Mom Accidentally Dropped Her Daughter’s Pet Fish Down The Garbage Disposal, So The Grandma Bought A ‘Decoy Fish’
"Welcome to motherhood."
Dikushin Dmitry | Shutterstock Parents are faced with difficult decisions on a daily basis, relying on instinct and their best judgment to come up with workable solutions.
One mom found herself staring down a moral quagmire, unsure of what move to make next, so she asked the r/parenting subReddit for wisdom and guidance.
A mom accidentally dropped her daughter’s pet fish down the garbage disposal, so grandma saved the day with a ‘decoy fish.’
The mom shared in her Reddit post that she has a 6-year-old daughter, a 2-year-old son, and a 2-month-old boy.
“Needless to say, I’m exhausted,” she explained before launching into her tale of woe.
“Cleaning the fish tank was on my to-do list, and I don't like to put that off among the other chores because taking care of animals is important,” she wrote. “I brought his tank out to the kitchen to clean and replace the water.”
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“When I went to dump him back into the tank from the temporary cup I put him in, I drained the dirty water from the temporary cup first with my hand on the top to catch him quickly, but he slipped through my fingers and down the garbage disposal,” the mom revealed.
She added that she has “a huge fear” of sticking her hand into the disposal, but she gathered her courage, saying, “For my daughter, of course, I reached down there anyway.”
Unfortunately, the fish met his end during his brief time amidst the disposal blades.
“I watched him to make sure he was OK,” the mom said. “Sure enough, I must have injured him, and he just floated to the bottom.”
In a panic, the mom called the first person she could think of to help: Her own mom.
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In true grandma fashion, she told the mom she’d handle it, directing her to “Put the tank out of reach and sight, tell her you're acclimating his water.”
‘I’ll be there in an hour with a new fish,’ the grandma declared, implementing step one of her brilliant Betta fish switcheroo.
The grandma arrived with a brand-new fish from the pet store. She distracted her grandkids as the mom put the decoy fish into the tank.
“He is slightly smaller than the first fish but pretty much looks just like him,” the mom said. “Feel free to judge.”
Before leaving, the grandma pulled the mom in for a hug and whispered, “I had to do this for you too. You never suspected a thing. Welcome to motherhood."
The mom reached a milestone in her parenting journey: Telling her child a relatively harmless lie to spare her any pet-fish-related trauma.
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“What should I do if she notices?” The guilt-ridden mom asked Redditors. “Should I just come clean? I feel so terrible.”
The permanency of death is a difficult concept for children to understand.
In fact, according to psychologist and author Dr. Eileen Kennedy-Moore, Ph.D., children truly can't understand the meaning of death until around age 9. Even then, as she explained in an article for PureWow, when they are able to conceptualize the permanency of death, they believe themselves and the people and things they love are immune to it.
At 6, this mom likely doesn't have anything to worry about when it comes to her and grandma's deception, but as Dr. Kennedy-Moore noted, there will come a point when avoiding the topic does your child a disservice.
When the time comes for the conversation, avoid euphemisms, meet your child at their current level of understanding, and be open and honest. In conclusion, she wrote, "A good strategy as parents is that we want to empathize, but we also want to share our confidence that our kids can cope with things that are a natural part of life."
Most of the comments came from parents who went through the same experience.
They, too, wrestled with their guilt, yet their kids were all okay in the end.
“No judgment. I think a majority of us have been there,” one parent said.
Another mom shared the outlandish excuse she gave after accidentally doing away with her 6-year-old son’s Betta fish. She told her son “His fish jumped into the toilet and escaped to the ocean because he was lonely.”
“He believed me and was happy for his fish,” she said. “He asked me a few years later if I thought his fish really made it to the ocean. We live in Ohio, I’m pretty sure he knows I lied, but the story was good enough to make him feel better about it.”
Dusan Petkovic | Shutterstock
“Don’t sweat this,” she concluded. “Also, your mom is awesome; send her something nice.”
Parents don’t always have the right answers, yet when they lead from the heart, they’ll almost always end up in the right place. What’s clear is that this mom’s love for her daughter supersedes everything else.
Someday, when her daughter is older, the mom can tell her about the time her grandma hatched a hilarious plan to replace her pet fish, and she’ll know just how loved she is.
Alexandra Blogier is a writer on YourTango's news and entertainment team. She covers social issues, pop culture analysis and all things to do with the entertainment industry.