Man Blamed His 5-Year-Old Daughter For Her Mother's Death — Now She Calls Her Older Brother 'Daddy'
No child should have to carry that kind of guilt.
Kurhan, Manbetta, Africa Studio / Shutterstock Everybody deals with death in a different way. Some cry it out and take time to mourn, while others look for someplace to point the finger, certain that their loss has to be someone’s fault. But one of the last people you would expect to be blamed for the death of a loved one is a small child.
A father blamed his 5-year-old daughter for her mother's death.
In a TikTok video uploaded to “Reddit Stories,” a 24-year-old man shared his little sister’s said story titled, “My father blamed my sister for my mother’s death. Now she calls me daddy. He regrets everything.”
The young man is the much older brother to his little sister, “Belle.” When he was born, his parents were just 15 and 16 years old. “Even as a kid I could feel that they regretted having me,” he said of his mother and father.
The big brother explained that both teens had been disowned by their families over the pregnancy, leaving his mother a high school dropout and his father working two jobs to take care of their small family, yet still unable to get a place of their own. The young parents moved in with his aunt and stayed there until he was nine years old.
Their living situation improved when his dad got a better job, but as a boy, he still had the feeling that his arrival had ruined his parents’ lives. They guilt-tripped him about the sacrifices they had made for him whenever he did something his mom and dad didn’t approve of, according to the poster.
He never felt loved by his parents and didn’t believe they wanted to invest in him. The young man claims to have gotten the bare minimum on his birthdays.
He eventually accepted the fact that his parents would never give him the love he needed.
Realizing that their son detached and made peace with his parents ignoring him and his needs as he reached his teens, they began to treat him better, especially his mother. By then, it was too little, too late.
He didn’t hate them, according to him, but felt indifferent. They felt like strangers, and he never really got to know them due to a lack of communication and an absence of quality time. The new interest in him just felt “awkward.”
Surprisingly, when he reached the age of 18, his mother got pregnant with her second child, a little girl. The husband and wife were excited to get a do-over with their new child, and their son says they stopped trying with him at all, making him feel estranged once again.
His mother died due to complications in childbirth.
His dad was devastated and resentful after the passing of his mother, but the young man still felt indifferent since he had never truly built a bond with his mother.
The man began to blame his surviving daughter for the loss of his wife, developed a drinking addiction, and became an absent father. The 19-year-old was left to care for his little sister and temporarily quit college.
He took on full responsibility for his little sister and tried to hold his dad accountable, but the grieving man only lashed out and threatened to get rid of his sister, or flat out refused to talk. The boy loved Belle and gave up any hope of their father stepping up.
As time went on, she became a happy child and taking care of her got easier for her brother. He even went back to school when his sister was old enough to go to daycare and worked nights to make ends meet.
Belle always knew who her dad was and tried to spend time with him as she got older.
She trailed him through the home until he “blew up on her” in anger, frightening the girl. She ran to her brother for protection and kept her distance from their dad. She started telling people at her preschool that her older brother was actually her father, even dedicating a Father’s Day card to him.
What little kids understand most is love and care. They can tell who is safe and secure and gravitate toward those people.
Even through mourning the love of his life, Belle’s dad had no right for abandon his child. As parents, we must stay committed to our kids no matter what life throws at us. They never asked to be here, and choosing to bring them into the world means assuring them that you will go to great lengths to take care of them.
Unfortunately, dying during childbirth is an all-too-common tragedy.
In 2021, 1,205 women in the United States died during childbirth, leaving their families devastated and, in some cases, a newborn motherless.
It can be hard to navigate the duality of such traumatic circumstances. There is a new life to celebrate and a loved one to mourn. Doing both at the same time is hard and requires a good support system, time and space to grieve, and professional guidance.
Astonishingly, 1.4 million kids between the ages of 8 and 18 care for either an older adult or a younger sibling, a heavy load for a child to carry. Those young caregivers are greatly impacted by such a big responsibility, with increased anxiousness and depression and less participation in school activities.
This young man deserved a dad who would take the lead in the lives of him and his sister, but he took the easy way out and left his son to bear a burden that should have been his.
NyRee Ausler is a writer from Seattle, Washington. She covers lifestyle, relationships, and human-interest stories that readers can relate to and that bring social issues to the forefront for discussion.