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Woman Asks If She’s A Jerk For Yelling At Her Niece That The Teen’s Dog Is Not Comparable To Her Child
![“[Am I The Jerk] For Telling My Niece Her Dog Is Not Comparable To My Child?”](https://www.boredpanda.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/niece-dog-comparable-child-reddit-fb18-png__700.jpg)
Losing a child causes an immeasurable pain that only those who have gone through the same can relate to as it is hard to comprehend what losing a living part of yourself means. It’s just unnatural for parents to live longer than their children because of all the hopes of a beautiful life their children can have. Being happier, smarter and successful than they ever were.
Reddit user AgreeableAffect7090 lost her teenage daughter last year and still is very affected by it. Her niece wanted to show her that she relates to her, but the grieving mom lashed out at the teen for comparing her losing her daughter to the teen losing her dog. Even though she didn’t want to upset her niece, she was disturbed after being yelled at.
More info: Reddit
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Woman bursts into tears when her niece tells her that she should have gotten over her daughter’s death by now and gets mad when she tries to console her
Image credits: Chris (not the actual photo)
The Original Poster (OP) had a teenage daughter who was 15 years old at the time of her death. She died after a car accident last year and the mom is still devastated all this time later. She hasn’t even touched her daughter’s room and doesn’t even go inside, nor does her husband.
The mom is seeing a therapist, but she feels that it isn’t helping her as it is still hard to leave the house for anything else other than work and her heart is still in a lot of pain.
This is evident from an event that triggered her and made her blow up at her niece. The niece is 17 years old and she came for an overnight stay. She was confused why she had to sleep on the couch and when she was told that her aunt isn’t ready to deal with the room for now, she was quite annoyed and after rolling her eyes, told the OP to just move on.
The OP lost her daughter in a car accident last year and is still very sensitive about the topic
Image credits: AgreeableAffect7090
Naturally, this hurt the grieving mom and she started crying, which made the niece feel bad and in an attempt to console her aunt, she tried to compare her experience of losing her dog and moving on a while later to the OP’s situation.
The OP got offended and got all worked up, so her husband called an Uber for the niece to go back home. The teen’s mom, who is the OP’s sister, heard about what happened and thought that it was an overreaction.
Although the OP didn’t mean to upset her niece, she thought that what the teen said was inappropriate for the time and place.
The late daughter’s cousin doesn’t seem to be very sympathetic as she was disappointed she would have to sleep on the couch instead of the now-empty room
Image credits: AgreeableAffect7090
It is true that people form very strong relationships with their pets because of their unconditional love, constant companionship and the feeling of being useful for another living being. It’s not without reason that people call their furry pets babies and spend so much time and money on them. Research even shows that the pain after the loss of a dog is comparable to the pain they feel after a loved one passes, but this is not always the case.
People who have human children would disagree and share why they think that on the online forum Quora. They agree that pets become cherished family members, but there isn’t the same level of connection with them because of how babies are born. Because of how long one lives inside the mother before being born. Because of the hopes you have for their future and because you expect them to live long, happy lives beyond their parents’.
With pets, you don’t have the same biological connection and when you buy or adopt an animal, you know that you will lose them in a decade, after which you will probably get another one.
The 17-year-old remarked that there has been plenty of time to grieve already, which made the OP cry and the niece tried to comfort her
Image credits: AgreeableAffect7090
Also, feeling grief isn’t a competition and comparisons in themselves are wrong. To add, everyone experiences grief differently, so for someone to say to another person to get over the death of a loved one because they have is insensitive.
There were people who understood what the niece was trying to do and that she just wanted to console her aunt by bringing up her own experience, but she didn’t realize that minimizing someone else’s pain doesn’t help.
However, she failed as she mentioned that she managed to get over her dog’s death within a year and that resulted in the OP screaming at her niece
Image credits: Andrea Piacquadio (not the actual photo)
Others were not so understanding and believed that 17 years old is mature enough to comprehend that a loss of a child is more impactful than of a dog. But what most people agreed on was that the OP was reacting out of pain and she didn’t do anything seriously dangerous.
What do you think of this situation? Would you say that the death of a pet is as painful as losing a child? Do you think it is even correct to compare them? What is the best way to show compassion to a grieving person, then? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
The OP got told off by her sister, but people in the comments, while they understand the teen’s attempt, don’t see the fault in the grieving mom
What do you think ?
