A grandmother can no longer be trusted to babysit her 5-year-old granddaughter after making a decision that seemed to undermine the child’s parents. According to the parents, their 5-year-old daughter “has always had long, thick curly hair.”
Although their daughter often receives compliments on her hair, her grandmother clearly didn’t love it — and decided to give her a haircut without approval from her or her parents.
Their daughter appeared to be ‘on the verge of tears’ when they picked her up.
According to a post shared by the dad in a since-deleted post on Reddit, he and his wife have typically been able to count on his mom to look after their daughter. That changed, however, when they went to pick up their daughter one day and found that his mom had “chopped” off his daughter’s hair using “scissors at home.”
Once they got home, the 5-year-old girl started crying and said she didn’t want to go back to her grandma’s house.
The grandma acted pretty dismissive of their concerns.
While still at his mom’s house, the dad asked her if his daughter actually wanted a haircut. His mom said the young girl was “scared” but “will get used to it.” The dad noted that he was furious but wanted to remain calm. He also asked his mom exactly what happened. She simply said “she cut [her granddaughter’s hair] because it was getting too long and tangled and took too long to brush,” he shared in the post.
Later, after seeing how upset their daughter was, the parents decided that her grandmother would not be allowed to babysit her anymore. When the parents told the grandma this, she continued to defend her decision. According to the dad, his mom was “super defensive” and called them “soft” because “it’s just hair and it’ll grow back.”
The dad’s brother also defended their mom.
From the parents’ perspective, the grandmother “completely violated [their] trust.” According to the dad, his brother also downplayed the whole thing. His brother said the dad and mom were overreacting and unfairly punishing the child’s grandmother “over such a small thing.”
Obviously, the dad didn’t agree with this take. “I don’t think it’s small,” he wrote. “[Our daughter] didn’t consent, we didn’t consent, my mom has overstepped and made a choice that wasn’t hers to make.” But from his brother’s perspective, he was “being ungrateful for all the free babysitting [the grandma] has done.”
Unlike the brother, Redditors sided with the dad.
Though the whole situation has clearly led to drama within the family, most Redditors could understand the dad’s perspective and didn’t think he was overreacting in the slightest.
“That was a massive overstep on your [mom’s] part,” one of them wrote. “Even if your daughter had requested it, a discussion still should have happened prior. Letting this slide will see bigger and worse oversteps happen as your daughter gets older.”
Another person dismissed the claims that the parents were being “ungrateful.” The commenter wrote, “You were grateful up until your mother overstepped you as a parent, ignored your daughter’s body autonomy and insulted your daughter as well by claiming her hair was a problem.”
Others applauded the parents’ response. “Your mom did something wrong and feels no remorse for it,” a third person added. “Sometimes we have to parent our parents, and not being allowed to babysit anymore is the appropriate consequence to your mom’s behavior. Tell your brother he can enable mom all he wants, but you’re teaching your daughter that even adults can do things wrong and face consequences for it. You’re also teaching her you are a safe person to talk to when an adult does something bad to her.”
These stories are based on posts found on Reddit. Reddit is a user-generated social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website where registered members submit content to the site and can up- or down-vote the content. The accuracy and authenticity of each story cannot be confirmed by our staff.
