My mom always told me I could call her anytime I needed her. I've done it throughout my life, and she always shows up.

• LaVina Hawkins is a 45-year-old who lives in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

• When she was 9, she went to her first sleepover and was teased by the other girls.

• She called her mom and asked to be picked up.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with LaVina Hawkins. It has been edited for length and clarity.

When I was 9, I got my first invitation to a sleepover. We had just moved from the Bronx to Virginia Beach. The birthday girl gave cute invitations to the girls in my class. I knew my mom wouldn't let me — that I would be the only one who wouldn't be allowed to go.

My mom had always been very strict about sleepovers. All my siblings knew it wasn't a question — we were never allowed to stay at someone else's house. My mom had experienced things as a child, and she wanted to protect us from the same happening to us.

When I told the birthday girl I knew I wouldn't be allowed to go, she said she could ask her mom to call my mom. The mom called my mom and said there would be no men or boys at the house for the sleepover. My mom conceded — I could go. I was ecstatic. The invitation had a little list of what we would need, including a sleeping bag. Since I didn't have one, we bought one ready.

I was so excited. I'd only heard about sleepovers and seen them on TV, and they looked really fun.

Before I went, my mom told me I could call her if I didn't feel safe or just didn't want to be at the sleepover anymore. She'd be there right away to pick me up.

I called her, and she came as promised

When I arrived, I knew most of the girls there, besides a few of the girl's family members. The mother ordered pizza, and it was shaping up to be a good time.

After the pizza, we went upstairs, and as I got to the top, the birthday girl's cousin pushed me into the wall. Then, she started talking about how my braids were ugly, asking me why I had them in my hair. Everyone else started following the cousin's lead in making fun of my hair.

I didn't fight back, but I did run downstairs and tell the mother. She called all the girls downstairs and tried to handle it, but when I returned upstairs, it was radio silence. No one would speak to me. I'd become an outsider. It felt awful to be excluded after having been invited.

All I could think to do was phone my mom.

I went downstairs and used the home phone to call her.

"Mom, come get me," I said.

"I'm on my way," she replied.

She didn't ask what happened — she just said she was coming. I felt so safe.

Minutes later, she knocked on the door, and I got my things and left with her.

Once we were in the car, she asked what happened. She told me sometimes people are afraid of what they don't know. She said everything was OK — that I was safe. We went out for ice cream and then watched movies together.

She reminded me that she would always show up for me when needed

Throughout our childhood, my mom kept saying the same thing to myself and my siblings — that she would come to pick us up if ever we felt unsafe and needed her.

I remember when I was in high school, I had been out with friends of friends, and everyone had been drinking. One person said they would drive us. I said I would call my mom to come get me. The friend I was with didn't want me to, but I told her that it didn't matter where we were or what we were doing; my mom would come get us without asking a single question.

Mom came and got me. The friends whose car I refused to get in ended up getting in a car accident that night. The driver died.

Years later, when my second child was just a few months old, I was struggling with postpartum depression. I woke up one morning and felt awful, like checking out. I didn't want to feed my child.

But I wasn't ashamed to call my mom. She wouldn't judge me. She would just come. "Mom, come get me," I told her over the phone. She knew from my voice something was off.

"I'm on the way," she said. She kept me on the phone until she got to my house.

With my own five children, I've told them the same thing my mom used to tell me. They can always call me, and I will come get them, no matter where they are.

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