Amused panda 2 years ago
NTA. But...I wonder if there is something else at play here. There is something about the comment about the niece being unempathetic towards children and extremely empathetic towards animals that makes me wonder if perhaps the niece lacks sufficient social skills or if there might be a physical or mental health reason - this could explain OP's sister's reaction too?? So, whilst I am saying OP is NTA, I am reserving any judgment on the niece's actions through lack of information.
Angela Turrall 2 years ago
I wondered the same. The OP is 10000% NTA, but I wondered from their description if the niece may have other factors at play that mean she doesn't know how to respond appropriately. This is what I don't like the most about these things, you will only ever have one side of the narrative, yet we're labelling people as assholes and other sorts. It's cancel culture at it's most basic.
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Casey McAlister 2 years ago
Nobody is an a*****e here. It's a traumatic situation for the OP. so it's no wonder she lost her patience, but I don't think niece had any malicious intentions. She just didn't think before speaking.
Danyelka 2 years ago
NTA for grieving and sending her home. But! She is 17. Roling eyes and not understanding that grief is thing of age. She tried to apologize. She made the best she could. And not accepting the best try to apologize makes you a bit ... It is up to you to say yes I accept the apologize and I need the time to handle it till I meet her again.
Marlowe Fitzpatrik 2 years ago
Agreed! People are often sooooo quick to judge teenagers based on their own, adult behaviour. Completely forgetting how it was when they were teens, how EVERYTHING was tremendous, the world and everyone was against you and hated you - just because your parents told you to put the dishes away. It's unreasonably absurd, yes. But at the time, it truly FELT like that. I clearly remember feeling like everyone was out to judge me and only the occasional glimpse of sense came through. Teenagers' brains are in major ! upheaval and de-and reconstruction. There are reasons why they are usually not legally judged like adults. That said - maybe the sister on the phone should have worded it better. Although to be fair, we only read what the aunt felt she heard - it is possible that her sister didn't say it like it sounds here.
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Hey! 2 years ago (edited)
My neighbors lost a child when she was 14 - got struck by a car while walking to school. We moved in maybe 20 years ago. Apparently our daughter looked much like theirs. From then on, she would check her from windows, until she couldn't see her anymore, just to make sure she was okay. Every time I saw Melba, she would ask me if I knew she lost a daughter. After the first time (which was the second time really), I acted all surprised and all OMG! She never got over it. She's in her nineties now and before he passed her husband Wilf told me he appreciated that I didn't stop her from telling me her story. It's sad but it's the reality of things. We each react differently. But I really think both sister and niece acted weird to their sister/aunt's trauma.
Bullseye 2 years ago
Why would anyone going thru that much pain even bother wasting their time asking Reddit people if she's an a*****e. Jesus, social media has taken over sane people's brains.
SilverSkyCloud 2 years ago
especially when its someone complaining about a partners repeated behavior, i just lose any sympathy for ppl like that, i just think "unless you're scared of them, just fuking leave!"
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Marnie 2 years ago
This being a 17yo, I think she needs to be given some leeway. If it were an adult, it would be unforgivable. And for any adult who compares the loss of a pet to the loss of a child, they should be very, very ashamed of themselves. When you lose a pet, it hurts so, so, so much that people without kids think that it really can't get worse. But it can. I've seen the look on parents faces who have lost children and I have contemplated the loss of my own. If you've seen that look, you know - the grief is so much greater that it is qualitatively different. I know I would never, ever get over the loss of my one and only child. I doubt I would survive it.
Marlowe Fitzpatrik 2 years ago
I completely agree with you. The niece was 17, and probably hadn't had to lose a loved person yet, no less her own child. The dog, which she loved probably tremendously because it had been there for her without judgement ALWAYS and always loved her no matter how moody-teenage-y she was being would for her feel like losing the world. In an attempt to relate to her aunt from what she even COULD know, she made it worse - not out of spite or arrogance but because for her, the idea of losing someone her aunt loved as much as she loved the dog was her way of trying to console her. Teenagers can be a bit clueless sometimes (no offense!) but often not because they are bad people. They're just ... well. Teenagers. And so I think the aunt was well in her rights to be upset and yell at the niece but it is also alright to think about it and maybe start to forgive the niece. Maybe just talk to her, tell her about the daughter and explain WHY it had upset her so much to have her compared to a dog.
