that everybody else would rather not see.
You know what bothers me?
How quickly people can come up with an explanation for why a girl doesn’t like a man.
She misses her daddy.
She’s jealous of her mother’s new relationship.
She’s going through a rebellious phase.
She doesn’t want her mother to be happy.
She’s being dramatic.
My goodness. We have a whole collection of explanations ready before anybody has even asked that child what happened.
And notice something else.
The girl becomes the problem to solve. The grown man becomes the person everybody is trying to understand.
Now, why is that?
Sometimes Girls Notice What Adults Don’t
Children live with people differently than adults do.
A man might be charming around his girlfriend, helpful around relatives, and well-liked at church. He may be a completely different person when nobody else is paying attention.
A girl might notice how he speaks to her when her mother leaves the room. She might notice that he doesn’t respect a closed door. She might notice that his jokes make her uncomfortable.
Or she might simply feel uneasy around him and not know why.
That doesn’t automatically mean the man has done something wrong. But it does mean somebody ought to listen.
A child shouldn’t have to present a courtroom case before an adult takes her discomfort seriously.
We teach children to recognize danger, trust their observations, and speak up when something feels wrong.
Then some girls do exactly that.
And suddenly everybody wants to debate their attitude.
The Girls Whose Stories Deserve Our Attention
I want to mention girls and young women whose cases raise important questions about safety, family relationships, and the way adults interpret children’s experiences.
I’ll keep these descriptions brief. Survivors do not need to be overwhelmed with details to understand the lesson.
Bernadette Walker, England
Bernadette was 17 when she was murdered by her stepfather in 2020. She had disclosed abuse, and her diary described not being believed. Her case is a painful example of what can happen when a girl’s disclosure is dismissed.
Alissa Turney, Arizona
Alissa disappeared at 17 in 2001. Her stepfather’s controlling behavior became a focus of concern, and her disappearance was initially described as a runaway situation. Her stepfather was later acquitted of murder. Her case remains unresolved.
Aundria Bowman, Michigan
Aundria was 14 when she disappeared in 1989. Her family reported that she had run away. Decades later, her adoptive father admitted killing her. Her story shows why adults should be careful about accepting a runaway explanation without thoroughly investigating.
Anjelica “AJ” Hadsell, Virginia
Anjelica was 18 when she disappeared in 2015. Her stepfather was later convicted of her murder. Her case illustrates that serious danger can exist within a family, even when outsiders do not immediately recognize it. A prior warning from Anjelica has not been established in the sources considered here.
Jonneka Spencer, North Carolina
Jonneka was 14 when she was killed in 2006. Authorities identified her stepfather as responsible. Her case reminds us that a child’s home and family relationships cannot automatically be assumed safe. Available reporting does not establish that she previously disclosed concerns.
Katelin Akens, Virginia
Katelin disappeared at 19 in 2015. Her stepfather later faced allegations of sexual abuse involving Katelin and her sister. Those allegations must be distinguished from proven findings, and Katelin’s disappearance remains unresolved.
Erin Jenea Justice, Illinois
Erin Jenea Justice was a 16-year-old girl from the Chicago suburbs who was murdered in 2004. Her killer was the man her mother lived with, and he did it to keep her from testifying against him.
Background: Erin was born to Valerie and Frederick Justice in Joliet, Illinois, on March 1, 1988. She was a track athlete, and at the time of her death she was a student at Waubonsie Valley High School in Aurora, IL.
Why she was targeted: In early March 2004, Erin reported that Laurence Lovejoy had sexually assaulted her. Laurence Lovejoy was Erin’s stepfather. He had married her mother, Valerie Justice, only about four months before Erin was killed.
Prosecutors said he killed her to silence her after she went to authorities. Tests done on Erin before her death backed up her account and found Lovejoy’s DNA on her cheek and chest. Her mother refused to undermine her. Lovejoy asked Valerie to tell investigators that her daughter’s “story kept changing,” and she told him no, that she was going to support Erin.
The murder: Erin was killed on March 27, 2004, in the family’s Aurora townhouse. She was forced at knifepoint to drink lethal amounts of cold medication in an attempt to make her death look like a suicide. When she fought back, he stabbed and beat her and then drowned her in the bathtub. Her mother found her in the bathtub.
The legal outcome:
- In 2007 a DuPage County jury convicted Lovejoy and sentenced him to death, but the Illinois Supreme Court later overturned the verdict and ordered a new trial.
- He was convicted again at the retrial, and on March 15, 2011, he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The second jury declined to make him eligible for the death penalty. Illinois abolished the death penalty that same month.
Her case was later covered in an episode of the true-crime series The Monsters They Married, which features her mother, Valerie Justice, and other family members.
A note for anyone searching further: an unrelated man named Erin Justice was convicted in Detroit in 2015 for murdering his wife, Alicia Fox. Results about that case have nothing to do with Erin Jenea Justice.
