AITA for letting my 9 year old daughter watch a Saw movie?’

A father (32M) enjoys sharing his love of horror movies with his 9-year-old daughter, who has a high tolerance for scary films. While his wife (32F) was away, he allowed their daughter to watch the original Saw movie, believing it wouldn’t be much scarier than films she had previously enjoyed.

Upon learning about it, the mother expressed concern, claiming he was traumatizing their daughter by letting her watch a “torture movie.” read the original story below…

‘ AITA for letting my 9 year old daughter watch a Saw movie?’

My (32M) oldest daughter (9F) and I bond over our shared love for horror movies. She’s watched all those more kid appropriate horror movies, like Coraline, The Witches, Hocus Pocus, and most of Tim Burton’s films. She’s seen all the classics, Halloween, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, Chucky, etc.

She loves all the Scream movies, as well as The Conjuring/Annabelle franchise. She’s even watched creepier movies like Sinister, The Ring, and US, without being scared in the slightest. In fact, at this point I don’t think there’s anything that can scare this girl.

Yesterday, my wife (32F) was away for a few hours in the afternoon for her friend’s birthday celebration. My daughter wanted us to watch another horror movie together. She looked through my DVD collection and found an old DVD for the original Saw movie, and begged me to let her watch it.

I’d seen it before and I know it has a reputation for being a darker film, but after seeing how high her fear tolerance is, I decided to let her watch it. I know the sequels are less suitable for a 9 year old, but I figured that the first film wouldn’t be that much scarier than the movies she’s already watched.

She ended up LOVING the film, and even considers it one of her favourite movies. She didn’t look away from the screen once, not even during the ‘scarier’ scenes. When my wife got home, she asked me what we did that day, and I told her that we watched the first Saw movie.

She freaked out, saying that I was traumatising our daughter. She knows how much our daughter loves horror movies, but she said that there was a line that had to be drawn, and I couldn’t just let my child watch a ‘torture movie’. AITA?

Here’s the comments of Reddit users:

Ambitioso −  YTA Your little girl is of the opinion that ‘liking’ this movie and saying it’s one of her favourites is making her closer to you.
There’s no way on earth a young and innocent mind should be subjected to this kind of film. Bad parenting.

mifflewhat −  YTA. My parents showed me films that weren’t age appropriate in terms of violence and horror. At the time I found them morbidly fascinating, but I paid a high cost in anxiety and nightmares. Kids don’t have the maturity to consent to that. Saying ‘but she likes it’ doesn’t make consent issues go away.

nordic_wolf_ −  YTA. That is absolutely not a movie appropriate for a kid that age. At the very least you should have discussed this with your SO BEFORE watching it with your kid.

ParamedicMegan −  Yeah, YTA. You’re a parent, you’ve got to consider things beyond what’s fun for the two of you.

stroppo −  YTA. The Saw movies are about torture. Why in God’s name would you want to expose a \*child\* to that? An acquaintance told me how he and his 14 year old son watched the Saw movie and I told him “You are one sick m**herfucker.” That ended that friendship!

Personally, I think “horror” films like Saw perpetuate the celebration of cruelty in our culture. They are things that are only made to spread negatively and h**red. They help make the human race lousy.

New-Assumption-3836 −  YTA. I highly doubt she even loves horror movies, she loves bonding time with dad. It’s not healthy for a child that young to watch that kind of film. Bodily mutilation and a bludgeoning m**der are just 2 examples of how graphic it gets.

ministryoffear −  YTA. Bit late now after watching all those movies. Kids get into interests because we nurture those interests. Parenting is saying no sometimes.

MountMiso −  I would not let my 9 year old watch a R rated torture movie, but you do you.. No judgement.

RegularOps −  soft YTA  You probably should have consulted with your wife beforehand. That being said most of us on Reddit aren’t child psychologists and I won’t pretend to be one. But there are younger children in my family who watch mature scary movies and love them too and as far as I know they’re just fine.

WifeofBath1984 −  YTA Saw is so, so violent. It’s not just a “darker film”. My 12 year old loves horror movies too (and has since he was about 9), but some of them are off limits. I won’t even let him watch Scream because it’s so violent. You don’t need to destroy your daughters innocence and desensitize her to horrible violence.

What do you think? Is it acceptable for him to let his daughter watch Saw given her interest in horror? Share your thoughts below!