Submitted by jesseberdinka t3_zkx38k in tifu
Obligatory this happened a few years ago.
My wife travels a lot which means that when my daughter was about 6 or 7 the two of us would have lots of nights together where we would play games or read before bedtime. One time we were sitting on her bed before sleep and about halfway through a book when I closed it and said to her:
"We really love you. I'm so happy it worked out with you. Not like the OTHER one."
She looked at me, "What do you mean?"
"Well", I said, "Parenting is hard and you don't get much practice so sometimes you make mistakes. Take your sister for instance. Before you we had a young girl and welllll, it just didn't work out. We were young and didn't know what we were doing and it did NOT go well."
My daughter just looks at me and asks, "What happened to her?"
"Well, we didn't really know what to do with her so we just locked her in a cage in the attic and started over and lucky we did because that's how we got YOU!" I then opened up the book and started reading as if I hadn't just dropped a bombshell on her.
Now of course my daughter had lots of questions and I just improved facts about her sister, "Maggie" that lives in the attic:
- She can't speak English, but kind of grunts and sings like that Jodie Foster movie Nell.
- She is violent and we have to slide her food to her with a stick.
- We've become worried lately about some of her "drawings".
You know, fun stuff like that. My daughter knows I'm full of bullshit so she doesn't believe it, but kind of wants to y'know? So we come up with lots of cool stories about her sister who lives in the attic. Sometimes when we read I would stop and look at the ceiling and go "Shhhhh! Did you hear that? probably nothing." before going back to the book.
One time she asked what she should do if she ever got out. Now the thing I didn't tell you is that the door to the attic? IT'S IN MY DAUGHTER'S ROOM. LOL.
"Well, I said, If she ever gets out, just lie still under your covers. She's not mad at you, she's mad at Mommy and Daddy."
So a few weeks later I am working as a lunchroom monitor at her school. This is a volunteer thing you do a few times a month where you walk around the lunch room and help little kids open their milk and stuff. My daughter is at a table with her friends and they call me over. One of the girls, Coleen, asks me straight up, "Molly says she has a sister who lives in a cage in the attic. Is this true?
Now here is where I F'd up. What I SHOULD have said was, "No. That's just a story we made up."
What I SAID was "I dunnooooo!" while smiling and shrugging indicating that maybe there is, maybe there isn't a kid being held, hostage.
Didn't think about it.
Few days later I come in from walking the dog and my wife tells me the principal wants me to call her. Oh crap. I know what this is about. My wife is like, "Oh she probably wants to talk to you about the ice cream fundraiser!" I'm thinking to myself that no, she does not want me to talk to her about the ice cream fundraiser. lol.
So I call and she says something to the effect of, "Hi, first, thank you for your help with the ice cream social. So, one of our student's parents called and said that she is worried because, oh this is silly I know, that you are keeping one of your kids in a cage in an attic? That's not true is it?"
So, now I have to go and explain in detail the whole story which sounds like I"m a psychopath and the worst parent ever. She was very good about it and understanding and we nervously laughed it off. The worst part of this was that the girl who said something to her mom was a young girl whose mom had been to our house and who we had driven places etc. She knew us well and could have just called instead of calling the principal.
The outcome was a good one. We've since become very good friends with the principal and her husband. We celebrate our second daughter's birthday every year on May 10th and we even sign cards from her to people when we send things from the family.
TL;DR I almost had child services all up in my grill because a story I told my daughter about an imaginary sister triggered a call from the school principal after another student told their mom.
Tinuviel52 t1_j02fo81 wrote
Wasn’t this a simpsons treehouse of horrors episode where Bart has an evil twin but it turned out he was the evil one and they’d locked up the wrong kid