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?

That is an awful lot of assumptions about a stranger on the internet. You are talking about him as if you know him and his motives personally. It's really bizarre.

Whats bizarre is you calling people deranged, hysterical and frothing. It’s the sort of language a man might use to demean the women he’s talking about.

I don’t think a man talking about his daughters stained underwear is appropriate. You think it’s no big deal. We will have to agree to disagree.

Then you should make it clear that your responses are in relation to your own personal experience, and not really anything to do with this thread and this family.

That aside, this is obviously a triggering situation for you, and I do not want this to become an argument on who can or can't comment on these sorts of situations. However, based on the limited information we have I feel its unfair of you to jump straight to the topic of abuse. That must be incredibly difficult for @butbyanyothername to read. This thread isn't about you.

Sorry if this has been suggested as I have not read the full thread but do you have a dog or a cat? If so, could she claim the pet dragged the sanitary products out of the bathroom bin & put them under her bed? I think if she can deflect the idea that she stashed them under there (I’m not saying she does but that’s how the story reads/what here friends might think) she might feel less embarrassed.

The thing is op if the other parents laughed their head off would he still be sorry or would he think your poor dad is overreacting?
Offering to ring the other parents sound like it is to fix their opinion of him tbh.
What he did is not something he is ever going to truely being able to make up to your dsd.
If I was her when she is older and of she chooses to get married I would never allow him give a speech.
My heart goes out to her. I can not imagine how she is feeling tonight.

Bloody hell, I don't know why the poor OP is having such a hard time here! She's made it obvious in her OP that she's furious with her husband.

To give him the benefit of the doubt, he's never been a girl navigating periods, so he thought it was just another 'kids being gross' annecdote. It was obviously a stupid thing to say that's had a fair amount of fallout, but who hasn't innocently said something stupid and deeply regretted it? He clearly does.

She will get over it - she'll probably always remember it, but one day it'll be in a 'my dad's a compelte embarrassment' way, I'm sure. I'm afraid the only thing for it is to tough it out though - today's news is tomorrow's chip paper and all. I still remember that feeling of dreading school because of something embarassing I'd done or said (although I can't remember what now) - it's absolutely excruciating. I'm sure we've all been there.

I hope she's OK. You sound like a great step mum, and her dad sounds like a great dad, despite the embarassing dad colossal fuck up.

While it was very embarrassing for DSD, I do think that making herself vomit over it and refusing to go to school ever again and saying she'll have no friends, and cancelling Sunday plans, is an over-reaction. Sounds like she's holding the entire household hostage over this. Are you sure she's not playing you to get the maximum leverage out of it?

As someone trained in safeguarding this rings no alarm bells for me at all.

I’m sorry for your experiences but I think you are massively projecting here.

Due to the ridiculously segregated sex ed given at school, many men have no idea what periods entail and how women and girls might feel about them. I can therefore understand that a grown man with limited experience of being around a young girl going through puberty (this is his first rodeo remember) could make a misjudged joke without realising its impact.

There was no deliberate desire to humiliate and no suggestion that the OP’s partner has form for this kind of thing.

We all say stupid and thoughtless things sometimes. The response of the OP and her partner have been exactly what I would want to see from loving parents after an incident of this nature.

If every parental fuck up got reported as a safeguarding issue then we would never get any teaching done in schools!

She's 12! Something like this truly feels like the end of the world!

@butbyanyothername can I just say I think you sound like such a lovely stepmum and your DSD is lucky to have you. These things happen I myself suffer from word vomit and stuff spills out in situations which I go over and over in my head saying why on earth did you say that!! Your DH will be so annoyed with himself and I feel everyone piling on isn’t needed it was a mistake and yes it’s had the world is ending feelings for your DSD but in reality you and DH acknowledging to her it was a mistake and he’s sorry etc has already been done there’s nothing more can happen. I think you did right contacting her friends mammy and explaining she might need some moral support tomorrow.

i really hope tomorrow goes okay for your DSD, I have 5 daughters and they are all young still but i have this all ahead of me xx

My father did this exact thing to me when I was about 14, I was completely mortified, I had accidentally left a pad in the bathroom when changing then he and his girlfriend had laughed about it and told parents and my friends when they were round, I wanted to never go to school again, never speak to anyone again and go live in the woods.
Went into school the next day and just spoke nothing of it, nobody else did either thankfully as I think we were all really uncomfortable 🙃 your post reminded me!

