Man Wants to Know if He’s Wrong for Not Making His Child Apologize to a Special-Needs Person

Whew…this does not sound like a fun situation to deal with…

But what else do you expect from the “Am I the A**hole?” page on Reddit?

Dig into this story and let us know what you think about it in the comments.

AITA for not making my child apologise to a special needs person?

“My family met up for a barbeque about two weeks ago.

I am M36, my wife is F29, and we have a daughter Tessa, F2.5. My family were there, specifically, my brother Anthony, M40 and his new girlfriend Sarah, F39. It’d been a while since we all got together, so while I knew about Sarah, I didn’t know that Sarah had a daughter, Maisie, who is a pre-teen, I would guess.

Maisie has some sort of chromosomal disorder. She is severely disabled, and operates on the same capacity of a baby. She also has quite significant facial deformities.

Long story short, Tessa was terrified of Maisie, burst into tears, and hid against my wife. We had to take Tessa into another room, as she was getting hysterical, and wouldn’t stop babbling about the “monster”. Obviously mortifying, and we quickly packed up and left.

Anthony and Sarah were understandably p**sed, and want Tessa to apologise to Maisie. I flat out rejected this. I’ve apologised to them, and we’ll work with Tessa to help her get over her fear, but I’m not going to make her apologise for being frightened. Especially since Maisie has no idea what even happened, and it would traumatize Tessa even more. Anthony and Sarah are calling us ableist a**holes.

Personally, I think they were the a**holes for not giving us a heads up that Maisie was there, so we could prepare Tessa a bit beforehand. Instead, they threw a toddler in at the deep end, and were shocked that she had a natural human reaction.

My wife is unsure on the matter, and is leaning towards having Tessa apologise, and my parents are pressuring us to keep the peace, but I am adamant that Tessa did nothing wrong, and has absolutely nothing to apologise for. She’s a toddler.

I’d like to get an outsider perspective, so judge away.”