A man divided his own family when he tried to comfort his daughter who was being bullied because of her name – as he said that he hated it too.
Sharing his story anonymously, the man said that he never liked the name Mildred and didn’t want to name his daughter that, but his wife did and that was that.
Six years later, young Mildred was getting bullied at school because of her name, as one of her classmates said it sounded like an old person’s name.
When she came home crying, the tactless dad said “yeah, I never liked your name either” before adding that he protested at her birth but was overruled by the girl’s mother.
Taking to Reddit, the man said: “She looked at me in horror and said, ‘you don’t like my name either?’, and she opened the door, crying, and ran inside before I could catch her.
“She told her mother that I said her name was stupid and even after I explained the whole situation to my wife, she was mad and wanted me to apologise.
“I refused. I said, ‘apologise for what? I don’t like the name, I never liked the name, and our daughter doesn’t even like the name’
“I was mad at the moment, too, so I walked away but later I tried to talk to our daughter and ask why she just started crying like that because I was genuinely confused but all she said was that she wasn’t ‘happy at me’ and that she didn’t want to talk to me right at the moment.
“I’m not too worried about my daughter because she’s six, so she’ll probably forget it by tomorrow or like a week at most, but my wife is really mad at me right now because she was telling me that I should apologise tomorrow, and I kept saying no.
“All I did was agree with my daughter when she said she didn’t like her name. I still want an explanation why she just started crying like that.”
After sharing his story, other Reddit users were quick to criticise that dad – saying he was wrong for agreeing with the child who was picking on his daughter.
One said: “You just sided with an elementary school bully, congratulations.”
While another added: “So when the kid comes up to you in four years and says ‘I don’t like my face’ because some kid made fun of their freckles are you making fun of that too?
“Your job is to tell her that her name is beautiful, even if you hate it. That’s your job. Which you have epically failed.”