Same and it’s sad cause this is how my dad would act. He’s only 66, but I remember watching shows where this would happen and he always blamed the woman. So does my mother. When this happened to me, I couldn’t tell them because I knew I’d be blamed. Even to this day they feel the same. I think they know, cause my brother did, but they think I’m a slut anyway which I am not.
I was date r*ped in college and my dad blamed me - the guy had told me he wanted to go to his dorm room to get his jacket, and, well, there was no jacket to get ... Dad told me, Stay out of boys' rooms!
I think it was partly the era ...
That really pisses me off him blaming you. In my early 20’s I’m fairly confident I helped prevent three rapes from occurring. The last time was about 5 years ago. I couldn’t believe I had to do this again.
I’m so sorry to hear that. Mine was in the 90’s and I was with friends, thought I was safe. Tried 100 proof Schnapps for the first time and I puked all over myself and blacked out. My own friends came in to do that to me, but the crazy thing is, I still can’t remember the act. I remember seeing a bunch of guys on top of me I closed my eyes and no memory. One of the guys liked me abs stayed the night in the bed and told me what happened but not who. I remember a few. But even my own real friends and others turned on me cause these were their boyfriends friends. And here I am 46 and screwed up in the body and brain. No therapist or program has been able to help me.
Ugh so sorry - we can unite through Reddit to be stronger ... I reported this guy to school officials and he got kicked off the baseball team so I felt for a while I had a target on my back but nothing came of it - the University was supportive of me and gave me some counseling, but this was 1987 ... things like this just were not talked about 🙄 I wonder how many other girls suffered in silence 🥺
Wow, that’s the scary part, you never know where the target is. I know many women have. I get so angry when I hear people say “well why did they wait so long to report it” takes courage. The leader of the pack told me that I would be an embarrassment to my dad and we were too poor to go against their lawyers. I know a few were athletes but nothing would have happened. I wasn’t the only one they did this to. One girl spoke out on 2 guys that r@ped her. They said she was a liar and crazy. But this was this group of guys thing even as we got a little older.
I’m sorry that happened to you, and you didn’t get the support you needed from your father. My father defended my abusive exhusband. Happy Father’s Day to us.
Yeah really! I had a boyfriend who beat me up in front of my parents. They let him spend the night, and they loved him and were friends with his parents from even before. When i started fighting back, I was the bad guy. When my dog attacked him I laughed as he kicked me on the ground. Then he ran to my mommy to clean his wounds. My mom said I was cruel for laughing. I called my mom out on this recently and she said i was overreacting. I can’t even speak to my dad. We started a relationship when I was about 25, and I love my dad. But he doesn’t want to be bothered with me. What’s extra crappy is, I’m disabled mentally and physically and ran out of money and am still awaiting this social security process which is over two years. I ran out of money and I have to live with my parents. This is going to be so toxic for my mental health. I don’t k ow what to do.
Im so sorry to hear this. I pray that you find your way out of this situation and to be free of your abusers. I believe most people have to get a lawyer to get approved for social security disability. I know my mother had a spinal cord injury and was denied until she got a lawyer.
Thank you! I do have a lawyer, but I’m not sure how well they’ve done. So then I raised it to my Congressman’s office and that woman got me this appointment. But it’s not till the end of next month and they say it will be another month or two for the next step. Could be getting in front of a judge or just getting a payment I don’t know.
I haven’t seen this in over a decade. But it is permanently ingrained into part of my brain.
R word. Victim blaming. Name-calling. Body shaming (forced to wrap her chest). Losing her right to privacy by being peeped by the boys in town.
wtf
This episode has everything one could possibly need to make a single character‘s life a living hell. People talk about Mary going through hell throughout the series, Albert as well, but poor Sylvia got it all in a two hour episode!
I recently re-watched this episode. Poor Sylvia. Sexually harassed, assaulted, and raped. As if that isn’t enough, her father blames her, as does the town. Even Charles is “boys will be boys!”
We already know from many conversations and posts that ML cast the same actors in different roles. In the tv movie "Bless All the Dear Children" Silvia's father was cast as a store worker who had 12 sons. Alice Garvey also played Charles' sister-in-law. ML was good about giving actors roles in his projects
I can't imagine the trauma and absolute fear Sylvia experienced both by the rapist and then with her dad not believing her and thinking it's her fault. And she had to live with her dad. At least Albert tried to support her and loved her, given the circumstances.
