"She keeps saying that it's 'weird and creepy' for me to have showered her daughter as a man who isn't her father''.
Reddit is a place where you'll often find some of the stranger real life stories that internet has to offer, and this one is a real dozy.
A single dad has taken to the online forum to try and seek some perspective on a situation which has left him unsure of his instincts, and led to his family calling him 'creepy.'
It all began when the man's niece came over to play with his own five-year-old daughter.
Then, as kids often do, the pair decided to make 'mud pies' in the backyard, and inevitably they ended up covered in mud from head to toe.
"The girls were playing outside and decided to make mud pies," he wrote in his post.
"OK cool, my kid does that s**t a lot. What was less cool was when they apparently decided to become mud pies.
"Seriously I went inside for like a minute to answer the phone and when I came back they were both head to toe covered in mud and finding it hilarious.
"I immediately whisked them both inside and threw them in the shower together.
''I helped them wash their hair, made sure they had a proper wash and then gave my niece some old clothes of my daughter's in her size to wear while I washed hers."
He says he thought this was the best course to wash the cousins together. However his sister-in-law did not agree.
"It's 'weird and creepy'"
"She keeps saying that it's 'weird and creepy' for me to have showered her daughter as a man who isn't her father and that I should've called her to OK it first," he said.
The man said he finds this mindset "kinda confusing" and pointed out that the girls were together and supervised.
"Plus, what was I supposed to do?" he asked.
"Let her sit covered in mud til someone could come get her?"
He said his brother and both grandmothers agree that it was "at least a bit weird" for the uncle to shower her given he's a man that is not her own father.
He then asked fellow redditors if the family is right to think it odd, or is he right to not think anything of it.
"The kid was covered in mud, so you washed her"
The majority of people were outraged at how the rest of the family are making this man feel like a pervert for doing something any mother would do.
What difference should it make if he's a man?
"The kid was covered in mud, so you washed her," replied one person. "That seems pretty sensible to me. However, since your brother and SIL have now said they’re not OK with that, you need to respect that going forward (even if you disagree)."
"Honestly, I think OP (original poster) should avoid watching niece in the future," commented another.
"The fact that they are acting like what he did is suspicious makes me think they might start looking for things to back up those feelings and see things that aren’t actually there."
One person said they find it weird that other people find an uncle washing his niece clean from mud is weird: "I think it's weird everyone else thinks it's so weird. Why entrust your toddler to your brother to mind if you aren't OK with him showering her? She's a toddler, she could easily soil herself and would need to be cleaned up. Is he not meant to do that either? If I was OP I would feel hurt and offended. And I definitely wouldn't mind the child again since I'm deemed 'weird and creepy''."
What are you thoughts? Should the man have asked permission to wash the child first? Or are the family out of line for calling his act weird?
