My friend told her 13 y.o. daughter to lie...

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

A dear friend of mine and I go to the gym several times a week together. We are both very active in our church and our families spend a lot of time together.

I often am baffled at her parenting.

So we are chatting this morning and she is telling me about how badly she has spoiled her 13 year old daughter. She says she is lazy and self centered because everything has been handed to her and she feels it is too late to change her.

She then goes on to say that her daughter’s grades have been slipping and she is thinkking of getting her a tutor. (never mind that she has dance class 4 nights a week and youth activities at church a few nights…but I digress)

She takes a break to call to see that her daughter is getting off to school ok. This is the side of the conversation I heard:

"You didn’t?

Just lie.

Lie.

L - I - E…lie."

I was not going to pry, but as soon as she was off of the phone she told me that her daughter was supposed to read 400 pages if independant reading by today and has to turn in a form saying what she read, signed by Mom. She only read 100 and some pages, so she told her to just lie. She said, “Not only is she going to lie, but I am going to sign it!”

Keep in mind we go to church together…I looked at her and said , “Suzi, I love you dearly, but I have to say something. Pray about it before you tell your daughter she can turn in that paper.”

I immediately felt guilty, like some pompous, judgmental ass. Sticking your nose in to the rearing of someones kids is a good way to get it bloody.

So do you think I should have said anything? I mean she brought it to me, granted not for my advice, but what should I have said?

She clammed up and said she did not want to talk about it any more. Then she started crying and said she would wait outside. I felt awful about it, but I felt I had to say something…

2

  1. None of your business, but that’s water under the bridge. She’s a close friend and sometimes that line gets blurred when you’re close to the person.

  2. You must’ve hit a note with her to cause the emotional response she had. That’s probably a good thing.

  3. She sounds like she’s truly at a loss for what to do. If she decides she does want to talk about it, you may want to suggest some sort of counseling so she can find a way to fix what she perceives to be her failings as a parent.

  4. I had a friend (more of an acquaintance, really) who told her daughter to steal tomatoes from the neighbor’s garden. People will do the damndest stuff. Sometimes you have to bite your tongue and re-evaluate the relationship.

Good luck. My guess is there is probably no permanent damage done to your friendship. But let her make the next move.

3

That’s a pretty strong response to someone calling her out on this. Perhaps there is a lot more going on, like she feels she needs to lie about her daughter’s work just to keep something together. She could be blaming herself for the “spoiling” that she did to get things to this point. Or there is a lot of teenager crap going on behind the scenes.

IOW, sounds like this could be an opening to be supportive about her dealing with her daughter.

4

It became your business when she decided to tell you what was going on. And yes, I would have said something too. I wouldn’t have said to pray, but probably something like “You tell your daughter to lie and that you will go along with it? Wow.”

5

I wouldn’t be too hard on yourself. I imagine that she cried because she knew it was wrong to tell her to lie and I think praying is an excellent way to get through something difficult .

6

Good for you.

Good church going folks need to be… well, GOOD church going folks.

7

I think you did good. In one brief sentence, you told her that she ought to examine her conscience in the terms of your common religious views. You didn’t carry on about it. You didn’t preach or rant or accuse. You said just enough to get her to think about her actions and their consequences. You did good.

At some point in time, be it a few days, months or years, I think she will come to you and thank you for your words and your courage.

8

Is sounds to me like she a person caught between a rock and a hard place.

She wants her daughter to like her so she’s overly permissive in her parenting. Yet she’s aware that her daughter’s behavior reflects directly on her parenting skills and she doesn’t want people to think she’s a bad mom.

I don’t think you did the wrong thing. She brought you into it by telling you about it and you expressed an opinion.

I do think that you could talk to her and perhaps help her or at least listen.

I think it might be important for her to know that she’s a good person who made a poor decision. It sounds like she’s feeling very much the “bad” person right now and that’s just not productive.

9

I also agree that you did the right thing. You didn’t come down on her; you didn’t even tell her that she was wrong. You just suggested that she think about what she was saying. And only because she brought you into it by sharing the story with you.

My opinion is that you were being a true friend, and that’s nothing to feel bad about.

10

This is a far wiser response than anything I might have come up with, not just on the spot, but given an hour to think about it.