Father forces daughter to gut a large fish. Daughter claims she's 'traumatized.'
When this father does some questionable parenting, he asks Reddit:
'AITA for forcing my daughter to gut a fish?'
I 38M have two daughters 13 and 10. They are wonderful and when I was growing up I had to learn a lot of life skills. My wife and I have been teaching them life skills such as cooking, cleaning, and car maintenance. My oldest is older so she gets much more hands on experience.
This summer we went camping and she had to make the fire and tent. Get the feel for it, we went fishing but didn’t catch anything. I went to port and I bought a few whole fish not gutted. We live on the ocean so this is a life skill, it’s common to buy fish whole. If she wants to eat fish she needs to know how to gut them.
I took the fish home and was going to teach her how to process a whole fish. I think this is important to do. It’s a fish and she was grossed out, but I made her do it and then we cooked it. She went to my wife telling her I forced her to gut a fish.
This resulting in an argument about forcing the kids to do traumatizing stuff. But it’s a life skill and we forced them to learn how to cook and do laundry so I don’t see the difference. She is mad at me and so is my oldest. AITA?
Let's see what Reddit users had to say.
lifestart writes:
Then why did you not let the youngest gut the second fish? And did you really make the 13 year old set up the family tent all by herself? That's just a shit move. Putting the tent up with two people is a 15 minute job, by yourself it's a hassle and probably an hour job.
Letting her take the lead in putting up the tent is what you should have done. With you your wife and youngest following her directions. Even if it was just a small tent for the girls it would have been better if they'd put it up together with the oldest taking the lead.
OP responds:
My youngest is too young especially with the knife control needed and oldest needs to learn that skill since we live on the ocean. We all had separate tents so she put up her tent. I did my own and helped youngest when she couldn’t reach.
Knife control really, there are some spots you need to flex the knife or avoid bones, the youngest is still jerky when using a knife, the oldest isn’t.
Also oldest is now in high school so it seems like a good time to start focusing on harder skills. We live right next to the ocean, it is common to sell fish whole so yeah you need to gut them.
littlethreecatliion writes:
Way to instill in your daughter that you don't care about how she feels. YTA. Let's get some perspective. This is not the 18th century, we have modern technology which allows us to buy fish, already processed. It is no longer a 'life skill' because we can live without that knowledge. Being able to cook and do laundry ARE skills ones needs to learn in order to survive on their own. Gutting a fish-no.
I worked with developmentally disabled adults doing like skills and nowhere in any of my literature, was gutting a fish mentioned because again...NOT a necessary life skill. The larger issue really is that your daughter expressed discomfort and you completely disregarded that for your own selfish desires.