Father Asks Whether He's In The Wrong For Making His Daughter Sleep Outside In The Yard After Her Behavior Towards Their Housemaid

Oct 01, 2021 by apost team

Being the parent of a teenager is never easy. This is especially true if your child falls in with the wrong crowd and begins to show bad behavior. It may seem like the sweet kid you knew was suddenly gone overnight. This was the case for one dad who had the difficult task of reprimanding his daughter after she repeatedly disrespected their maid. 

In a story posted to Reddit in September 2021, a father decided to punish his daughter for falsely accusing their housemaid of stealing by making her sleep outside in the backyard. He felt this was a good punishment because his 16-year-old daughter is germaphobic and scared of bugs, so she hates having to camp out. However, his wife said he is being too harsh and now the dad is left wondering if his punishment went too far.

The situation began with the teen girl calling the housemaid rude names like "filthy" and "gross." The dad tried to stop this behavior by grounding his daughter and not allowing her to attend a friend's party. This caused the daughter to retaliate, but she didn't know that she would be caught in her lie.

After the daughter claimed that the housemaid stole her cell phone, the father was suspicious and decided to check the security cameras. The footage revealed that the daughter planted her phone in the maid's purse to purposely try and get her fired. This behavior was the last straw for the dad and he came up with the camping punishment. Read on to see how other Reddit users responded to the story.

The father started off his post by explaining how his daughter has been acting differently. He wrote on Reddit: 

"I noticed recently that she's been behaving in a bad manner, constantly commenting on other people's looks, belongings, calling them stuff that isn't cool and just being insensitive. It's like she lost a filter or something because usually she's polite but my wife suspected that our daughter's sudden misbehavior occurred after she started hanging out with new girls from the school. Basically the mean type and has picked up on their behavior."

He continued, "I've sat with my daughter and had many discussions about how her behavior has been negatively affecting everyone around her. Our housemaid is the person most affected here and my daughter has chosen her to be her target for hair, clothes, 'etiquette' criticism. She has complained about our daughter calling her offensive names like filthy and gross for cleaning certain areas in our house. I took a stand and explicitly told my daughter I'd punish her if she ever said stuff like that to our housemaid again."

Then, an incident occurred that forced the father to take serious action. "Days later my daughter came to me saying she couldn't find her iPhone after looking everywhere. She asked me to call her number and I did. My wife and I were stunned to discover that the iphone was ringing inside our housemaid's bag," he explained. The dad was livid and told his daughter she would have to sleep in the yard. 

However, his wife did not agree. The father shared: "My wife said I should go easy on her but I said calling people filthy and accusing them of stealing wasn't ok in fact it was the absolute worst, I then went through with my punishment."

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The dad chose such a strange punishment because trying to get the daughter to clean has not worked in the past. "Why doesn't she clean up and do house chores as punishment instead? Because I've already tried this punishment before and it didn't work because she deliberately stopped eating for days to get out of it, and ended up in the emergency department for low blood pressure," the father explained.

Over 3,000 people left comments on the story and the most popular reply has over 47,000 up votes. The top comment said: "You should give your housekeeper a week off with pay, and make your daughter take her place, unpaid."

Many agreed that this consequence would be more appropriate. "Exactly, the perfect punishment. Let her feel how the housekeeper felt and maybe she will feel solidarity. It's a constructive punishment and it teaches compassion," added another commenter. Others suggested the girl get a job to help learn empathy as well.

Some thought the sleeping outside punishment would not work. Another person said: "I worry about the camping outside consequence because if I was her age - it would be easy to sneak out and have my friends pick me up for a night out…placing her at more risk."

A different user suggested, "Take away her phone. Get her a clunky old flip phone strictly for emergencies. Privileges need to start being lost. Refusing to eat is a slightly more sophisticated version of a 'holding your breath until you get your way' tantrum. Let her know that if she engages in this literal self harm you will have no choice but to get her necessary immediate psychiatric intervention."

What do you think of this situation? Was the dad's punishment too much? Let us know your thoughts and feel free to send this along to your friends and family.