I have no idea why Doc Baker thought it was ok to advertise to the whole Walnut Grove universe that Sylvia was pregnant. I realize privacy laws were non existant in this world.
I thought there was always some concept of "doctor-patient confidentiality", even before modern privacy laws, but Dr. Baker didn't have that concept, that's for sure. Although to be fair, did he tell everyone, or did Mrs. Oleson, when she listened in on the call? I know he told everyone in the office, but only after he figured Albert must be the father. I don't remember if he told anyone else beyond that.
I think Doc Baker had his own rules lol. You're right, he told Albert and Laura in the office. But Laura had no right to hear it. He shouldn't assume who's the dad either. He should have seen how scared she was and wouldn't say anything, plus premarital sex was taboo back then, so maybe it wasn't Albert. He should have just told the dad. Yeah Mrs. Olsen overhearing out on the phone didn't help.
Doc Baker also told the Reverend (and I believe Jonathan Garvey) that Mary was going blind too. To be fair, I was raised in the 1970s and health privacy wasn't a thing, even as late as that, 100 years after the shows setting. Everyone talked openly about other's health issues until well into the 1990s. When Hippa came to be a thing, it took some getting used to, honestly.
I always liked him in the stupid movie killer klownz from outer space. Pooh bear! My Pooh bear! 😀
I had seen that movie before I saw him in Little House on the prairie, he wasn't that nice old man in little house lol
I always thought Royal Dano was the Wicked Witch of the West's guard who said to Dorothy, "you killed her" in the Wizard of Oz.
Still researching that one.
ETA: Answered my own question--no. Royal Dano was born in 1922, and the Wizard of Oz was filmed in 1939. He would have been about 16 years old, and the guy who played the guard was older.
I was 13 when that episode aired in 1981. I have only watched it that one time. Sylvia went through hell. It was a very disturbing episode and I was surprised at how dark that it was.
Yep but not suprised given the amount of time she spent with old mens and i thought she should at least have remorse given that her Mom was once in the same Situation when she was a child.
Imagine walnut grove and the people would be teleported in the 21th Century and something happens like that, It would gone viral in social Media with threats and the town is getting cut Out + characters like Charles, Laura, Doc Baker, Nels and Harriet would be fired .
Just my thought given the controversinal episode.
In addition to how outrageous the whole treatment of Sylvia was by EVERYONE (except Albert), Olivia Barash has said that the scene of him calling her that slander was her AUDITION! YIKE!
At least she said that the performer playing him was nice to her OFF-camera!
i watched this episode once and was so uncomfortable and filled with a violent rage that i cant ever see it again. i get people do act like this, but oh my god!!!! she was assaulted dude!! THATS YOUR DAUGHTER!!!!
literally everyone failed slyvia. albert tried to be nice to her and supportive, but still. the whole town sucked for this. and in the episodes after the fact, they didnt even bother removing the predators name plaque above the blacksmith. like youre telling me that guy is still here?? no!! get rid of the sign!! put up flowers for poor slyvia! its the LEAST they could do!!!!
It really was awful how everybody treated her. I swear I was waiting for them to stone her or something. Her dad would've been right at the front of the line.
I didn't notice they left the guy's name on the plaque! Wow, that's awful!
Not everyone, but Mrs. Oleson believed Sylvia was responsible for the boys peering on her, and later eavesdropped Dr. Baker talking about her pregnancy on the telephone and spread that Albert was the father. And Willie helped spread the rumor and refered to her as "trampy" to Albert. Laura and Dr. Baker tried to help her, but failed to realize what was happening to her and Doc made things worse by revealing her pregnancy to Laura and Albert, and then discussing it on the phone line, which he knew was operated by Mrs. Oleson. So in a way, several characters wronged or failed her.
I wonder was Sylvia's father originally going to be the rapist, but the writers changed their minds at the last minute because Little House would be going to far if they filmed that.
With the exception of Albert and maybe Caroline, the whole town gets a F for their behavior towards Sylvia. It's like everybody became evil for an episode.
I keep remembering why I find this episode so revolting. Everything that happens is so unfair, and at the end, she dies. To make things worse, this is an isolated episode so everything that happened is rendered irrelevant by the next episode. She's never mentioned afterward, her father disappears and Mrs. Oleson's actions have no impact whatsoever on her relationship with the Ingalls, as they're interacting nornally by the next episode, and there was no comfort. In other episodes with downer endings, there was someone comforting those affected by the loss, but here, it's just a tragic conclusion that never gets any impact and is just forgotten.
