As much as most of us would like to think we’ve always had a good sense of right and wrong, it only takes one look at some of the things we said and did as teenagers to realize that our values took longer to develop than we thought.
And while some sources of embarrassment can be understood as an honest mistake that’s much more unfortunate in hindsight, there were also cases when we had to admit that we knew they were wrong but convinced ourselves that they weren’t such big deals at the time.
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But while there’s a chance that one 13-year-old has learned the valuable lesson to stop making that excuse early, it seems that this didn’t happen without some family friction.
One night, a family ordered Chinese food for dinner and the daughter took their cat up to her room because it always tries to get into food it’s not supposed to have.
But as the mother wrote in a Reddit post , this apparently prompted her 13-year-old son to loudly say, “Make sure to hide the cat from the Chinese guy” while the mom was talking to the delivery driver.
As the mom put it, “He very obviously heard what my son said and was upset by it. I quickly apologized and took the food.”
Although the mom scolded her son for making a racist joke, he apparently refused to admit there was anything wrong with what he said.
So since the driver’s name was on the receipt, she made her son write a sincere apology to him as well as a one-page paper on Chinese culture and a one-page paper on how racism is perpetuated by jokes and stereotypes.
The following day, she brought him to the restaurant and had him read the apology to the driver and give him the papers.
In her words, “The driver was very appreciative of the apology and thanked me for making my son do it. He then told my son about multiple instances where he had faced racist comments and attacks from people while he was a delivery driver.”
So given this recpetion, it sounded like that worked well and the boy came away with a lot to think about, right?
Well that may be, but it seems that his father wasn’t pleased with how his mom handled the situation, saying that doing that apology was embarrassing for the teen and that the “punishment didn’t fit the crime.”
When she said it was more embarrassing for the driver and for her to hear what he said, her husband didn’t seem to accept that response.
In her words, “My husband told me that it was “just a joke” and it wasn’t that big of a deal.”
So while she stands by what she did, that conversation introduced some doubt that she overreacted.
But the vast majority of commenters couldn’t imagine how this wasn’t an appropriate punishment.
Moreover, some became concerned about what kind of behavior the dad was willing to accept.
As one Reddit user said , “So your husband is cool with racism….let that sink in. Some things are worth fighting about and this is one of those.”
Others felt that the son should feel embarrassed because that’s how people tend to feel when they realize they’ve done something wrong.
As one person put it, “That kind of joke is meant to embarrass and humiliate the target (the delivery guy). You did right by your son by turning that around and showing him that his attitudes and ‘jokes’ are the real embarrassment.”
h/t: Reddit | SnooPaintings9288
