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?

I don't think anyone's saying it's fine to do that, and I'm sure she was spoken to at the time. It's still not ok for her dad to tell her friends.

It very clearly says she's the step daughter, on more than one occasion in the OP.

Oh your poor step daughter! I'm with posters who say to go down the 'dad's such a dick' route. Totally minimise it and then start talking about their English homework or something. Light and breezy.
Your partner though ..... he's got a lot of grovelling to do! I'm sure he just thought he was being funny but he needs to realise that certain things are personal and shouldn't be said.
I hope you can all move on and enjoy your day

Agree that she should text her friends either about something completely different or just moaning about her dad being an idiot.

She is at the moment convinced she doesn't have any friends anymore and can't possibly talk to them ever again.
I don't know the girls that well but hope it wouldn't go any further, I did think it was unkind that they left together without saying goodbye to DSD and had smirked at eachother when it was said.

Why the hell did he say that? Of course she's humiliated and embarrassed and I don't blame her for never wanting to go back to school. Hopefully when she does go back it'll be okay but girls especially can be quite bitchy.
Try to suggest she calls her friends today and say I can't believe my dad he doesn't know what he's talking about or something similar.
They don't sound particularly nice friends though not to even say bye to her.
I really hope things are okay at school but he'll be lucky if she ever forgives him for that.

Urgh nothing more to add other than what a fucking idiot he is. That poor child.

I think you're all making a big deal out of nothing. He was extremely clumsy and I get that she's embarrassed but it's not the end of the world. Maybe she won't leave dirty period products in her room anymore so atleast something good came out of it.

Jesus, she’s only 12.

OP, if she hasn’t got a bin/nappy bags etc in her room then maybe a good time to get one. Maybe she feels embarrassed taking it down to the kitchen?

It's something that you will all laugh about in years to come OP . We have all been there, done that and wished the ground to swallow us.

By doing this he's making it about him, not her. Jesus Christ, tell the man to shut his trap and keep it shut unless he's offering her a lift somewhere or telling her he is sorry and that he loves her for the forseeable future.

What an absolute melt of a man, I would be completely furious. It will die down but only if he doesn't start jumping up and down about it and trying to save his own face. He needs to listen to her wishes in order for his apology to mean a thing.

Yes this. She needs to try to play it off sooner rather than later. Let her call her father a dick if that’s what she needs to.
There’s not much more he can do than apologise and learn at this point, and accept your daughters anger. Now you need to concentrate on helping your daughter deal with it.

He must have been . It must have been something he was still angry about . Would he mention your most embarrassing moment to people? Nope ..because he must have a common sense filter that kicks in and stops him for doing that.
Periods are not a natural topic for men to talk about. So for him to use that example shows he did know what he was doing .
Does she see her mum? Has she had proper guidance when it comes to periods? You have said yourself you have no clue when it comes to teenagers

I didn't say it was the same, just that my Mum used to embarrass me in front of friends, so I know how that feels.

Figure out what lie she needs to tell and tell her to say it with confidence.

'My mum empties my bin every day - but he thinks I should use the outside bin?!'
'SD didn't know what period pants were - we've had to explain'

It depends what precisely he said, but work it out with her

Based on the OPs most recent update about the girls smirking at the comment, his daughter is toast at school tomorrow (or whenever she goes back). Knowing that age group, it’ll be all over the group chats and whatever else.

I’d consider having a quick word with a staff member at school to make them aware, to be honest.

I can’t honestly believe he said what he did. There’s genuinely no excuse. I can’t think what would possibly make it up to her.

I would ask SD “How would you feel if Becky’s dad had said the same thing about her? Would you just think ‘oh her dad is such a dick*’, because that’s all your friends would be thinking now”.

Basically try and get her to see how she would be feeling if it was her friend so to realise it’s not the end of the world.

*Swearing about dad is optional.

