That is the lesson cruelty teaches when it is met with silence.

But cruelty met with fierce, unanimous, immediate defense teaches the opposite lesson, and teaches it more powerfully than a thousand quiet reassurances ever could.

Because a child can hear that she is beautiful and loved a hundred times, from parents whose job it is to say so, and still not quite believe it.

What she cannot easily disbelieve is the sight of her entire family rising, in real time, in the actual moment of attack, to shield her, her little brother standing up with the truth, her father putting his body between her attacker and his children, her mother ready to end the evening rather than let one more word be said.

That is not reassurance.