Load More Replies... Marlowe Fitzpatrik 2 years ago
I completely understand the reaction of the OP, as well as sending the teenager home and not wanting to talk to her (yet). But I ALSO understand how a teenager would try to compare the situation to what she, herself, can understand. She's SEVENTEEN. She might look like an adult, but her brain has not yet settled completely. Even if she is not, as some have suggested, on some neurodivergent scale, she might just be reaching from her own experiences. Obviously, she is not yet a mother. She must have loved that dog a LOT. Maybe - probably - in her own psyche, the dog was the only "person" who understood her when hormones got crazy, who was with her without judgment and always happy to be around her, even if she was behaving shitty. So her own experience tells her that having a daughter might compare to the dog and so the loss of the daughter might be comparable to the loss of her dog. If you haven't lost a person yet, what else could you imagine grief to be like? She "got over it" and(tbc
Marlowe Fitzpatrik 2 years ago
(cont) so in her head, the aunt would have to, too. But a teenager has a different brain than an adult. Fundamentally so. The distraction with normal life would be all over her, so getting over the loss of her dog would be easier than for someone who had lost a child, someone they have born and fed and lived with for 15 years, who they've raised and watched grow and come to life. I don't think the niece is an a*****e. She's simply inexperienced, in over her head and for HER, of course the dog would be comparable to a child. She doesn't have a child yet! It's the only thing that comes close for her. So... not the a*****e, definitely not, but holding a grudge against a teenager for being stupid and unthinking is a little bit stupid, too. We also don't know HOW the sister talked to OP on the phone. Maybe it wasn't said as harshly as she wrote but it arrived at her mind this way. (We all know that what we heard and what we think is meant are sometimes not the same)
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Adam Jeff 2 years ago
I would blame the niece for making a fuss over sleeping on the couch, rather than for the dog comment. If someone is obviously still grieving, whether or not you think they're overdoing it, you accommodate them especially when you are the guest. As for the dog, I'm not saying it is comparable, but losing her dog is probably (hopefully) the most traumatic thing she has experienced in her 17 years, so I can understand why she would say it. Final verdict: NTA for sending her home, but ESH if they don't mutually apologise and patch it up.
StayClassy 2 years ago
I'm going to gently disagree. This was a learning opportunity for your niece who is still a child at 15 years old. They don't really know how to empathize or what to say in these tough situations. Outbursts & screaming may be a knee-jerk reaction, but wow - if I were a teenager trying to comfort my aunt, not knowing what to say and wracking my brain for a way to connect when I saw that I hurt my aunts' feelings, I would be FREAKED OUT to be yelled at like that and completely embarassed. Be the adult. Don' let this cost you your relationship. Find a way give grace to this young woman.
Casey Payne 2 years ago
Okay, no one in this situation is a bad person. The OP is grieving. The husband is grieving. The niece? She is 17 years old and inexperienced with death and dying. She will most likely be haunted by her mistake for years and years and years. Even her mother lashing out at the OP was just upset that her child was hurt. Take a step back and breathe: There are no monsters to be found here. Not every tragedy has a villain.
TheDivineMsM 2 years ago
The niece is definitely out of line. No ones grief and healing process is the same. And no one ever has the right to decide how long or how one should process it.
Ladytron 2 years ago
Nta and that goes for both. You process loss at your own pace and losing a child is as hard as it gets. But a 17 yr old is a child and not an adult. This is how they react. I'm sure the reference to losing a dog was because that was the most difficult thing she knew to relate to. It doesn't sound like she realized how inappropriate it was and that she actually tried to be supportive in her own way. Still, it's understandable to react with anger to that. It's a bit too much to expect to be "the bigger person" in that scenario. (The only weird one is the teenager's mom. SHE should have known better.)
Deborah B 2 years ago
Screaming at her wasn't an ideal response, but it's an understandable reaction. The niece was very insensitive and hurtful. The niece may not be entirely an a*****e - it sounds like there's possibly some neurodivergance. Maybe suggest to the parents that they have her evaluated, so they can support her to develop her empathy, or at least her social skills?