Can you talk to DSD? I think she needs to know the following

• as UnhappyAndYouKnowIt has said, almost every female has had a mortifying period incident.
• the point about Becky's dad above is great!
• can you tell her about one or more of your own period embarrassments?
• tell her she is lucky in a way because periods are getting acknowledged nowadays (but we still have a long way to go!) At least telly adverts nowadays use red water, not blue water (you can discuss how weird this was)
• sorry love, but you are going to have MORE period embarrassment, cos everyone does
• men haven't caught up yet. In trying to deal with what they learn about periods, they sometimes get it incredibly wrong, like DH did on this occasion. He is mortified too. He probably feels as bad as you do, and worried about whether his friends are talking about him
• you (DSD) will need to style it out, but don't be surprised if one of your friends comes to you in the future saying 'I understand now - we all have these disasters' (Lots of them will also have left Stuff around in their bedrooms
• periods are a major pain and you (OP) sympathise!

I would be helping her to be equipped for tomorrow by chatting to her and coming up with scenarios eg
Girl makes comment. DSD says ' I don't know why he does that. He loves embarrassing me in front of people' and laughs it off. Brings up another subject.

She needs a plan A, B and C and hiding away and acting like she is at fault is not it.

Don't know how you deal with it, but you are a really decent human being, we don't get posts like that from sms on here, you have a heart. And because you have a heart, you will have to deal with her, help her, not your idiot of a husband. But I don't know how.

I’m kind of with your DH in that I don’t really see there difference between the cup full of mold and the used period products. Both are a bit grim but I’ve done both before and nobody has died. I think the drama over this is a bit sad, women’s periods are still an unmentionable subject apparently, even though 50% of the population have them.

Id just try to move on OP. Hopefully something else will have happened by Monday for the school to gossip about.

I think the only way for your DSD to deal with this is that, she's mortified her Dad is an idiot, it wasn't true, he just has this weird habit of sometimes making stuff up to try and be funny ??

Your poor DSD

He needs to apologise, but your step daughter needs to improve her hygiene. She shouldn't be leaving bloody pads and underwear in her bedroom. She needs to put them in the bin/laundry basket.

Your poor DSD. My parent did something very similar to me as a young teen and disclosed that I still wet the bed in front of friends from school. My parent also claimed they didn’t think and didn’t mean to upset me although I don’t think that was entirely true as the bedwetting had been a point of contention in the past as they thought I needed to try harder to stop it. Has this been a point of contention between your DSD and DH before? I was mortified and it went all around the year group and my friends all distanced themselves from me. It did stop being an issue with my friends after a few weeks and things mostly went back to normal with them but other kids at school occasionally remembered it even years later, I remember in Year 11 which was years later two boys both refusing to sit next to me in biology and telling the teacher in front of the whole class it was because I wet the bed and smelt of wee. Mortified doesn’t even explain what that was like.

Unfortunately kids and teenagers can be cruel and stuff like this can stick if her friends choose to make an issue of it nd spread it further. I suppose the positive in her situation is periods are normal and she won’t be the only one of her friends to have gotten her period and may not be the only one struggling with the hygiene side, her friends may empathise or may even have been pulled up for similar issues at home, even if they don’t admit it, and so may be less likely to spread it further. I really hope it is forgotten about by her friends in a few days but I can understand why she is anxious, especially as friendships amongst teenage girls can be so fragile and if they’re not the nicest of girls and have mean streaks even if they don’t say anything now this could be something they remember and bring up at some point in the future out of spite.

I think some of these responses are making this into something more traumatic for DD than it has to be, she’s 12 so periods and all that goes with it are mortifyingly embarrassing at the moment and her dad ( thoughtlessly) joking like this with parents and friends is obviously horrific for her.

But my experience of a 14 year old and 20 year old DD is that they are very open about periods and all that goes with it, will talk openly with their friends and anyone that wants to have that conversation. It’s a different generation to our adult perspective of pretending they don’t exist and are something to be ashamed/embarrassed about. As she gets older she’ll probably think that her dad was an idiot, but will move on from the trauma that she’s feeling right now.

Today she needs ( since DD has already expressed how awful he feels and apologised) is support and lots of reassurance, and 100% not to contact anyone or do anything without her permission. It makes it into an on going drama and increases the stress.

I’d encourage her to send a text to friends to say something light like “ Urgh my dads embarrassing, loved having you guys over, see you at school” and I’m sure they’ll respond appropriately and all will be well.

Agree with message to mates that shrugs it off - omg aren’t dads embarrassing, it happened once for 5 mins, type thing. Don’t blow it up into anything bigger by trying to swear anyone to secrecy.

But also good upside if she stops doing this. I speak as the parent of a very messy teenager…