AITA for grounding my daughter because she called my SIL a “s**t”?

A mother grounded her 14-year-old daughter for three months after the teen called her aunt offensive names like “slut” and “cuck.” The conflict arose when classmates discovered the aunt’s adult film career and teased the daughter. While the mother and her husband support the aunt’s profession, the daughter has reacted with anger,

cutting ties with her aunt and refusing to join family gatherings. The mother believes the punishment is necessary to address her daughter’s language and attitude, but her husband feels it’s excessive and that the daughter needs time to process.

‘ AITA for grounding my daughter because she called my SIL a “s**t”?’

My daughter (14yo) posted a picture of a family get together on social media. A boy from school recognized her aunt from an adult film and messaged my daughter about it. I believe he sent a video to her as well. Before this, she had no idea her aunt was in the industry.

It appears that boy spread this around the school and my daughter is being teased for it. I notified the school and they are looking into it and will plan to educate the students about sexism online.. My husband and I are respectful and non-judgmental of my SIL’s profession and have tried to teach these values to our children.

My daughter is understandably upset and I feel for her, but she is directing all her anger and blame towards her aunt. She unfriended my SIL from social media and removed all traces of her from her profiles.

She refuses to join us for weekly dinners at my SIL house and when they come over, she ignores them and just sits in her room playing minecraft. I tried talking to her about tolerance, shame, and sexism, but it she is dismissive of all of it.. ​My SIL is hurt from all of this.

Not only did she have her privacy invaded, but she lost a good relationship with her niece. Last weekend, I went upstairs to my daughters room to try and talk to her and get her to join us downstairs. My daughter refused and referred my SIL as “a vapid s**t” and her husband “a pathetic cuck” along with other slurs I don’t want to repeat.. ​

I grounded her for three months and took away her internet. My husband definitely thinks that she should be punished for using that language, but that’s too much. He also admitted he struggled accepting his sister’s career path at first. He thinks she just needs space and will come around eventually because her aunt is family.. ​

Here’s what the community had to contribute:

[Reddit User] −  YTA. Stop and think for a minute what sorts of disgusting things those 14 year olds are saying to your CHILD. You don’t think they’re asking if she’ll follow in her aunty’s footsteps? It’s beyond her capabilities right now to be expected to support the s** industry while she is directly being HURT by it. Do you understand?

This is currently doing serious harm to your daughter and she is angry at her aunt because it’s not her aunt who has to wear these consequences, it’s your 14 year old daughter. Her aunt got to make a choice to do this work as an adult. Your daughter is a child and did not sign up for this s**t she is going through.

And right now, it feels as though you’re dismissing her pain and prioritising the aunt who isn’t being harmed nearly as much as your child. For god’s sake, HELP YOUR DAUGHTER right now and worry about your sermons about s** work later.

Also: she doesn’t have to like s** work. She doesn’t have to support it or agree with it in any way if she doesn’t want to. She’s entitled to have her own opinion on the matter, and no doubt this experience is shaping her opinion.

Nicky666 −  YTA, your SIL’s privacy was NOT invaded, she gave it up for money. I’m not judgemental about this, she’s an adult. However, your kid is NOT an adult, she doesn’t get anything out of this except for being bullied in school. Your kid is the one that lost the relationship with her aunt, not the other way around.

And apart from being bullied and teased about her aunt at school and losing a good relationship with her aunt, now her mother/father is also “against her”…..she did nothing wrong and now the whole world is against her, including the people that live in her home. Your kid must feel awfully alone.

I think you should look at this from her perspective, it doesn’t matter if you approve of your SIL’s livestyle and if the internet approves of your SIL’s livestyle. You’re the a**hole because you lack empathy for your daughter.

Btw, what does your husband mean by needing to punish her? And you thinking it is too much, because you already grounded her for three months and took away her internet??? Wat does punishing her beyond that mean?? I think you two might be way beyond being assholes.

ZTL −  Okay, listen. You’re NTA for grounding your daughter, but you really need to sit your daughter down and have at least one, if not more, real conversations about this.
You say you’re daughter is being teased. I bet you don’t even know the half of it. I can only imagine the things that people say to her.

I bet she is probably being reffered to as a “s**t” just for being related to her. She’s just using the terms that everyone has been flinging at her. There’s probably going to be some long term social and emotional issues because of this. Kids don’t need a reason to bully. But when they have that kind of ammo… It can get horrifically ugly.

You need to try and have a conversation and really understand what she’s going through. Just grounding her without even having a conversation is pretty lazy parenting and can lead to issues down the road.

thatonegirlherelol −  Kinda YTA. She’s probably being tortured at school because of that. She’s allowed to be angry. Maybe the language was a bit harsh but after what she’s been doing through it’s pretty understandable.

SaxifragetheGreen −  YTA. You can be as enlightened and progressive as you want, but that doesn’t do s**t for your daughter who’s being mocked and taunted in school. Also, nobody’s privacy was invaded. Your SIL willingly performed in these videos, which are publicly available. Your daughter posted a picture, also publicly, with her in it.

There’s no privacy violations anywhere to be found, just long-deferred consequences. Your daughter should have found out from you, or her aunt, first. The fact that she found out from her peers first was your fault, and has made this worse for your daughter.

Three months is way too long to cover for your lack of judgement and wishful thinking. Punishing her for being bullied is lazy and is only going to drive her away from you, and make her resent you and whatever lesson you’re trying to teach her.

tortoise_not_a_hare −  YTA. I would change my opinion if she said it to the aunt directly but she was having a private conversation with her mother. Good luck getting her to ever do that with you again … she is gonna remember this next time you wanna have any talk with her.

Baltusrol −  YTA – 3 months is too much for this. She was venting to you in private; if you want her to be open about her feelings with you punishing her for the way she expresses it will not further the development of the conversational channels.

A night without her game to think about the whole situation and come up with a solution would have been more constructive Edit: Obligatory holy cow, thanks for the gold! I just hope my meandering advice helps someone somewhere 🙂

moongirl12 −  YTA for the scope of punishment. Your daughter is being put in a terrible position and probably bullied. She’s 14. This is not how to handle it.

BaguetteSwordFight −  YTA Your daughter learned her aunt’s profession in the least ideal way possible. Imagine an adoptive child learning they were adopted from one of their peers in school? They would feel embarrassed, shame, anger and frustration, just like your daughter is. You and the aunt lied by omission, allowing this to unfold.

If she had been let in on this information before getting teased for it she would’ve had time to thicken her skin, process the information independently and with your help in a shame free environment. Unfortunately and predictably the opposite happened, due to y’all’s omission. My SIL is hurt from all of this.

Not only did she have her privacy invaded, but she lost a good relationship with her niece. How was her privacy invaded??? She seems to have fully consented to participate in the adult film industry. Did she expect no one to watch the films?

I wouldn’t say this is her fault, but you’re making her the victim when your daughter has to suffer from this for likely the rest of high school. The language she used likely didn’t originate from her, but from her peers who she can’t avoid.

And now you are punishing your daughter for all this to protect her aunt’s feeling when YOU BOTH could have prevented this. Unreal.

Guenzler00 −  Three months is too long. My mother had a habit of grounding me for long periods. After a while, I stopped caring that I was grounded because it had become so normal. Not only was I not considering why I had been grounded in the first place, it made being grounded not a big deal.

So when I did something bad in the future I didn’t really care because the punishment had become my norm. Oh, and I also resented my mother for it. Long groundings such as these do not work.