Marlowe Fitzpatrik 2 years ago
Oh yeah - that's going to come across really well. I'm not disagreeing with you (although as a teenager, I also didn't care about people much and would always choose animals over people (except close family and friends - duh ;-) ) but imagine the aunt woudl now tell her sister she might have to get her daughter evaluated. In the volatile relationship right now, I think what would get across would be "Your daughter is weird and she needs to see a shrink!" That would NOT get over well. Oh, and btw - you can not-care about most people as a teenager and still come out of that time with perfectly okay social skills. I am not much googley-eyed for babies still, but that doesn't mean I don't like children. I work with them - they're great! As long as they're not my own, of course ;-)
Load More Replies... K Ann 2 years ago
I'm childless unfortunately - but I can imagine losing a child must be devastating. I think being childless makes my animals the only thing close of me having kids and that would make that loss the only thing similar in my experience so i don't understand what it could be like because I don't have a child to lose and understand the love how parents do; I don't think this is an a hole thing; but the rolling her eyes and expecting to stay in the room is awful and disgusting. THAT makes the niece a horrible person.
April Stephens 2 years ago
NTA! Were the niece and the deceased daughter cousins, then? And were they only one year apart (the niece is 17, the daughter passed at 15 a year ago)? I would think that the niece would take her cousin's death pretty hard in her own right because it sounds like a close family. She's grieving differently than most people might, in my view. It's a far-fetched theory, but I wonder if her monstrous comments came from a place of her own numbness to the feelings of grief she expected to have for the cousin, if that makes sense? She needs to apologize and maybe consider getting help for her own grieving process.
MiriPanda 2 years ago
I don't think so. OP said the niece has always been unempathetic towards people.
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Pamela Blue 8 months ago
I agree that it's unbearable to lose a child, and that you never get over it. However, the OP states she has been in therapy for a year, but it hasn't helped. That tells me that she is wasting her money on this particular therapist (who should by now realize that she's not doing the OP any good). She needs to either get a new therapist, or join a bereavement group, where she'll find others like her who have lost a loved one, even a child. After a year, she shouldn't be "over it" but her therapist should have been able to help her develop some coping skills, so that she doesn't react so violently. And yes, niece saying "you should be over it" was a bit unfeeling.
Alexis 2 years ago
OP' sister (the niece's mother) is TA here honestly. If my child rolled her eyes and told my sister to "move on" from the passing of her daughter that happened a year ago, I would be calling to apologize instead of telling my sister she was being "unreasonable". WTF. She needs to teach her daughter better and set a better example.
Makajha Banjjjak 2 years ago
So the niece related to death of relative as loss of dog instead of loss of 2 year's younger cousin? Wtf
Bobby 2 years ago
I'm going to say, based on OP description of her niece, that the girl really didn't understand she crossed a line. Not sure how much time had passed between the event and this post but I would say NTA for your initial reaction, but if you are holding on to that feeling and making no attempt to clear the air by talking to your niece instead of her mother after a couple days then that is an AH move. Then again I might be reading too much in the story
CatWoman312 2 years ago
NTA…this was the nieces cousin which doing a little bit of math shows they were around the same age. Wasn’t she sad for her cousin’s death? I couldn’t have even imagined suggesting that if it were my cousin’s that passed. I hope she learned her lesson in some humility
Kiss Army 2 years ago
I lost my beloved cat last week. We adore all of our pets and they truly are a part of our family... I have a coworker who recently lost their son and they have been wonderful to me and offered sympathy over my loss. (I planned the luncheon for after their son's funeral so the family wouldn't have to.) That said, I would NEVER try to compare my loss to theirs. I cannot imagine their loss... it is literally my worse nightmare to lose my son. Pets are awesome, I consider them to be my furbabies, but they are not the same as a child that you have given birth to (or adopted or raised).
Aunt Messy 2 years ago
She's only 17 - right in the middle of what I call the teenaged stupids. We ALL had them, but a lot of people conveniently forget. I wouldn't write her off, but she does have a learning curve ahead of her.
Lorraine R 2 years ago
OP's grief is probably compounded by the loss of her child so unexpectedly and violently. The niece should ponder that.
deanna woods 2 years ago
I learned a long time ago that you never compare your grief to anyone else's. You especially don't compare it in a pet v. child situation. What the niece did was wrong and she needs to apologize.
Peign Gaming 2 years ago
And of course you must know her very well to make a comparison to yourself.