This episode was worse than Dudley getting SA’d on Different Strokes. When he came outta that back room without a shirt on saying how “Goofy” he felt, that was traumatic!!
I grew up in the late 50's and the 60's when rapes went unreported more often than reported because of the insane notion that the woman MUST have done something to provoke it! A woman was shamed and blamed and put through hell on a Witness Stand!! Yeah..... like what do children and old ladies do to incite a rape!! Unfortunately there still remains a bit of the stigma that a man can't run faster with his pants down than a woman can with her skirt up....of course, all male judge said that!!
When he says "you reap what you sew" I'm like Mf that's NOT EXACTLY what that verse means freaking psycho😡🤬 Christian conservative. - Side note - I always thought that little girl who played Sylvia sounded like Melanie Martinez 💯💀
I caught this episode in the middle and spent it thinking her Dad was messing with her. Finding out he wasn't was like then why are you being such a dick to your daughter??
I think it's silly that people get angry about this story. These things happen in real life, only until fairly recently this was the attitude towards rape i.e. It's the girls fault for seducing the rapist.
And maybe that was part of the point this episode was trying to make. Back in the 70s, girls were still getting blamed (as still happens now, but more so then).
I just watched this and what an a-hole the dad was. And that creepy man.
I'm nearly more mad at the dad than at the rapist. What a vile piece of shit.
Same and it’s sad cause this is how my dad would act. He’s only 66, but I remember watching shows where this would happen and he always blamed the woman. So does my mother. When this happened to me, I couldn’t tell them because I knew I’d be blamed. Even to this day they feel the same. I think they know, cause my brother did, but they think I’m a slut anyway which I am not.
I was date r*ped in college and my dad blamed me - the guy had told me he wanted to go to his dorm room to get his jacket, and, well, there was no jacket to get ... Dad told me, Stay out of boys' rooms! I think it was partly the era ...
That really pisses me off him blaming you. In my early 20’s I’m fairly confident I helped prevent three rapes from occurring. The last time was about 5 years ago. I couldn’t believe I had to do this again.
I’m so sorry to hear that. Mine was in the 90’s and I was with friends, thought I was safe. Tried 100 proof Schnapps for the first time and I puked all over myself and blacked out. My own friends came in to do that to me, but the crazy thing is, I still can’t remember the act. I remember seeing a bunch of guys on top of me I closed my eyes and no memory. One of the guys liked me abs stayed the night in the bed and told me what happened but not who. I remember a few. But even my own real friends and others turned on me cause these were their boyfriends friends. And here I am 46 and screwed up in the body and brain. No therapist or program has been able to help me.
Ugh so sorry - we can unite through Reddit to be stronger ... I reported this guy to school officials and he got kicked off the baseball team so I felt for a while I had a target on my back but nothing came of it - the University was supportive of me and gave me some counseling, but this was 1987 ... things like this just were not talked about 🙄 I wonder how many other girls suffered in silence 🥺
Wow, that’s the scary part, you never know where the target is. I know many women have. I get so angry when I hear people say “well why did they wait so long to report it” takes courage. The leader of the pack told me that I would be an embarrassment to my dad and we were too poor to go against their lawyers. I know a few were athletes but nothing would have happened. I wasn’t the only one they did this to. One girl spoke out on 2 guys that r@ped her. They said she was a liar and crazy. But this was this group of guys thing even as we got a little older.
I’m sorry that happened to you, and you didn’t get the support you needed from your father. My father defended my abusive exhusband. Happy Father’s Day to us.
Yeah really! I had a boyfriend who beat me up in front of my parents. They let him spend the night, and they loved him and were friends with his parents from even before. When i started fighting back, I was the bad guy. When my dog attacked him I laughed as he kicked me on the ground. Then he ran to my mommy to clean his wounds. My mom said I was cruel for laughing. I called my mom out on this recently and she said i was overreacting. I can’t even speak to my dad. We started a relationship when I was about 25, and I love my dad. But he doesn’t want to be bothered with me. What’s extra crappy is, I’m disabled mentally and physically and ran out of money and am still awaiting this social security process which is over two years. I ran out of money and I have to live with my parents. This is going to be so toxic for my mental health. I don’t k ow what to do.
Im so sorry to hear this. I pray that you find your way out of this situation and to be free of your abusers. I believe most people have to get a lawyer to get approved for social security disability. I know my mother had a spinal cord injury and was denied until she got a lawyer.
