Mom Insists Aunt And Cousins Apologize For Horrible Comments About Her Daughter’s Forehead Mark

If there’s one place where a person should be free to be who they are, it should be with family.

Sadly, many who are “different” find themselves in families that choose to discriminate instead of accept or even celebrate.

OP is South Asian and married into a white family. Her daughter has chosen to adopt part of her mother’s culture, a bindi, and wears one every day.

Her parents support this and OP bought her a bindi bag to take with her when she’s away from home.

I (40f) am South Asian and my husband “Luke” (42m) and the rest of his family are white.

We have a beautiful daughter, “Amara” (14f) who has decided to start wearing bindis in day-to-day life two months ago.

I helped her buy a bindi bag and Amara had carried it around with her whenever she’d be gone from home from more than a day ever since.

Recently, her daughter spent the weekend at her aunts, with cousins who are close to her age. Her daughter called crying after they taunted her regarding the bindi and eventually threw the bag into the pool, where she couldn’t retrieve it.

Last weekend, I let Amara go to my SIL “Bree” (45f)’s house. Bree has two kids, “Danielle” (15f) and “Chase” (13m).

Saturday afternoon, Amara called me crying and told me that Danielle and Chase had been teasing her about the “dots” on her forehead since Friday.

That morning, Danielle and Chase had grabbed the bag out of her room and dumped it into the pool as a “prank”.

It sank to the bottom, and since Amara can’t swim, she wasn’t able to grab it.

Her aunt said her kids were just being kids, and probably “did her a favor” anyway.

Amara went to Bree and told her what happened, and Bree took Danielle and Chase’s side, saying it was kids being kids and that they did Amara a favor with that prank.

OP went to pick up her daughter and confirmed the story with the aunt. Then they left.

I comforted my daughter over the phone, and went to go pick her up soon after Amara said she didn’t want to be at Bree’s house anymore.

Once I got there, I helped Amara put her bag into the trunk before going to Bree to confirm the story. Bree confirmed it, and doubled down on what she said hard.

I was irritated at that and soon left with Amara.

Her daughter doesn’t want anything to do with her aunt and cousins, and OP and her husband are insisting on an apology before their daughter will be allowed to return.

When we got home, I told Luke what happened and he suggested not having Amara go over to Bree’s house until Bree apologizes for saying that the kids did Amara a favor by throwing her bindi bag into the pool, and the kids apologize for the incident itself.

I agreed with that being a good idea, but checked to make sure Amara was okay with it first.

Amara said that she doesn’t even want to see her cousins or aunt now anyways, so I sent Bree a text explaining that Amara wouldn’t be coming over under they all apologize.

The aunt and even mother-in-law think they’re overreacting, but are they?

I didn’t get a response at first, but when I did, Bree was telling me that was unfair and that I was punishing her and her kids over a dumb prank.

I just replied that I just want an apology for my daughter and that should be a simple request.

Bree didn’t reply back, but my MIL ended up calling me and telling me that I was horrible for not letting Bree see her niece.

She also said that both Amara and I needed to get over the incident when I explained Amara doesn’t want to be around Bree or her kids either.

Luke is on my side with this, but my MIL won’t stop texting about how I need to just let this go and let bygones be bygones

I bet Reddit is going to have a lot to say about this one…

The top comment says these kids are far old enough to know better.

It’s not the daughter’s job to “get over it” here.

So, this person (and others) hope OP will teach her daughter to swim.

Y’all, this story made me so mad.

I can’t believe they don’t even think they’ve done anything wrong.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a daughter who invited herself to her parent’s 40th anniversary vacation for all the wrong reasons.