Her Daughter’s Friend Was Adopted From India And Her New Mom Asked For Help With Cultural Guidance, But When She Asked What Region The Daughter Was From The New Mom Got Offended
by Michael Levanduski
When your kids make friends, it is often fun to hang out with their parents as well, especially if you share things in common.
What happens if you accidentally offend someone and now they not only don’t want to be friends but want to keep your kids apart as well?
That is what the woman in this story is going through and she wants to know if she is at fault.
Take a look.
AITA for asking a person her daughter’s native state?
For context, I am 32F Indian living in Sweden.
I have two kids 5M and 2.5F.
Both have been going to preschool since they were 13 months old.
My daughter’s class is really great and the teachers are excellent.
We never had any problems until now.
That is great!
The teacher told me that there is another Indian child that has started recently and she and my daughter are becoming really good friends.
So maybe we can contact the kid’s parents and arrange playdates.
I thought what a great idea!
Sounds perfect.
We literally don’t have any other Indian family in the town we are staying.
So we were excited too.
Cut to yesterday morning at the drop off, where I see the other Indian kid and I got to know that she is adopted by an American couple.
Great!, I thought.
I said hi to the mother and said bye to our girls.
We started talking and I got to know that she wanted to talk me desperately.
Things couldn’t be going better, right?
She said needed help with giving some cultural knowledge and background to her daughter.
I was absolutely on board.
So I asked her a natural first question “Which state in India does she come from?”
What? Why?
That apparently offended her (?).
I said I can tell her basic stuff and of course involve her in our cultural activities, but there are 29 states in India, and if she wanted me to teach her culture specific stuff like language, songs, food, she needs to tell which culture her daughter has come from.
Of course I don’t mind teaching from my own state.
She hurriedly left.
I saw her today and said hi but she didn’t respond and left in hurry again.
What is going on?
I asked the teacher if everything was alright and she said that other mom does not want our girls to be friends anymore because I shamed her for not knowing anything about her daughter’s roots?
I was rightly taken aback but I didn’t understand why she felt so strongly about it.
I was absolutely not shaming her in anyway.
AITA?
I think this mom was overreacting, or maybe she didn’t understand why she asked. Hopefully, it is just a misunderstanding.
Let’s see what the people in the comments have to say.
Hopefully they can move past the misunderstanding.
Nothing wrong with ignorance as long as you work on fixing it.
I agree with this person, mom was likely insecure.
Yup, it is just the kids who will suffer.
Yeah, the mom needs to swallow her pride and learn.
This sounds like it was all just a misunderstanding.
If you enjoyed that story, read this one about a mom who was forced to bring her three kids with her to apply for government benefits, but ended up getting the job of her dreams.
![envelope](https://twistedsifter.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/envelope-80.jpg)
Sign up to get our BEST stories of the week straight to your inbox.