agonyaunt | SO MANY BAD PARENTS

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SO MANY BAD PARENTS

Dear Care and Feeding,

One of my daughters, who is 12, hates roller coasters. I’m not sure why, but she has always despised them. My wife will not let her just sit out the amusement park rides. When my daughter was younger, she would kick and scream, and my wife would just pick her up and put her on the ride even if she was crying. She insists “she’ll learn to enjoy them,” but so far she hasn’t. Now that our daughter is older, my wife still forces her on the rides by threatening to ground her or take away electronics. My daughter isn’t afraid of heights or prone to motion sickness. I’ve asked her why she doesn’t like roller coasters, and she just says they make her feel weird. I’ve never met anyone who dislikes roller coasters without a reason. At this point, I’m ready to just let her do something else for the day so we don’t have to deal with her attitude, but my wife is still insistent that she rides these rides. Is there a reason she’s acting like this? Is there a way to get her to enjoy them so we can finally have peace?

—Rough Rides

Dear R.R.,

Pardon my language, but WTF? Why on earth do you people insist on making a hesitant child ride a roller coaster? We aren’t talking about swimming or a self-defense class or cooking or showering (you know, life skills), but an amusement park attraction that, in most instances, requires the rider or their parents to assume some level of responsibility for possible injury sustained while doing something dangerous in the name of entertainment. The entire point of riding a roller coaster is to have fun. If roller coasters are not fun to you, you should not ride them and your parents should not force you. This is akin to making a kid who’d rather eat a salad have a bacon chili cheeseburger; having one on occasion isn’t going to kill you, but it could be mighty unpleasant for someone with a sensitive stomach, and only worth the discomfort if they are interested in enjoying the meal.

It’s one thing to encourage a scared kid to try a ride to challenge themselves (I personally would not do this for fear I may traumatize them, but some of y’all move differently), but it’s another to make your daughter ride one (or more?) every time you go to an amusement park, which I suspect is much more often than she’d like. I am begging you, as a former kid who hated and was afraid of roller coasters, to stop trying to force her into enjoying something she clearly doesn’t and instead, allow her to spend the day with a friend, grandparents, anyone who won’t make her miserable and call it a family activity.

Dear Care and Feeding,

I’m 14 and in ninth grade. I’ve gained some weight since the pandemic started. I don’t know exactly how much, but I’m still within the “healthy” range of BMI. The problem is that my mom thinks I’m really fat and last week she took all my clothes. She let me keep my pajamas and some of my sweat pants, but nothing that she thought was too small or too tight. She says that she doesn’t want me walking around looking like an overstuffed sausage. She gave me a stack of my dad’s old T-shirts and baggy cotton shorts to wear instead. I asked her if we could just go shopping and buy some new clothes in larger sizes. I even offered to pay for it myself with my allowance. She said if she let me get new clothes then that would send the message that being fat is OK. She thinks if I want to have nice clothes then I need to do a better job of taking care of my body. Before the pandemic, I was a lot more active, but I haven’t been able to play sports as much since everything got shut down last year. I’ve tried to talk to her about how embarrassed I am by the clothes she’s making me wear, but she doesn’t care. I feel so embarrassed when I leave the house now that I barely go out anymore. My dad won’t help at all; he says it’s between my mom and me. I just want to wear my normal clothes again and hang out with my friends. What should I do?

—Fourteen and Fat

Dear F.F.,

I am so sorry that your mother is behaving in such an inexcusable manner. What she is doing is harmful, it is cruel, and you do not deserve it. No one should be made to feel such a way about their body. There would be nothing wrong with you if you were fat, and there is nothing wrong with you now.

Two people in this situation are wrong, however: your mom for her behavior and your dad for failing to defend you against it. This is a scenario no child should have to be in, left to figure out what to do and who to tell when her parents are screwing up, and I wish I had better, easier answers for you. I would suggest talking to another trusted adult in your life: Is there an aunt, a teacher, a guidance counselor whom you can speak to about this? I’m not just concerned about you getting the clothes that you should have, but also that you may begin to see your body differently over time if this treatment continues. You need an adult in your life who can hear you and who can advocate for you with your parents. Whatever has infected your mom to these attitudes is more than you can be expected to challenge on your own.

No matter what, I want you to remind yourself every day that you are fine, your body is fine, and that your mother is wrong. Do your best to challenge any voice inside that ever suggests that you take her nonsense seriously. I hope sincerely that you get the support you deserve, and soon.

—Jamilah

These are from the same column, and I sincerely hope they're fake and nobody is this abusive: https://slate.com/human-interest/2021/07/buying-vibrator-stepdaughter-care-and-feeding.html

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Seriously, though, these parents are the worst, all of them.

They're awful, both of them. Those poor kids.

They're both the worst, but I've heard of parents like the bottom mom a million times before whereas the top one is so bizarre I'm still not entirely sure it's real (but why would you make that up...?).

Yeah, exactly. The second one is awful, but it's also a very common attitude, whereas reading the first one was just like bizarro land.

