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?

But bodily fluids from your genitals is nothing like a used tissue or plaster, its much closer to used loo roll with pee etc on it, which you obviously wouldn't leave lying around.....

Sounds like s good idea, hopefully it might work but knowing how girls that age are she could potentially be bullied at school and lose her friends!
Your DP is a complete and utter bastard for doing this to her. Personallly I don’t think I could ever forgive him (and yes people might think I’m being OTT but I’ve been there myself and have a daughter!)

It will be all around school by tomorrow.I work in a secondary and the gossip between the kids is rife.Poor girl.

Maybe the embarrassment will make sure she doesn't behave like a dirty pig again.

Getting responses like this is exactly why my father would share information. Because there’s always a ready supply of grown adults who love nothing more than feeling superior by denigrating children based on very few details about a situation.

The only pigs are those who get off humiliating and name calling children.

If they didn’t say goodbye and were smirking, I would be very on the ball for potential bullying and mean girl behaviour and ready to support DSD with it.

Nail on head - do exactly this, OP

@Onlycoffee I have two sisters and we were raised not to be dirty and my daughter and step daughters are all adults and never once saw the need to leave used period products lying around or soiled underwear because that would be absolutely disgusting.

You can choose to raise pigs or not.

As for playing the 'might be neuro diverse card' that's just insulting to anyone who is neuro diverse but who is perfectly clean and tidy.

At 12, the ops stepdaughter knows what a bin and a laundry basket are.

She could go to the bathroom, wrap up the pad and then put it in the bathroom bin like the majority of women do. She needs to be told that it is disgusting to leave bloody pads in her bedroom.

Ah poor girl.

I think she should text the friends going on the offensive as it were:

'Arsehole (or 12 yo equiv haha) DF, I can't believe he said that, he can't cope with a pair of period pants that missed the dirty linen basked, what a misogynist dick, I'm so angry with him, he's completely humiliated me for a totally normal thing.'

I think this is one, where as the mum figure in her day to day life, you need to stop in.

Acknowledge her dad has been a dick, I would even use those words. As a woman you get how embarrassed she is and maybe give her some tips on how to style it out with her friends....eye rolls and "God my dad is such a dick, as if anyone actually does that" statements.

See how tomorrow goes and if things are awkward I would probably step in with thw other parents at that point.

Absolutely right.

Agree, and wondering what sort of girls they are to be friends with in the first place.

Op is there a chance their smirks could have been embarrassment? Hoping so for your sds sake.

This is horrific for the poor girl.

I think the best thing you can do for her now and to do damage control is to coach her how to brush it off and ride it out with her friends, pretending it doesn't bother her.

Also, she could minimise it by saying he just meant dirty pants left on the floor as well as wrappers for sanitary products rather than actual used sanitary items (and aren't they gross for mistaking that!)

I know teenage girls, and she has to try and make it not a big deal.

The issue isn’t that she left dirty underwear and period products around and I’m confident his intention wasn’t trying to shame her into stopping.
Nobody here thinks she's a 'disgusting pig'

Yes it’s not ideal and and bit gross but don’t think it’s unheard of behaviour for a girl her age so we didn’t make it into a big deal. It was dealt with calmly, she was given more support and clearer instructions.

He probably feels as bad as you do, and worried about whether his friends are talking about him

Yes, let’s tell a young girl who has been humiliated in front of her friends and their parents, that’s it’s as bad as- maybe even worse - for poor old dad!
His feelings, as a result of his own deliberate actions, are what really matter here.

The pandering on here is insane.

That is what I am wondering about.
How did he find out about his daughter's "hidden" underwear and used sanpro?

She is completely free to make up whatever lie she wants and and swear about and insult DP as much as she needs to.
He is more than happy to put his hands in his pockets to make up for this one although that doesn't actually help with what she's concerned about.

Giving her an hour and then will try and talk to her again.

I'd get her to text whoever she's closest to along the lines of, My dad is SO embarrassing, it wasn't even true! I literally left a clean pad in a pair of knickers on my bed while I had a shower. He shouldn't even have gone in my room and he wouldn't have seen it.

Obviously he was a nob and he can’t undo what’s happened now so you’re on damage control. Can you ‘create’ a similar scenario for either him or you to help her to feel less alone in this?

Maybe you experienced something similar at some point? I remember taking a purse out of a bag on a bus and a load of tampons rolled down the aisle of the bus. I was mortified. Maybe something like this but it was used and you’d put it in there to dispose of later?

Or he was having a poo somewhere and the door got opened so everyone saw him.

I think that knowing you can survive these things and someone else gets it can be very powerful at that age.

I wouldn't put in a child's corner to think up punishment/what to do to make amends.

What a degrading man, at least you can prepare for what to expect when your joint children a bit older.

I would probably leave him to himself and take your stepdaughter out with your children. She doesn't need to endure her bully spending a day with her too.

Ask if she wants to inform her birth mum and I would consider throwing her a multi generation all girls party inviting aunts and grandmothers etc to celebrate her being older.

I wouldn't disclose anything about the incident and I would make it all about how lucky everyone is to have her in their life as a growing young woman.

She needs to know that there's many other family members that she doesn't need to entertain men who bully their children to look good.

People are acting as if they haven’t said ridiculous things without thinking, of course it’s horrible what he said but I think he’s clearly remorseful! I’d give it a few days to let it calm down, she will soon see once she’s at school that all is fine and forgotten about ! I’d be more worried about a glass full of mold !

It could be worse, he could have said it to a new boyfriend. She needs to style it out and say to her friends on Monday that he likes to purposely embarrass her by saying stupid shit. I promise you this won’t be the last time she feels embarrassed so she needs to find ways to deal with stuff like this.

If they come back to her at school and she is stuck for something to say:

-She should sigh and point out that parents are soooooooo embarrassing. (They will all have stories about how theirs really made them cringe).

She could even tell them she thinks that he had made a bet that he could embarrass her... then ask for ideas on how to embarrass him in return.

Regarding the friends, three is always a tricky number and if the other two live closer together perhaps they are best friends who occasionally include your DSD? If this is the case and they take a step back from the friendship then they were never true friends in the first place. It was an awful thing to say and 12 year old girls can be VILE so I wouldn’t underestimate how awful this could be for DSD, but it might be that she’s so nervous because she knows deep down that they will tell others and be unkind because they aren’t true friends?

I’m absolutely furious at him, he does feel terrible and has apologised but DSD is completely beside herself,