Load More Replies... Amused panda 2 years ago
NTA. But...I wonder if there is something else at play here. There is something about the comment about the niece being unempathetic towards children and extremely empathetic towards animals that makes me wonder if perhaps the niece lacks sufficient social skills or if there might be a physical or mental health reason - this could explain OP's sister's reaction too?? So, whilst I am saying OP is NTA, I am reserving any judgment on the niece's actions through lack of information.
Angela Turrall 2 years ago
I wondered the same. The OP is 10000% NTA, but I wondered from their description if the niece may have other factors at play that mean she doesn't know how to respond appropriately. This is what I don't like the most about these things, you will only ever have one side of the narrative, yet we're labelling people as assholes and other sorts. It's cancel culture at it's most basic.
Load More Replies... Casey McAlister 2 years ago
Nobody is an a*****e here. It's a traumatic situation for the OP. so it's no wonder she lost her patience, but I don't think niece had any malicious intentions. She just didn't think before speaking.
Danyelka 2 years ago
NTA for grieving and sending her home. But! She is 17. Roling eyes and not understanding that grief is thing of age. She tried to apologize. She made the best she could. And not accepting the best try to apologize makes you a bit ... It is up to you to say yes I accept the apologize and I need the time to handle it till I meet her again.
Marlowe Fitzpatrik 2 years ago
Agreed! People are often sooooo quick to judge teenagers based on their own, adult behaviour. Completely forgetting how it was when they were teens, how EVERYTHING was tremendous, the world and everyone was against you and hated you - just because your parents told you to put the dishes away. It's unreasonably absurd, yes. But at the time, it truly FELT like that. I clearly remember feeling like everyone was out to judge me and only the occasional glimpse of sense came through. Teenagers' brains are in major ! upheaval and de-and reconstruction. There are reasons why they are usually not legally judged like adults. That said - maybe the sister on the phone should have worded it better. Although to be fair, we only read what the aunt felt she heard - it is possible that her sister didn't say it like it sounds here.
Load More Replies... Hey! 2 years ago (edited)
My neighbors lost a child when she was 14 - got struck by a car while walking to school. We moved in maybe 20 years ago. Apparently our daughter looked much like theirs. From then on, she would check her from windows, until she couldn't see her anymore, just to make sure she was okay. Every time I saw Melba, she would ask me if I knew she lost a daughter. After the first time (which was the second time really), I acted all surprised and all OMG! She never got over it. She's in her nineties now and before he passed her husband Wilf told me he appreciated that I didn't stop her from telling me her story. It's sad but it's the reality of things. We each react differently. But I really think both sister and niece acted weird to their sister/aunt's trauma.
Bullseye 2 years ago
Why would anyone going thru that much pain even bother wasting their time asking Reddit people if she's an a*****e. Jesus, social media has taken over sane people's brains.
SilverSkyCloud 2 years ago
especially when its someone complaining about a partners repeated behavior, i just lose any sympathy for ppl like that, i just think "unless you're scared of them, just fuking leave!"
Load More Replies... Marnie 2 years ago
This being a 17yo, I think she needs to be given some leeway. If it were an adult, it would be unforgivable. And for any adult who compares the loss of a pet to the loss of a child, they should be very, very ashamed of themselves. When you lose a pet, it hurts so, so, so much that people without kids think that it really can't get worse. But it can. I've seen the look on parents faces who have lost children and I have contemplated the loss of my own. If you've seen that look, you know - the grief is so much greater that it is qualitatively different. I know I would never, ever get over the loss of my one and only child. I doubt I would survive it.
Marlowe Fitzpatrik 2 years ago
I completely agree with you. The niece was 17, and probably hadn't had to lose a loved person yet, no less her own child. The dog, which she loved probably tremendously because it had been there for her without judgement ALWAYS and always loved her no matter how moody-teenage-y she was being would for her feel like losing the world. In an attempt to relate to her aunt from what she even COULD know, she made it worse - not out of spite or arrogance but because for her, the idea of losing someone her aunt loved as much as she loved the dog was her way of trying to console her. Teenagers can be a bit clueless sometimes (no offense!) but often not because they are bad people. They're just ... well. Teenagers. And so I think the aunt was well in her rights to be upset and yell at the niece but it is also alright to think about it and maybe start to forgive the niece. Maybe just talk to her, tell her about the daughter and explain WHY it had upset her so much to have her compared to a dog.
