A woman’s six-year-old daughter caused a ‘massive’ problem within her family with something she said, and another relative demanded that her daughter be corrected
Children often have no filter, but one woman refused to correct her daughter for what she said to another family member.
The woman said what her daughter had come out with caused a “massive issue in the family”, and she was feeling down about it. When her mum’s new partner’s adoptive daughter asked a question to her own daughter, the six-year-old answered “innocently as a six-year-old would”. But the comment she made was taken out of context and made into a big deal by the woman’s mum and her husband, as their adoptive daughter was left feeling upset about it.
Taking to Mumsnet, the woman wanted honest opinions on what had been said between their daughters. She wrote: “Context – my mother married a man with an ‘adoptive’ daughter (not officially adopted but he has been her ‘dad’ since she was one so that’s that) and she has two children with a man who is in prison […] I don’t see her kids regularly, as they live 4-5 hours away and probably see them once or twice a year.”
She explained that last weekend “it was nice weather” so they had a BBQ. Her mum had the kids so she brought them to the BBQ, and it was the first time they’d been to her house.
While the kids were at the BBQ, her mum’s youngest, who is four, was speaking to her daughter, who is six. The original poster’s daughter was asked: “Why do you live with both your mummy and daddy?” And her daughter answered along the lines of “mummies and daddies have babies when they love each other and we live together here”.
The stressed mum continued: “This has now caused an issue because apparently my daughter apparently implied to the 4-year-old that her mummy and daddy don’t love each other – which to be honest I laughed at when confronted about as it’s so ridiculous.
“My mum and her husband want me to speak to my daughter and correct her and ask her not to say things like that again if asked. I said I’d do a bit more around ‘all families are different’ but I’m not going to go too hard into correcting a basic statement that most kids are told when asking about birds and the bees etc.”
In the comments, someone asked why wouldn’t she just cooperate to keep the peace, writing: “I don’t understand why you wouldn’t cooperate with this completely reasonable request. They aren’t asking you to burden your daughter with the gory details, they’re just asking you to explain that not everyone has a nuclear family set-up, not all parents do love each other, and sometimes we need to be careful what we say in order to avoid hurting someone.
“Why don’t you want to do this small thing to protect the feelings of a child who has already had a traumatic start in life? Doesn’t your daughter already know that not all families are like hers?”
Someone backed the original poster, however, saying: “I don’t really understand what they want you to say to her, to be honest. I’d advise them to talk to the four-year-old about different family set-ups too.”
Another added: “Surely both girls just need a short ‘remember all families are different and that’s fine’ talk? I’d say the issue here is primarily that no one has explained her own family set-up to the 4-year-old.”
Do you have a story to share? Email: [email protected]
