Reply to How to handle: Terminally ill neighbor, helping with kid who is crossing several lines

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
Several thoughts:

This must be your oldest child, for you two to be unaware that tweens and teens can turn temporarily into little monsters on the path of adolescence! This particular tween has a dying father. Of course there are ugly emotions in there. She needs help to process her life right now, not irate fathers breathing down her neck.

Your husband is out of line, and I wonder at his maturity level and general notion of his role as a father vis-a-vis his daughter is he's furious at this text. Why is that word so triggering to him? 
Did he call a girl that, once upon a time? The child in question hardly knows what it means. It's just a word, like all the rude words tweens like to brandish to rebel and show how edgy they are. Your husband mustn't take the bait.

The REAL monsters are the grown ups who would disturb the last days of a terminally ill parent and their exhausted caregiving spouse with anger. Please find the right, calming and healing words to talk about this, otherwise do not talk about it. Do not go there guns ablazing. There is a special place in hell for you if you do.
[/quote]

Hi - I am the OP and certainly not unaware of how tweens behave. But, actually, I don't believe calling people fat and sluts are par for the course. I'm sorry you think this is normal or somehow "edgy." I have two older DDs who went through typically growing pains, but nothing like this.

I'm also curious as to why you're insinuating that my spouse once called someone such a name. "It's just a word"? Words have weight and meaning. Please don't dismiss this kind of behavior as acceptable. My DH wanted to make the parents aware, not host a rally on their front lawn.

Nobody is angry. Nobody is going in with guns blazing. I posted here for advice on the properly compassionate, measured response that still honors my child. I would ask you to please not normalize weight-shaming and bullying, though. A special place in hell? Yikes.

Thanks to everyone else for the thoughtful responses. [/quote]

Yes OP - texts calling someone fat or a slut are truly awful. You are not wrong. However, there is a scale of suffering in this dynamic and you are not on the far end.

There is NO compassionate way to approach a woman whose husband is about to die from a hideous disease and say just fyi, your kid is being a brat and i’m letting you know to be helpful plus stand up for my kid. Again: This is a family in the active throes of a daily horrow show that will shape the rest of their lives. 
It would be main character syndrome to show up at their door with screenshots. 
[/quote]

Uhh…what you’re saying might be true if we were talking about some random kid at school. But we are talking about a neighbor/friend, whose kid OP has been helping with a lot but whom she now needs to distance (protect) her kid from. Having this discussion is not only the right thing to do, it’s the decent thing to do…otherwise OP is just straight up ghosting her neighbor (on the kid help, at the very least) and being cryptic about it [/quote]

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