DP humiliated DSD(12)

[butbyanyothername]

DSD is 12, lives here full time. Been with DP 5 years, our kids are both little so completely out of my depth with a near teenager.

She had 2 school friends round for a sleepover last night, no problems. One set of parents came to pick them both up this morning as they live close to eachother.
Lighthearted conversation about how much mess they’d made, plates and cups everywhere etc.
Another parent said how they’d found a glass of smoothie in their dd’s bedroom that had turned completely solid/moldy, fine everybody laughed.
DP then said how we’d found used period products/ dirty underwear in DSD’s’s room.
Obviously nobody laughed, awkward change of conversation and they left. Poor DSD’s face completely dropped, her friends both looked at and made a face to each other and didn’t acknowledge her as they left.

I’m absolutely furious at him, he does feel terrible and has apologised but DSD is completely beside herself, has she’s not ever going back to school now and won’t come out of her room to talk to anyone. Sunday plans we had are probably going to be cancelled.

Any advice on how to deal with/rectify this? What do we say to her?
Is it worth DP contacting the parents to apologise?

This poor girl. She genuinely might never recover.

Christ, of course she will recover from it!
She is tremendously loved and supported and we will make sure that she does.

She is a 12 year old girl and tonight it feels like the biggest most terrible thing that has ever happened but worse things have and will happen and it really doesn’t matter.
I have hundreds of incredibly awkward and embarrassing stories that at the time felt like the end of the world but can now tell her about and laugh.

I’m also wondering what DSD’s mum thinks about this as if it was me I’d be having a serious chat with him! I’d also be letting my DD know how this was inappropriate of him to mention.

Honestly the least he's done is embarrassed her.
At it's worse she will now be bully fodder.
If I was you , I would preempt the gossip and get her to mention it first.
Could she message them and say how embarrassing it was that her father tried to make a joke about periods?!
I feel for her but children are cruel.

Hi @butbyanyothername I haven't rtft so not sure this has been a suggestion, but if the other girls mention it, could she maybe say, "he's talking rubbish about dirty underwear, just trying to embarrass me and he means the wrappers were left in my room, not actual used pads" etc! ? My heart goes out to her, things like that are earth shattering at that age 😥 Your DH has got a lot of making up to do, and a few lessons to learn! I hope you're all having a lovely day, and spoiling her.

You are so wrong. These types of embarrassing comments live with people a very long time, stop playing this down! My parents said things like your DH did and believe me I never forgot them nor forgave them. Stop defending this man and minimising the feelings of a 12 year old. Cuddles nor money don’t fix this sort of comment, he can’t buy forgiveness with this sort of thing, he needs to man up and fix it for his DD. As I said I wonder what her mum’s opinion is for this scenario.

What the fuck was he even thinking? Idiot. He can apologise to the cows come home. She'll move past it eventually, but it will very likely stay with her. I had a grandfather like that. I never spoke to him about anything important or trusted him. Imagine wanting to score points with other adults by humiliating your daughter.

Poor girl.

I don’t think you get this from DSD pov. Her dad told her friends she leaves used period products lying around in her room. That’s disgusting. It will be round the school sm groups by now many times over. This isn’t sorry and hug territory ffs.

I said in my OP that dsd lives here full time, I don't need to go into why but it's not something she will be told or be having a serious chat about.

Agree. I don't know why you're minimising this.

You don’t know that. These girls are meant to be her friends. You’d think friends would be on her side, no?

If my child was one of the friends, I would have told them in the car on the way home that what they heard was never to be repeated. If they are friends then they won’t be gossiping about it. Could your SD chat to them tonight, just so she can see they’re being normal with her (which I’m sure they will be) and therefore make school easier to face?

Only in your case it sounds like it happens more than once, so not the same as here.

As usual, people have to project their own experiences onto situations that are not the same.

And how do you suggest he fix it? Please enlighten us.

Oh behave!!

Yes, he monumentally fucked up here, but that doesn't make him a bad or a bad person. It just makes him someone who made a big mistake.

Exactly. It’ll blow over. She’s lucky to have a sensible step-mum like you.

@CantWaitForSummerHeat so what do you suggest he does now? Move out? Emigrate? Change his identity and never contact his family again?

You need to get a grip. This was a shit thing to happen and he has massively overstepped but it is not the end of the world. He has learnt a lesson and hopefully it will all be forgotten within the week.

You aren't offering any useful advice, all you're doing is trying to make the op feel worse about an unfortunate mistake. There is no evidence here that the dh is an abusive or terrible father. The people frothing to try and suggest otherwise are ridiculous.

That's such a shit thing for him to do. Why would he say that? What other clangers does he drop? You need to talk to him about period shaming. Thought that was a thing of the past.

Former secondary school teacher here. You’re in cloud cuckoo land.

I’m not minimising it all.
I have said numerous times how furious I am with DP and that I feel absolutely awful for her.
I completely understand how shes feeling at the moment but this one comment with not rule or ruin her whole life. Like I said I have (and I'm sure everyone else on here has too) had embarrassing moments where i wished wish the world would swallow me up but life goes on and we get the pleasure of experiencing even more embarrassing things after.
It’s not at all helpful to tell her that this is oh so terrible and she’s never going to get over it, that everyone in the school will be laughing at her and there’s nothing she can do.

At 12, why isn't she keeping her own room clean and tidy and making her own bed?

Always good to know there are some same normal people around still😊

Whatever made him say a thing like that? Is he socially inept? (genuine question. Not being rude).

I really don't believe that most men wouldn't know how shaming it is to say such a thing. This is very unusual behaviour and we need to name it.

This isn’t projecting. Some of the things my parents said and done actually did only happen once. You don’t know me or my past so stop with the projecting rubbish.

What this father did was awful and the OP is minimising her DSD’s feelings. Absolutely no parent should be discussing their 12 year old habits in front of them, with other parents and more importantly in front of their friends.

He was a dick and this can’t be sorted with money or cuddles. The OP should feel bad as she’s minimising it. As I said, I wonder what the child’s mothers opinion is on this.

If you’d put up with a partner doing this to a child you knock yourself out. I’ve also given my advice of you read my post, HE should be sorting this, it shouldn’t be up to a 12 year old child to fix his major fuck up that’s made her not want to go to school.

OP, if you are having a chat with her later I would see if she could talk about how the sleepover went generally. Obviously what your dh said was horrible etc and you've had plenty of good advice on here. But - having had sleepovers with that age girls many a time - and what you said about the two smirking and not saying goodbye to her - I wonder if there was a dynamic going on well before he opened his inappropriate mouth. Three girls together can be a poor dynamic at that age. I wonder if she is completely devastated because she felt excluded/has some friend issues going on and this was the horrible cherry on top of everything.