Load More Replies... Marlowe Fitzpatrik 2 years ago
I completely understand the reaction of the OP, as well as sending the teenager home and not wanting to talk to her (yet). But I ALSO understand how a teenager would try to compare the situation to what she, herself, can understand. She's SEVENTEEN. She might look like an adult, but her brain has not yet settled completely. Even if she is not, as some have suggested, on some neurodivergent scale, she might just be reaching from her own experiences. Obviously, she is not yet a mother. She must have loved that dog a LOT. Maybe - probably - in her own psyche, the dog was the only "person" who understood her when hormones got crazy, who was with her without judgment and always happy to be around her, even if she was behaving shitty. So her own experience tells her that having a daughter might compare to the dog and so the loss of the daughter might be comparable to the loss of her dog. If you haven't lost a person yet, what else could you imagine grief to be like? She "got over it" and(tbc
Marlowe Fitzpatrik 2 years ago
(cont) so in her head, the aunt would have to, too. But a teenager has a different brain than an adult. Fundamentally so. The distraction with normal life would be all over her, so getting over the loss of her dog would be easier than for someone who had lost a child, someone they have born and fed and lived with for 15 years, who they've raised and watched grow and come to life. I don't think the niece is an a*****e. She's simply inexperienced, in over her head and for HER, of course the dog would be comparable to a child. She doesn't have a child yet! It's the only thing that comes close for her. So... not the a*****e, definitely not, but holding a grudge against a teenager for being stupid and unthinking is a little bit stupid, too. We also don't know HOW the sister talked to OP on the phone. Maybe it wasn't said as harshly as she wrote but it arrived at her mind this way. (We all know that what we heard and what we think is meant are sometimes not the same)
Load More Replies... Adam Jeff 2 years ago
I would blame the niece for making a fuss over sleeping on the couch, rather than for the dog comment. If someone is obviously still grieving, whether or not you think they're overdoing it, you accommodate them especially when you are the guest. As for the dog, I'm not saying it is comparable, but losing her dog is probably (hopefully) the most traumatic thing she has experienced in her 17 years, so I can understand why she would say it. Final verdict: NTA for sending her home, but ESH if they don't mutually apologise and patch it up.
StayClassy 2 years ago
I'm going to gently disagree. This was a learning opportunity for your niece who is still a child at 15 years old. They don't really know how to empathize or what to say in these tough situations. Outbursts & screaming may be a knee-jerk reaction, but wow - if I were a teenager trying to comfort my aunt, not knowing what to say and wracking my brain for a way to connect when I saw that I hurt my aunts' feelings, I would be FREAKED OUT to be yelled at like that and completely embarassed. Be the adult. Don' let this cost you your relationship. Find a way give grace to this young woman.
Casey Payne 2 years ago
Okay, no one in this situation is a bad person. The OP is grieving. The husband is grieving. The niece? She is 17 years old and inexperienced with death and dying. She will most likely be haunted by her mistake for years and years and years. Even her mother lashing out at the OP was just upset that her child was hurt. Take a step back and breathe: There are no monsters to be found here. Not every tragedy has a villain.
TheDivineMsM 2 years ago
The niece is definitely out of line. No ones grief and healing process is the same. And no one ever has the right to decide how long or how one should process it.
Ladytron 2 years ago
Nta and that goes for both. You process loss at your own pace and losing a child is as hard as it gets. But a 17 yr old is a child and not an adult. This is how they react. I'm sure the reference to losing a dog was because that was the most difficult thing she knew to relate to. It doesn't sound like she realized how inappropriate it was and that she actually tried to be supportive in her own way. Still, it's understandable to react with anger to that. It's a bit too much to expect to be "the bigger person" in that scenario. (The only weird one is the teenager's mom. SHE should have known better.)
Deborah B 2 years ago
Screaming at her wasn't an ideal response, but it's an understandable reaction. The niece was very insensitive and hurtful. The niece may not be entirely an a*****e - it sounds like there's possibly some neurodivergance. Maybe suggest to the parents that they have her evaluated, so they can support her to develop her empathy, or at least her social skills?
