Can you please help me with my pet problem?
A couple of weeks ago my 6-year-old daughter’s bunny “Emmy” died on us. Knowing that my daughter would be devastated, I replaced it with a new one before she noticed it being dead. At the time I couldn’t get hold of a white one, so the bunny “changed” colour from white to black. I told her that it happens with rabbits some times…
Well, a couple of days a go the new “Emmy” suddenly died too, and I replaced it again, this time for a hamster as the pet store in our small town were out of bunnies. I rationalized the visual differences by saying that the bunny had shrunk a little bit…
I thought the story would end there, but now kids in the neighbourhood have started bullying my daughter because she keeps calling her hamster — a rabbit…
I’m caught in a web of lies and don’t know how to get out of it. Loosing my daughter’s trust because of my lies would be devastating. I also need to something about the bullying, but what?
Can you please help me with my pet problem?
Your actions are perfectly understandable. No one wants to see his or her child heartbroken. However, she can’t be going around calling it a rabbit, when it clearly is not… People will start thinking that she’s mentally unstable.
Sit your daughter down and tell her the “truth…” Admit that you have lied to her… but tell her that “Emmy” has been a hamster all along! I’m sure your daughter will love “Emmy” as a hamster, as much as when it was a rabbit. This way “Emmy” still lives — your daughter doesn’t get hurt, and you will save a bundle over the next couple of years buying hamsters instead of rabbits!
Next time, don’t lie to your kids unless you have a back-up plan. Lies should be like a finely spun yarn, which is easily rolled up in a ball — not a web of thoughtless absurdity.
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