“Are you expecting us to report Neo’s parents to the police? Then he goes to foster care and therapy stops, you want that? And the other parents stop sending us their kids, because they’re all spooked now? And you know how important this therapy is to children like Neo. Why are you against the kids?”

This is the kind of reductionist assumption-riddled conversation-stopper that comes up from people who don’t want to talk about the elephant in the room because they can only envisage one way of dealing with it, and that scares them witless.

We’re all scared. We just handle it differently. You gaslight me; I block you and talk to other people instead.

PS: The children are scared too. We’re all at least remembering that part, right?