Marlowe Fitzpatrik 2 years ago
Oh yeah - that's going to come across really well. I'm not disagreeing with you (although as a teenager, I also didn't care about people much and would always choose animals over people (except close family and friends - duh ;-) ) but imagine the aunt woudl now tell her sister she might have to get her daughter evaluated. In the volatile relationship right now, I think what would get across would be "Your daughter is weird and she needs to see a shrink!" That would NOT get over well. Oh, and btw - you can not-care about most people as a teenager and still come out of that time with perfectly okay social skills. I am not much googley-eyed for babies still, but that doesn't mean I don't like children. I work with them - they're great! As long as they're not my own, of course ;-)
Load More Replies... K Ann 2 years ago
I'm childless unfortunately - but I can imagine losing a child must be devastating. I think being childless makes my animals the only thing close of me having kids and that would make that loss the only thing similar in my experience so i don't understand what it could be like because I don't have a child to lose and understand the love how parents do; I don't think this is an a hole thing; but the rolling her eyes and expecting to stay in the room is awful and disgusting. THAT makes the niece a horrible person.
April Stephens 2 years ago
NTA! Were the niece and the deceased daughter cousins, then? And were they only one year apart (the niece is 17, the daughter passed at 15 a year ago)? I would think that the niece would take her cousin's death pretty hard in her own right because it sounds like a close family. She's grieving differently than most people might, in my view. It's a far-fetched theory, but I wonder if her monstrous comments came from a place of her own numbness to the feelings of grief she expected to have for the cousin, if that makes sense? She needs to apologize and maybe consider getting help for her own grieving process.
MiriPanda 2 years ago
I don't think so. OP said the niece has always been unempathetic towards people.
Load More Replies... Pamela Blue 8 months ago
I agree that it's unbearable to lose a child, and that you never get over it. However, the OP states she has been in therapy for a year, but it hasn't helped. That tells me that she is wasting her money on this particular therapist (who should by now realize that she's not doing the OP any good). She needs to either get a new therapist, or join a bereavement group, where she'll find others like her who have lost a loved one, even a child. After a year, she shouldn't be "over it" but her therapist should have been able to help her develop some coping skills, so that she doesn't react so violently. And yes, niece saying "you should be over it" was a bit unfeeling.
Alexis 2 years ago
OP' sister (the niece's mother) is TA here honestly. If my child rolled her eyes and told my sister to "move on" from the passing of her daughter that happened a year ago, I would be calling to apologize instead of telling my sister she was being "unreasonable". WTF. She needs to teach her daughter better and set a better example.
Makajha Banjjjak 2 years ago
So the niece related to death of relative as loss of dog instead of loss of 2 year's younger cousin? Wtf
Bobby 2 years ago
I'm going to say, based on OP description of her niece, that the girl really didn't understand she crossed a line. Not sure how much time had passed between the event and this post but I would say NTA for your initial reaction, but if you are holding on to that feeling and making no attempt to clear the air by talking to your niece instead of her mother after a couple days then that is an AH move. Then again I might be reading too much in the story
CatWoman312 2 years ago
NTA…this was the nieces cousin which doing a little bit of math shows they were around the same age. Wasn’t she sad for her cousin’s death? I couldn’t have even imagined suggesting that if it were my cousin’s that passed. I hope she learned her lesson in some humility
Kiss Army 2 years ago
I lost my beloved cat last week. We adore all of our pets and they truly are a part of our family... I have a coworker who recently lost their son and they have been wonderful to me and offered sympathy over my loss. (I planned the luncheon for after their son's funeral so the family wouldn't have to.) That said, I would NEVER try to compare my loss to theirs. I cannot imagine their loss... it is literally my worse nightmare to lose my son. Pets are awesome, I consider them to be my furbabies, but they are not the same as a child that you have given birth to (or adopted or raised).
Aunt Messy 2 years ago
She's only 17 - right in the middle of what I call the teenaged stupids. We ALL had them, but a lot of people conveniently forget. I wouldn't write her off, but she does have a learning curve ahead of her.
Lorraine R 2 years ago
OP's grief is probably compounded by the loss of her child so unexpectedly and violently. The niece should ponder that.
deanna woods 2 years ago
I learned a long time ago that you never compare your grief to anyone else's. You especially don't compare it in a pet v. child situation. What the niece did was wrong and she needs to apologize.
Peign Gaming 2 years ago
And of course you must know her very well to make a comparison to yourself.
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