Hi OP,

Just to say I truly feel for you and your daughter. It was an awful thing for your DH to say but if he truly regrets it, he will be feeling a huge amount of shame and wishing desperately it could be unsaid.

Do let us know how your DSD gets on tomorrow and fingers crossed it just blows over. Young people are so unpredictable so it might be a total non-event.

It sounds like you are a great step-mum and sorry you are having this hugely stressful time

@JayJayEl nice of you to add patronising to tone policing. Have a good evening.

Oh gosh, that must have been mortifying for her! Poor girl! He has apologised and it sounds like he really just didn't think about the impact of his words.....assuming he's normally a good dad and it's a one off. I'm sure it will gf ok after she's seen her friends as long as they don't tease her about it!

Well it isn't, and she needs to pull herself together instead of throwing up. I mean honestly...

Did you go to a UK state secondary school when you were a teen. I did. Utter hell holes

Can you practice some scenarios with her walking into school tomorrow? Very breezy don't give a shit attitude. And also practice what she can say if the other girls bring it up? 'What? Oh you mean when my dad said he found my tampon wrapper? He's so old that he freaked out. Middle aged men are fucking weird.' Basically shift all the blame on dad and try to minimise what was said. Keep calm, act nonchalant.

That is up there with, "The dog ate my homework".

Yes, we've tried to do this.
We were keen for her to get a text sent tonight but she wasn't up to that.
Hopefully once she's at school and has seen them it will be fine, it might not even be mentioned.

Absolutely horrific thing to say. This is the kind of thing she is likely to remember and feel ashamed and incredibly uncomfortable about her whole life. Does he realise that? I don't know any way he can undo this.

I'm glad there were a few later threads sympathising with DH. Obviously I totally understand how mortifying this is for DSD, but I can relate to DH trying to be cool with periods, down wiv the kids etc, and saying something inappropriate like this without realising about boundaries. We've all said incredibly embarrassing and inappropriate things at times, as well as all the people who menstruate having bloody incidents. In thirty years DSD will probably be telling this very story on here (hopefully as a reflection of how much things have changed). Sending hugs to all involved, and hoping the other kids involved understand that it could have been them.

(It brought up memories for me because at school we were supposed to carry our bloody STs from the loo to the wastebin in a public area. Which of course we were all far to embarrassed to do, so we had to lurk for ages until no-one was around, then we were late to lessons.... etc etc. And I thought an older girl, who was brave enough to come out, throw her ST away and WASH HER RED HANDS, was the bravest person I had ever met)

If I was your DH daughter I'd never want to speak to him again. It's beyond cruel what he did to his own DD. No Dad can be that stupid to not realise he'd embarrass and humiliated his dd.

He's her dad and he made a stupid mistake. If you would really cut off an otherwise loving dad for this, for ever, then you're both crazy and horrible.

So, so tired of so many people on MN advocating kneejerk and permanent cut-off with loved ones for no good reason.

I don't think they're genuine. I think it's the Russians trying to sow arguments and discontent in the West, as they've been proven to do.

Yes, although mine wasn't TOO bad.

If I was a 12 year old girl and my Dad had humiliated me like me this to try to get a laugh from parents friends it would be a very long time before I spoke to him again. My Dad would never had humiliated me in a million years.

@caringcarer

She’s 12. She can’t in fact, just cut her dad off, so you repeating that you would “never speak to your dad again” is irrelevant.