My Wife Turned My Daughter’s Intimate Moment Into Public Humiliation, I’m Fuming

A frustrated dad recently took to Reddit to vent about a parenting fiasco that started with a sanitary pad and spiraled into a full-blown domestic battle. The man, 43, has a sensitive 12-year-old who just experienced her first period. Naturally, the dad did what any calm, competent parent would do: offered support.

But when his wife came home, she decided that this moment of adolescent vulnerability needed to be celebrated. Loudly, with balloons and neighborhood moms. Oh, and a party theme straight out of “My Super Sweet First Menstruation.” The 12-year-old was mortified.

The dad said no, and it spiraled into something no one could expect. Now the man is sleeping with one eye open and asking the Internet if standing up for his daughter’s right not to have a uterus-themed block party makes him the bad guy.

A furious man turned to Reddit and shared his family conflict with people.

The OP wrote, “Let me set the stage. My wife and I (43m, 42f) have two daughters, seven years apart. 19yo was at college in a different state when this happened.

Girls are very different. 19yo is outgoing, even extroverted, loves meeting new people, trying new things, etc. 12yo is shy, a homebody, finds things she’s comfortable with and sticks with them. (In fairness, 19yo was kinda like this until she was 16 or so, maybe it’s genetic XD).

Couple months ago, 12yo comes to me in my home office, obviously upset. Stammers a bit, then manages to tell me that she just got her first period. I play the supportive dad, comfort her, and get her a box of sanitary pads my wife had bought earlier in the year (guessing this was going to happen sooner or later), and go over the instructions with her.

She goes into her bathroom, does what she has to do, thanks me for my help, I got her some ice cream and Midol, told her there was nothing to be embarrassed about, and she could always come to me for anything.”

The OP’s wife reacted in a somewhat shocking way.

The OP goes on with his story, saying, “Wife gets home later that day, 12yo tells her what happened. Wife starts crying, ’my little girl is growing up, etc.,’ then asks who should be invited to the ’period party’ (which I only knew of from listening to Bert Kreischer; if they were a thing when our 19yo started, she never asked for one).

12yo immediately closes off, says she doesn’t want a PP, doesn’t want anyone to know. Wife tries to talk to her some more, but 12yo ignores her and goes to her room. Wife tries to enlist my aid in changing her mind, but I tell her, ’She said she didn’t want one, don’t worry about it’.”

The man found out his wife ignored her daughter’s pleas and husband’s concerns, too.

The man wrote, "Two days later, I get home from running errands, and before I can even make it to the stairs, 12yo runs up to me and asks if she can do her homework in my office. I’m confused, but say sure, and she bolts upstairs.

At this point, I started to suspect what was going on, and walked into the living room to find that my wife had not only decorated it like something which wouldn’t have looked out of place on MY SUPER SWEET SIXTEEN, but there were several family friends (all women) and a few I recognize as neighborhood mothers.

I beckon wife into the hall, she asks where 12yo is, and I tell her she wanted to do homework in my office. She rolls her eyes and starts to move past me, but I step in front of her.

Me: What are you doing?

Wife: Going to get 12yo, it’s her party.

Me: She told you specifically she DIDN’T want one of these.

Wife: Oh, she didn’t mean that. This is an important time for a girl, she needs to know not to be ashamed of her body.

Me: She’s not, I already explained things to her, she just doesn’t want to talk about it more.

Wife: I don’t expect you to understand, this is just for us women.

She actually tried to PUSH past me, but I stepped into the doorway and completely blocked her.

Wife: What’s wrong with you?

Me: What’s wrong with YOU? You know how shy 12yo is, you knew she didn’t want you doing something like this, and you did it anyway.

Wife: I told you, it’s for her own good. We can’t let her grow up with a negative attitude toward something so natural.

Me: And we’re not, I told you, she knows what’s going on, she’s getting a handle on it, she just doesn’t want to talk about it with anyone else for right now.

Wife: Well, it wasn’t your business to tell her about it anyway.

Me: You were at work. Was I supposed to ignore her for four hours until you got home?

Wife: You could have called me, I would have come home.

Me: It still would have taken you an hour. She was upset, I knew what was going on, I talked her through it.

Wife: You don’t KNOW anything about it, it’s never happened to you."

The whole situation turned into a huge family drama.

The OP shared, “At this point I gave up. Point to my wife, no, I’ve never had a period, but I had three older sisters and a live-in girlfriend before my wife and I met, plus we’ve been married almost 21 years. I’m pretty well-versed. She AGAIN tries to move past me, but I don’t move.

Me: No. 12yo doesn’t want this, I’m not letting you make her do it.

Wife: ... Fine, have it your way.

She goes back to the living room and tells the other ladies the PP is off because I’m being ’a bad person’. I lose it, follow her in, and let the women know, calmly but in no uncertain terms, that I appreciate what they wanted to do, but 12yo made it EXPLICITLY CLEAR that she DID NOT want this party and my wife is trying to pressure her into it.

Several of the moms frown at her, my wife starts to backpedal, talking about how she didn’t think 12yo was being serious, but I ignore her and begin taking down the decorations. Everyone clears out shortly, and once the coast is clear, 12yo comes back downstairs. My wife gives her a slight apology, again saying she didn’t think 12yo was serious, but 12yo ALSO ignores her and just starts doing her homework in her usual place at the table.

My wife was pissed at me for a week, claiming I undermined her authority as a parent (apparently, by not helping her force our daughter into doing something she didn’t want to do) and made her look back in front of the neighborhood moms (by telling them she’d been doing this against our daughter’s wishes).

Am I wrong here?”

Redditors had a lot to say about this extraordinary family scandal.

One user said, “Puberty embarrassment aside, there’s a whole host of privacy issues involved with what OP’s wife did. Ignoring her kid’s request for privacy is a massive violation of trust, especially for a kid. It teaches her that she can’t entirely trust her mother to keep anything a secret.
Hopefully the kid can trust and rely on her dad, because if he hadn’t advocated for her, a logical outcome would be to just hide every medical and personal issue she faces in the future. That’s how you end up with kids that don’t tell you when they need help or when they’re in trouble.
OP may have just prevented a whole lot of future problems by showing his kid that he’s a reliable person to talk to.”

Another person mentioned, “Dad already is the go-to person, it seems! Considering she went to him when it started and trusted that he would help her and then when she was trying to hide from what her mother was doing trusted her dad would protect her. I think he has a beautiful relationship with his daughter!”

One more person added, “I do not understand the need for parents to shine such a spotlight without their kid’s initiation. It would be one thing if the daughter had previously expressed a desire for such a party, but to just run with it?
On a whim, when my daughter was 9, I decided to make a 1st period kit for her, with age appropriate books, pads, tampons, menstrual cup, etc. Along with a quick talk and that I’m here for any questions. I made it clear that if she didn’t feel comfortable ’asking’ all she had to do is leave a note and I would be more than happy to answer in whichever way she was most comfortable.
I fully feel giving her the tools to freely learn, make decisions, and ask questions as she felt comfortable built the comfort and trust she has today.”

And here’s yet another family conflict that happened because of violated personal boundaries. This time, a stepmom installed a camera in her teenage stepdaughter’s room. What happened next was worth to become a plot of a Netflix movie. Read on to find out the explosive details of this tricky family story.