These are not identical cases and unfortunately not rare. Some involve documented disclosures. Others involve serious crimes, unresolved disappearances, or allegations that require careful legal distinctions.
But they leave us with a question worth asking.
Are we listening carefully enough when girls tell us something is wrong?
Why Does Everybody Become an Expert on a Girl’s Feelings?
A man says he doesn’t trust somebody, and people often want to know what the other person did.
A girl says she doesn’t trust somebody, and people may start asking what’s wrong with her.
See the difference?
We can respect a man’s judgment without requiring him to prove that his discomfort is reasonable.
But girls are often expected to be pleasant, accommodating, and grateful, even when they’re uncomfortable.
And if a girl objects to a man her mother loves, she may find herself facing another burden.
Now she has to worry about hurting her mother’s feelings.
She has to worry about being accused of ruining a relationship.
She has to worry about whether speaking up will make life harder at home.
That’s an awful lot to put on somebody who is still growing up.
A girl’s responsibility is not to protect an adult relationship at the expense of her own safety.
A Girl Can Miss Her Father and Still Be Telling the Truth
This is something I wish more adults understood.
Yes, a girl might miss her biological father.
Yes, she might dislike her mother’s new husband.
Yes, she might struggle with changes in the family.
And?
None of those feelings makes her incapable of recognizing inappropriate behavior.
A girl can be angry and observant.
She can be rebellious and truthful.
She can be jealous of the attention someone receives and still have a legitimate reason to feel unsafe around that person.
Adults are complicated people. We allow them to have more than one feeling at a time.
Children deserve that same understanding.
When a girl tells you something uncomfortable, don’t immediately search her emotional history for a reason to discount it.
Listen to what she is actually saying.
We Should Be Especially Careful About Calling Girls Liars
Sometimes a girl doesn’t tell the whole story immediately.
She might describe a man’s behavior as strange before she has the courage or language to describe what happened.
She might tell one adult something and another adult something slightly different.
She might become quiet.
She might become angry.
She might refuse to be alone with somebody without explaining why.
None of those reactions proves abuse. But none should automatically discredit her, either.
Children are still learning how to communicate complicated experiences, particularly experiences involving fear, shame, or someone who holds authority over them.
And some children have already learned that telling the truth can create trouble.
Imagine having to decide whether to speak up when the person you’re worried about lives in your home.
We Don’t Have to Accuse a Man to Protect a Girl
You do not have to decide that a man is guilty of wrongdoing before you respect a girl’s boundaries.
If she doesn’t want to hug him, she doesn’t have to.
If she doesn’t want him entering her bedroom, respect that.
If she feels uncomfortable being alone with him, make arrangements that protect her while you listen and investigate.
If she describes inappropriate conduct, take the report seriously and seek appropriate professional help.
Adults can manage disappointment. Children should not have to manage danger to spare adults disappointment.
The Cost of Being the Girl Who Speaks Up
There is another kind of harm we don’t talk about enough.
What happens to a girl when she tells an adult something frightening and receives an explanation for why she shouldn’t feel that way?
She may begin questioning her own observations.
She may learn to keep quiet.
She may start believing that being a good daughter means tolerating discomfort.
And years later, when she encounters someone who disregards her boundaries, she may recognize that familiar pressure to be nice, not make trouble, and give somebody another chance.
That is why the lessons we teach girls inside families can follow them into friendships, dating relationships, workplaces, and institutions.
We should be teaching girls that their observations deserve examination, not automatic dismissal.
And we should be teaching adults that listening is not the same as making an accusation.
To the Girl Who Was Called Difficult
Maybe you were the girl who didn’t like somebody everybody else adored.
Maybe you couldn’t explain why.
Maybe you tried to tell someone and were accused of being disrespectful.
Or maybe you were right about something, and people didn’t understand until much later.
I want you to hear this.
You were allowed to have questions.
You were allowed to feel uncomfortable.
You were allowed to want privacy.
You were allowed to say no.
You were allowed to ask somebody to listen.
And if the adults around you failed to respond appropriately, that failure did not make your needs unreasonable.
You do not have to spend the rest of your life proving that you deserved to be taken seriously.
A Better Question for Adults
The next time a girl says she doesn’t feel comfortable around a man in her family, perhaps we can retire some of those old explanations.
Instead of asking why she’s being difficult, ask what she’s experiencing.
Instead of reminding her how much her mother loves him, ask what would help her feel safe.
Instead of demanding that she be nicer, consider whether her boundaries are being respected.
And instead of treating her concerns as a threat to family harmony, remember that genuine family harmony includes the safety of the children who live there.
Because a peaceful home is not one where nobody complains.
It’s one where a girl can tell the truth without being afraid of what will happen to her for saying it.
That is the kind of home every girl deserves.
And she shouldn’t have to wait until something terrible happens for the adults around her to understand why.
A question worth carrying home: When a girl tells us she is uncomfortable, are we trying to understand her experience, or are we trying to make her stop talking about it?