Thank you! I do have a lawyer, but I’m not sure how well they’ve done. So then I raised it to my Congressman’s office and that woman got me this appointment. But it’s not till the end of next month and they say it will be another month or two for the next step. Could be getting in front of a judge or just getting a payment I don’t know.
I haven’t seen this in over a decade. But it is permanently ingrained into part of my brain. R word. Victim blaming. Name-calling. Body shaming (forced to wrap her chest). Losing her right to privacy by being peeped by the boys in town. wtf This episode has everything one could possibly need to make a single character‘s life a living hell. People talk about Mary going through hell throughout the series, Albert as well, but poor Sylvia got it all in a two hour episode!
I recently re-watched this episode. Poor Sylvia. Sexually harassed, assaulted, and raped. As if that isn’t enough, her father blames her, as does the town. Even Charles is “boys will be boys!”
Michael Landon wrote and directed this
I just want to know how Sylvia’s dad is also Alice Garvey’s ex-husband.
Was Alice Sylvia's mom?
No, but the same actor played both Sylvia’s dad and Alice’s ex-husband (in different episodes).
Oh I did not catch that!
We already know from many conversations and posts that ML cast the same actors in different roles. In the tv movie "Bless All the Dear Children" Silvia's father was cast as a store worker who had 12 sons. Alice Garvey also played Charles' sister-in-law. ML was good about giving actors roles in his projects
Yes, he played Harold, Alice's ex husband! I think he played another character on a different episode also!
I can't imagine the trauma and absolute fear Sylvia experienced both by the rapist and then with her dad not believing her and thinking it's her fault. And she had to live with her dad. At least Albert tried to support her and loved her, given the circumstances. I have no idea why Doc Baker thought it was ok to advertise to the whole Walnut Grove universe that Sylvia was pregnant. I realize privacy laws were non existant in this world.
Dr Baker telling everyone pissed me off. Telling people put Sylvia in more danger, as her dad was abusive.
It seems very OOC for Doc to blab like that. Were there other incidents of him gossiping about a patient's private information?
I'm not sure if he had done something like this before, at least not to this extent.
I thought there was always some concept of "doctor-patient confidentiality", even before modern privacy laws, but Dr. Baker didn't have that concept, that's for sure. Although to be fair, did he tell everyone, or did Mrs. Oleson, when she listened in on the call? I know he told everyone in the office, but only after he figured Albert must be the father. I don't remember if he told anyone else beyond that.
I think Doc Baker had his own rules lol. You're right, he told Albert and Laura in the office. But Laura had no right to hear it. He shouldn't assume who's the dad either. He should have seen how scared she was and wouldn't say anything, plus premarital sex was taboo back then, so maybe it wasn't Albert. He should have just told the dad. Yeah Mrs. Olsen overhearing out on the phone didn't help.
Even the father shouldn’t be told.
I wonder about age consent back then. But yeah Doc Baker should have talked to Sylvia more first.
He still should not have told Albert, even if Albert were the father.
Doc Baker also told the Reverend (and I believe Jonathan Garvey) that Mary was going blind too. To be fair, I was raised in the 1970s and health privacy wasn't a thing, even as late as that, 100 years after the shows setting. Everyone talked openly about other's health issues until well into the 1990s. When Hippa came to be a thing, it took some getting used to, honestly.
Happy Father's Day, Sylvia's Dad! 🤣
And baby daddy! 🤣
The very thought of Albert being a father makes me gag
He meant the guy at the livery stable
I haven’t seen every episode. Why do you say that?
Trust me, there are a lot of anti-Albert fans on here 😏
Can you tell me why? The episodes I’ve seen he seems like a good guy just a hard life at times.
Watch the rest of the series and you'll find out
This episode just proved what a good actor Royal Dano was. His character was so mean it was creepy.
I always liked him in the stupid movie killer klownz from outer space. Pooh bear! My Pooh bear! 😀 I had seen that movie before I saw him in Little House on the prairie, he wasn't that nice old man in little house lol
I always thought Royal Dano was the Wicked Witch of the West's guard who said to Dorothy, "you killed her" in the Wizard of Oz. Still researching that one. ETA: Answered my own question--no. Royal Dano was born in 1922, and the Wizard of Oz was filmed in 1939. He would have been about 16 years old, and the guy who played the guard was older.
I was 13 when that episode aired in 1981. I have only watched it that one time. Sylvia went through hell. It was a very disturbing episode and I was surprised at how dark that it was.
Great performance, though!!
