Aimeé
There are so many deranged parents out there, and yet I still found myself hoping that this parent is so awful they’re made up. A screenshot of a parent asking for advice was posted on Reddit by u/beerbellybegone, and it paints a very grim picture of their relationship to their pre-teen kid.
“How do I stop my 12-year-old daughter from crying herself to sleep?” they asked. “I have punished her and she still does it.”
Wow. So much awful in just two sentences. On the bright side, that’s not the end of the story. Below this horrible question, someone responded by absolutely raking them over the coals.
“Wow! You’re a super terrific parent!” they began, sarcastically. “Your 12-year-old is crying herself to sleep so you punish her. What are you? Some narcissistic empathy lacking wretch?”
“12-years old can be such a hard age in today’s world,” they continued. “There is bullying, sex trafficking, peer pressure, homework and we have been through an isolating pandemic.”
Hmm, when you put it like that, I might cry myself to sleep tonight, too. But there’s more:
“Oh! I have an idea! Change your approach! Have you asked her why she cries herself to sleep? Can you do that without yelling? Did it ever occur to you that she might be facing something you don’t know anything about? Has it never even occurred to you? Open your eyes!”
They concluded, “A 12-year-old doesn’t just cry herself to sleep to help her sleep. She is obviously dealing with something causing stress and turmoil and she may need professional help. Clearly, you can’t if you can’t see a problem in front of your own eyes.”
Yeah, I’m pretty sure the problem for this kid is growing up with a parent who punishes them for expressing human emotion. Did this horrible parent ever read this scorching critique? Could it possibly have changed their behavior? We’ll never know, but at least someone put what we’re all thinking into words.