I don't know about repeatedly, but my parents certainly insisted that I come with them to an amusement park on a holiday (I was ~20? My siblings are much younger). And then were surprised that I was miserable -- I had a migraine, and it was only about 3pm that my father worked out what was going on. And I've watched so many parents bully their children to go on rides at our local amusement park.

I suppose I should be glad my mother only took away some of my favorite clothes and not all of them because I was SOOOOOOOOOOO FAT as a kid.

(her efforts totally worked, since I currently weigh over 20 stone. ahahah *sigh*.)

*hugs you* My mom policed my desserts and talked too much about what was nutritious and what was “junk”. So yeah, I’m still geared to have feelings about food and freedom locked together.

*hugs you back*

Wow. I concur that I hope these are fake.

LW1, she has given you a reason! It's a perfectly fine reason. Let her have it. (If you want *my* reason: at that age I was absolutely the wrong size and shape for roller coaster restraints designed to fit large adults; I rattled around inside them bruisingly and constantly felt like I would get whiplash or sprain something, so it was not fun. I loved fast swoopy rides that did not toss me around jerkily in oversized restraints! I did not explain this to people until I was old enough that they fit now, because it literally did not occur to me that "the seatbelts are designed for larger people" could be the problem and all the larger people just hadn't thought of it??? That may or may not be related to your daughter's problem, but either way, "I don't like it" is a good enough reason!)

Besides, now that she's old enough to wait on her own, every family is lucky to have someone who doesn't like the roller coasters and can wait on a bench with your stuff.

LW2: This sucks! Everything your mom is telling you about your body and what you deserve is a lie, and your dad is awful too. And no matter what, you deserve to have clothes that don't humiliate you! I hope you can find an adult who can support you. And can you get something at least tolerable - from a thrift store, from a friend, sewn out of the curtains, something? And hide them somewhere you can change after you're out of your mom's sight? 14 is a fine age to start doing things like this behind your parents' backs- I just wish you had a less awful reason to want to.

Edited 2021-07-12 21:43 (UTC)

What the fuck is WRONG with these people?

I believe that FF's letter is not fake, because my daughter's birth mother had a different variation along the same lines, as soon as my (tiny! honestly probably underweight!) daughter started getting too big for clothes that would fit the old harridan. (Birth mother was brought up in the old country and probably undernourished; kid was raised in the US and was taller than her mom in her early teens.) I wish FF a very happy conversation with a mandated reporter as soon as possible.

I would cordially like to stab both of these so-called “mothers” >:(

"...Is there a reason she’s acting like this?"

Good question! Why IS your wife being a controlling jerk, and why *can't* you guys let your daughter have preferences?

I genuinely fear for the second post's LW with such a family around. No matter how much weight she put on this is inexcusable, and who knows what else her mother might do if she fails to live up to her standards in other ways.

The kid in the first letter has nothing wrong with them but with that parenting she might develop some serious trauma in later years, what the heck.

LW2 needs to tell Mom, “You’re right. I need to go to my pediatrician so he can give me ways to lose weight.”

Then tell pediatrician in front of Mom, “I’m embarrassed and I feel awful. Mom explained to me how fat I am since I couldn’t play sports during the pandemic. She threw my clothes away and gave me baggy clothes, so at least I don’t look like an overstuffed sausage. I don’t want to learn that being fat is okay, so we’re not buying new clothes. What can I do?”

I dearly hope response would be a height/weight chart lecture for Mom and/or mandatory reporting.

Yes. Yes. This, with the only slight edit that LW2 needs to make it clear that that horrible, vile "overstuffed sausage" comment is her mother's very own and not LW2's self-image (yet). Something like, "My mom took my clothes away and gave me these things to wear because she says that otherwise I'll look like an overstuffed sausage." (The whole thing is horrible, but that line in particular made me go all stabbity. What a horrible thing to say to your child!!!!!)

I would hope you are right but so many doctors are utter trash about weight and I would worry about LW2 if hers is one of them.

Speaking as a fat woman, 90% of Drs are TERRIBLE about weight issues

so I really don't trust doctors to have LWs back on this...

Ditto. I haven’t had a PCP in a couple of years due to their fat shaming. There’s a good chance the doc might take the mother’s side.

Sadly there's a huge chance the doctor would agree. :-/ (Also even if the daughter was actually overweight, the mom's actions would be terrible.)

Talking to doctors about weight, willingly, is such a crapshoot.

Like, my older nibling actually got good advice from, of all people, my mother's oncologist about the subject (they happened to go in with my mother for that visit, and when my mother mentioned that they'd been worried about weight the oncologist whipped out the height and weight chart, asked when they'd started menstruating, and told them that their height and weight was utterly fine but they should probably do more strength training since girls generally don't - which, btw, is yet another reason MSK is the place to go) but I've heard so many horror stories.

