Woman Asks If She’s A Jerk For Yelling At Her Niece That The Teen’s Dog Is Not Comparable To Her Child
Losing a child causes an immeasurable pain that only those who have gone through the same can relate to as it is hard to comprehend what losing a living part of yourself means. It’s just unnatural for parents to live longer than their children because of all the hopes of a beautiful life their children can have. Being happier, smarter and successful than they ever were.
Reddit user AgreeableAffect7090 lost her teenage daughter last year and still is very affected by it. Her niece wanted to show her that she relates to her, but the grieving mom lashed out at the teen for comparing her losing her daughter to the teen losing her dog. Even though she didn’t want to upset her niece, she was disturbed after being yelled at.
More info: Reddit
Woman bursts into tears when her niece tells her that she should have gotten over her daughter’s death by now and gets mad when she tries to console her
Image credits: Chris (not the actual photo)
The Original Poster (OP) had a teenage daughter who was 15 years old at the time of her death. She died after a car accident last year and the mom is still devastated all this time later. She hasn’t even touched her daughter’s room and doesn’t even go inside, nor does her husband.
The mom is seeing a therapist, but she feels that it isn’t helping her as it is still hard to leave the house for anything else other than work and her heart is still in a lot of pain.
This is evident from an event that triggered her and made her blow up at her niece. The niece is 17 years old and she came for an overnight stay. She was confused why she had to sleep on the couch and when she was told that her aunt isn’t ready to deal with the room for now, she was quite annoyed and after rolling her eyes, told the OP to just move on.
The OP lost her daughter in a car accident last year and is still very sensitive about the topic
Image credits: AgreeableAffect7090
Naturally, this hurt the grieving mom and she started crying, which made the niece feel bad and in an attempt to console her aunt, she tried to compare her experience of losing her dog and moving on a while later to the OP’s situation.
The OP got offended and got all worked up, so her husband called an Uber for the niece to go back home. The teen’s mom, who is the OP’s sister, heard about what happened and thought that it was an overreaction.
Although the OP didn’t mean to upset her niece, she thought that what the teen said was inappropriate for the time and place.
The late daughter’s cousin doesn’t seem to be very sympathetic as she was disappointed she would have to sleep on the couch instead of the now-empty room
Image credits: AgreeableAffect7090
It is true that people form very strong relationships with their pets because of their unconditional love, constant companionship and the feeling of being useful for another living being. It’s not without reason that people call their furry pets babies and spend so much time and money on them. Research even shows that the pain after the loss of a dog is comparable to the pain they feel after a loved one passes, but this is not always the case.
People who have human children would disagree and share why they think that on the online forum Quora. They agree that pets become cherished family members, but there isn’t the same level of connection with them because of how babies are born. Because of how long one lives inside the mother before being born. Because of the hopes you have for their future and because you expect them to live long, happy lives beyond their parents’.
With pets, you don’t have the same biological connection and when you buy or adopt an animal, you know that you will lose them in a decade, after which you will probably get another one.
The 17-year-old remarked that there has been plenty of time to grieve already, which made the OP cry and the niece tried to comfort her
Image credits: AgreeableAffect7090
Also, feeling grief isn’t a competition and comparisons in themselves are wrong. To add, everyone experiences grief differently, so for someone to say to another person to get over the death of a loved one because they have is insensitive.
There were people who understood what the niece was trying to do and that she just wanted to console her aunt by bringing up her own experience, but she didn’t realize that minimizing someone else’s pain doesn’t help.
However, she failed as she mentioned that she managed to get over her dog’s death within a year and that resulted in the OP screaming at her niece
Image credits: Andrea Piacquadio (not the actual photo)
Others were not so understanding and believed that 17 years old is mature enough to comprehend that a loss of a child is more impactful than of a dog. But what most people agreed on was that the OP was reacting out of pain and she didn’t do anything seriously dangerous.
What do you think of this situation? Would you say that the death of a pet is as painful as losing a child? Do you think it is even correct to compare them? What is the best way to show compassion to a grieving person, then? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
The OP got told off by her sister, but people in the comments, while they understand the teen’s attempt, don’t see the fault in the grieving mom
NTA. But...I wonder if there is something else at play here. There is something about the comment about the niece being unempathetic towards children and extremely empathetic towards animals that makes me wonder if perhaps the niece lacks sufficient social skills or if there might be a physical or mental health reason - this could explain OP's sister's reaction too?? So, whilst I am saying OP is NTA, I am reserving any judgment on the niece's actions through lack of information.
I wondered the same. The OP is 10000% NTA, but I wondered from their description if the niece may have other factors at play that mean she doesn't know how to respond appropriately. This is what I don't like the most about these things, you will only ever have one side of the narrative, yet we're labelling people as assholes and other sorts. It's cancel culture at it's most basic.
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Nobody is an a*****e here. It's a traumatic situation for the OP. so it's no wonder she lost her patience, but I don't think niece had any malicious intentions. She just didn't think before speaking.
NTA. But...I wonder if there is something else at play here. There is something about the comment about the niece being unempathetic towards children and extremely empathetic towards animals that makes me wonder if perhaps the niece lacks sufficient social skills or if there might be a physical or mental health reason - this could explain OP's sister's reaction too?? So, whilst I am saying OP is NTA, I am reserving any judgment on the niece's actions through lack of information.
I wondered the same. The OP is 10000% NTA, but I wondered from their description if the niece may have other factors at play that mean she doesn't know how to respond appropriately. This is what I don't like the most about these things, you will only ever have one side of the narrative, yet we're labelling people as assholes and other sorts. It's cancel culture at it's most basic.
Load More Replies... Nobody is an a*****e here. It's a traumatic situation for the OP. so it's no wonder she lost her patience, but I don't think niece had any malicious intentions. She just didn't think before speaking.
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