He Finally Told His Kids That Their Mother Was Sent To Jail Instead Of Lying About Why She’s Away Anymore, And His In-Laws Are Furious
In October, the mother of this man’s two children (a 6-year-old son and a 4-year-old daughter) was arrested for credit card fraud.
After her arrest, he got full custody of the children. Since then, their children have repeatedly asked them where their mother was and what was happening.
At first, he told his children that their mother was on a work trip, but they only accepted this explanation for a couple of weeks before they started asking more questions, for which he couldn’t come up with explanations.
He’d been communicating with his in-laws and allowing them to watch his children, and he asked how they explained his children’s mother’s absence.
“They said, ‘We tell them she’s getting help,’ so I started this as well, to be consistent, and that’s been working,” he said.
He encouraged his children to draw pictures for their mother, and he mailed them to her so his children were aware that their mother saw their pictures.
His children’s mother was sentenced last week to 12 years in federal prison. He attended the sentencing alone and asked his in-laws to babysit while he went to the courthouse.
“My daughter told me again the other night, ‘I miss Mommy.’ I replied, ‘I know. I miss her, too, but Mommy is in trouble right now, so she has to go to jail for a while,'” he explained.
He and his children’s mother have explained that jail is where people go when they misbehave and have joked that they’d send their daughter to jail if she misbehaved. Later, his daughter explained where their mother was to his son.
Petro – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only, not the actual person
When his son asked if it was true that his mother was in jail, he said that it was. His son sobbed for a few moments but eventually continued to play as if nothing had happened.
A couple of days after his children learned the truth about their mother being in prison, he dropped them off at his in-laws’ house.
“Within five minutes of dropping them off, I got a call from her mom, yelling, ‘Why would you tell them their mom is in jail for being bad?’ I replied, ‘She is; she literally is,'” he shared.
His mother-in-law told him it wasn’t necessary for his children to know anything in-depth about their mother’s whereabouts.
He argued that it was important for him to teach his children that if someone broke the law, they would face consequences and that their mother wasn’t above the law.
After the argument, his mother-in-law blocked him and refused to speak to him. Now, his father-in-law is in charge of organizing when they’ll babysit his children.
What would you have done if you had been in his shoes?
You can read the original post on Reddit here.
Sign up for Chip Chick’s newsletter and get stories like this delivered to your inbox.
More About:Relationships