The Reprimand
Dear Frankie,
I still have a lump on my head where my four-year-old nephew hit me with his truck while I was sleeping.
When my mom saw what he had done, she took the truck away from him and reprimanded him for hitting me. He responded by crying and ran out of the room to tell his mother that my mom had been mean to him. When they returned, his mother told my mom she had no right to scold him or take his toy.
She insisted that my mom apologize for being mean to her son. My mom refused, and since then, they haven’t talked.
My grandparents have asked my mom to apologize for the sake of peace in the family.
Do you think my mom should apologize?
Twix
Dear Twix,
If anyone should apologize, it should be your nephew. What he did was vicious. It is unfathomable to me why some human parents defend their children’s bad behavior.
What the kid did was wrong, and his mother should have told him so and made it clear that he must never hit an animal, or for that matter, any living and feeling creature again.
Your mother had every right to call her nephew out and tell him what he did was hurtful and unkind. Your mother was doing what responsible parents do: protecting their children from harm.
As for your grandparents, if they want peace in the family, it isn’t going to be accomplished by taking one child’s side over the other.
Best, Frankie
© 2025 Geneva Woodruff
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