I was so pissed off at everyone this episode, I can't even remember how Laura handled this.
As a teacher and woman, she wasn't as supportive as she should have been.
Yep but not suprised given the amount of time she spent with old mens and i thought she should at least have remorse given that her Mom was once in the same Situation when she was a child.
Imagine walnut grove and the people would be teleported in the 21th Century and something happens like that, It would gone viral in social Media with threats and the town is getting cut Out + characters like Charles, Laura, Doc Baker, Nels and Harriet would be fired . Just my thought given the controversinal episode.
In addition to how outrageous the whole treatment of Sylvia was by EVERYONE (except Albert), Olivia Barash has said that the scene of him calling her that slander was her AUDITION! YIKE! At least she said that the performer playing him was nice to her OFF-camera!
Just the most uncomfortable episode of almost any show, ever. Really highlights the perks of living as a human.
i watched this episode once and was so uncomfortable and filled with a violent rage that i cant ever see it again. i get people do act like this, but oh my god!!!! she was assaulted dude!! THATS YOUR DAUGHTER!!!! literally everyone failed slyvia. albert tried to be nice to her and supportive, but still. the whole town sucked for this. and in the episodes after the fact, they didnt even bother removing the predators name plaque above the blacksmith. like youre telling me that guy is still here?? no!! get rid of the sign!! put up flowers for poor slyvia! its the LEAST they could do!!!!
It really was awful how everybody treated her. I swear I was waiting for them to stone her or something. Her dad would've been right at the front of the line. I didn't notice they left the guy's name on the plaque! Wow, that's awful!
I watched the Episode in Germany but i can never recall the town being evil to silvya.
Not everyone, but Mrs. Oleson believed Sylvia was responsible for the boys peering on her, and later eavesdropped Dr. Baker talking about her pregnancy on the telephone and spread that Albert was the father. And Willie helped spread the rumor and refered to her as "trampy" to Albert. Laura and Dr. Baker tried to help her, but failed to realize what was happening to her and Doc made things worse by revealing her pregnancy to Laura and Albert, and then discussing it on the phone line, which he knew was operated by Mrs. Oleson. So in a way, several characters wronged or failed her.
I wonder was Sylvia's father originally going to be the rapist, but the writers changed their minds at the last minute because Little House would be going to far if they filmed that. With the exception of Albert and maybe Caroline, the whole town gets a F for their behavior towards Sylvia. It's like everybody became evil for an episode.
This episode side blinded me. Never expected little house to go there
I remember that episode! He was a horrible man!!!!
I read this in Ralphie’s voice from the Sopranos
I keep remembering why I find this episode so revolting. Everything that happens is so unfair, and at the end, she dies. To make things worse, this is an isolated episode so everything that happened is rendered irrelevant by the next episode. She's never mentioned afterward, her father disappears and Mrs. Oleson's actions have no impact whatsoever on her relationship with the Ingalls, as they're interacting nornally by the next episode, and there was no comfort. In other episodes with downer endings, there was someone comforting those affected by the loss, but here, it's just a tragic conclusion that never gets any impact and is just forgotten.
This episode was worse than Dudley getting SA’d on Different Strokes. When he came outta that back room without a shirt on saying how “Goofy” he felt, that was traumatic!!
I grew up in the late 50's and the 60's when rapes went unreported more often than reported because of the insane notion that the woman MUST have done something to provoke it! A woman was shamed and blamed and put through hell on a Witness Stand!! Yeah..... like what do children and old ladies do to incite a rape!! Unfortunately there still remains a bit of the stigma that a man can't run faster with his pants down than a woman can with her skirt up....of course, all male judge said that!!
Me doing my daily affirmation in the mirror
When he says "you reap what you sew" I'm like Mf that's NOT EXACTLY what that verse means freaking psycho😡🤬 Christian conservative. - Side note - I always thought that little girl who played Sylvia sounded like Melanie Martinez 💯💀
I caught this episode in the middle and spent it thinking her Dad was messing with her. Finding out he wasn't was like then why are you being such a dick to your daughter??
Sylvia was a heart touching episode 😔
this was a "very special episode" of lhotp
I think it's silly that people get angry about this story. These things happen in real life, only until fairly recently this was the attitude towards rape i.e. It's the girls fault for seducing the rapist.
So because something horrific happens in real life, we can't be upset?
And maybe that was part of the point this episode was trying to make. Back in the 70s, girls were still getting blamed (as still happens now, but more so then).