LW1: WTAF? They are roller coasters. They are a completely optional part of life and something whose only reason for existing is so that people who like them can have fun. People who are not having fun on them should never, ever have to ride them, just as people should never have to do any other purely recreational activity that is actually not fun for them. Literally. This is not food, or hygiene, or academics, or health-related stuff, or even "command performance" social obligations (e.g., family reunions, work or school-related gatherings). The only reason to ever ride a roller coaster is because you enjoy it. (Or, in the case of my very patient mother, that time my dad got sick at the amusement park and she suffered through taking her roller-coaster-maniac of an offspring here on several things that she would not have ridden for pleasure. But the reverse is just sick to me, for exactly that reason: the adult in the picture should be accommodating of the kid's preferences for wholly optional purely recreational activities. If my mother could bring herself to get on several world-record-breaking coasters for me, this poor girl's mother can let her do literally anything else that's safe and legal instead.)

LW2: I already talked about this one in answer to

green_grrl above, but just to recap: Nth'ing the need for the poor kid to get in touch with a mandated reporter, and all the better if it's a medical professional who can sort Mama's twisted and sick-making ideas about health, weight, and body image out from a position of professional authority (because I will bet you a good bit that this woman is also the sort of person who is very conscious of things like authority figures and so forth).

I find LW1 all too plausible. My mother thought it was very important to do "normal" things, which included things that normal people enjoy. Like playing video games, watching television, drinking wine, going to discos, and going to amusement parks. She didn't require roller coasters, specifically. But going, and going on rides, and pretending to enjoy yourself, and not whining.

Oh, I'm not amongst the commenters here who find LW1 implausible and in fact I have some "normalcy evangelists" like your mom in my family, though thankfully none of them were ever my legal guardians. I just find the parents' behavior to be absurd and horrifying, especially since there are going to be so damn many times, possibly-especially with a kid approaching adolescence, that they are going to have to lay down a law, that picking this particular hill to die on is just, like, priorities; this is what you pick to take a stand on?

Then again I'm a very serious roller coaster junkie and absolutely not used to the kind of social milieu that LW1 describes where everybody either just ~loves~ roller coasters or else has some "concrete" reason for not liking them like motion sickness or acrophobia, because I always used to get "OMG, you want to ride WHAT?!?!?!?" from people, especially as a little kid, so this whole world where liking roller coasters, especially at a very young age, is the norm rather than the exception is blowing my mind on another whole level. I mean, does their entire social circle center around the American Coaster Enthusiasts or something? (Says the former card-carrying member of same, and who was a kid who cried like LW1's daughter did when I had to get off the first coaster I ever rode. ;) )

LW2: That's abuse. Probably legal, depending on specifics, but taking clothing away is abuse. Taking clothing away and replacing it with clothes that are barely decent (which "dad's t-shirts and baggy shorts" may well be, especially depending on LW2's build) and which make it impossible for other adults to take you seriously is unquestionably abuse.

LW1: I see why people are speculating fake, because what the actual fuck?

What the f…

"At this point, I’m ready to just let her do something else for the day so we don’t have to deal with her attitude" a child expressing her perfectly reasonable wants and needs is attitude??

I wonder if the mom acts the same with other issues, but since those don't disturb the dad's fun, he doesn't care. Also, I know some commenters are sceptical about this story being true. However, a common issue autistic and mentally ill people complain of is being forced as children to do things, and do them the "right" way, by uncompromising and intolerant adults who didn't want to bother finding alternatives. That's why I'm inclined to give it the benefit of the doubt at least.

LW2's mom is going to give her daughter body image and/or disordered eating issues. Grrr. What is it with prepubescent/early teen girls that makes society's mysogyny suddenly triple in intensity?

These poor kids. So much terrible abuse and what’s listed here is probably just the tip of the iceberg of what the kids are enduring from these clueless, controlling, and, in the second case, sadistic parents.

On that roller-coaster thing - which is horrible - I can only hypothesise that there is a family Thing that 'We do amusement parks together as a Big Happy Family going on All The Rides WHEEEEEE' being performative Big Happy Family at amusement park. And yes to other suggestions that this is tip of iceberg of problematic family dynamics.

Probably with added "getting our money's worth" for the family pass/12-y-o's ticket.

ok, so I get that amusement parks are less fun if you have to supervise a ride hater at them. the answer is not to take her. Maybe take turns where you or your spouse go to the park and the other takes the child to do things she enjoys. But rides are there purely for fun, if it is not fun don't do it... and, um, maybe you'd save money by not taking her to places where such rides are the point.

(I love rides, I love feeling like I'm flying; and my back screams at me on all but the gentlest these days. It is possible that there is a medical issue causing her pain, but that is only plausible if she has pain, it is entirely possible she just dislikes the feeling of flying)

"When my daughter was younger, she would kick and scream, and my wife would just pick her up and put her on the ride even if she was crying."

Gee and one wonders why she HATES roller coasters and they make her feel "weird".

This happened with me as a kid and swimming lessons. When I was about 4 my parents put me in swim class at the Y and the instructor did this thing of letting go of us in the water to "force" us to swim. I was too young to really understand what was going on or to tell my parents but I still remember the sensation of feeling like I was drowning and I became so water shy that it took about 2 years of private lessons with just me and my younger brother (who picked up on my timidity as well) to get us past the intro swimming levels and to a point where it was reasonable to join group classes again and otherwise be considered as safely able to swim (in terms of camp registrations, etc)

I want to steal both of these children and raise them with the respect and kindness they deserve

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SO MANY BAD PARENTS

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