My 11-Year-Old Cousin Won’t Stop Apologizing For Everything, And It’s Bothering Me More Than I Know How To Say
She stayed over last weekend, and the first thing she did after dropping her frayed denim duffel by my door was ask if she could use my bathroom. Then she apologized for asking, even though I’d just told her “make yourself at home” ten seconds earlier. We got lemonade after, because it was 90 degrees out and my AC is still busted, and she leaned against the counter and one drop sloshed out over the edge of her cup. Just one drop, smaller than a quarter. She went pale, grabbed a paper towel so fast she almost knocked the whole cup over, and started saying “oh my god I’m so sorry I’m so clumsy I just mopped my mom’s floor last week I know how annoying it is I’ll wipe it up I’m so sorry.” I had to physically step in and take the paper towel from her, because I’d mopped that floor that morning, and one drop wasn’t going to kill anything. She still stood there shifting her weight for another five minutes saying she was sorry anyway.
I’ve been noticing it for a while, but it’s gotten way worse the last six months. I don’t know if it’s middle school starting, or the constant TikTok comments, or my aunt working even more overtime lately so everyone’s just drained and snappy at their house. My aunt had Lila when she was 19, my uncle bailed two weeks after Lila was born, and she’s been working two service jobs just to keep their tiny apartment and beat-up old car running ever since. She’s not a bad mom. I don’t want anyone to misread that and think I’m calling her a bad mom. She just… she’s always tired, and she’s always saying she doesn’t want Lila to grow up to be “the kind of girl no one wants to be around.” Last time I was there for taco dinner, Lila left her half-eaten honey crisp apple on the coffee table while we were watching a show, and my aunt stopped mid-sip of her soda and just went “Lila Marie. How many times have I told you not to leave food out? You’re so messy and disorganized, what’s a stranger gonna think when they walk in here? You think anyone’s gonna wanna hire you someday, or be your friend, if you leave trash laying around?” And Lila just jumped up, grabbed the apple, mumbled “sorry mom sorry I forgot” and shrank back into the couch so far her head almost disappeared behind the cushion. She didn’t argue. She didn’t even roll her eyes, which is what any normal 11-year-old would do, right?
She showed me her phone a couple weeks ago, when we were waiting for our fries at McDonald’s. She’d posted a 15-second dance to that one Dua Lipa song on TikTok, and when she pulled it up to show me, she pulled up a screenshot of a comment from a boy in her class that said “fat lmao why would you post this.” She’d already deleted the video, but she still had the comment saved, for some reason. I don’t know if she was looking at it to remind herself not to post anything like that again, or what. When I saw it I went “that’s such a garbage thing to say, he’s just a stupid kid being an idiot, ignore him” and she immediately looked down at her scuffed sneakers and said “I know it’s stupid, I shouldn’t have posted it. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have shown you.” Sorry for showing me a mean comment someone left on her video. That’s when my chest felt all tight and I couldn’t even think of what to say back.
I don’t know what to do about this, honestly. I’m 26, I have my own little one-bedroom across town, I see Lila every other weekend or so, I’m not her mom. If I say something to my aunt, she’ll get defensive. She’ll say I don’t know what it’s like to raise a kid alone on minimum wage, that I’m too soft, that Lila needs to learn boundaries and respect and not be a burden to people. And she’s not wrong, not entirely. But why does learning that mean Lila has to apologize for existing? I tried to bring it up once, casually, at Christmas dinner, and my aunt laughed and said “that’s just Lila, she’s always been polite. What’s wrong with polite?” And I couldn’t really say “well, polite is one thing, apologizing for breathing is another” without sounding like an ungrateful jerk who doesn’t appreciate how hard she works. So I just dropped it.
I just try to push back a little, when I’m with her. It’s small, stupid stuff, but it’s all I can think to do. The other day we got ice cream, and she ordered a small because she said she didn’t want to waste my money, and I told the server “actually make that two large, I want extra sprinkles on both anyway” even though I don’t even like that much ice cream. When she apologizes for something stupid, I say “apology not accepted, you didn’t do anything wrong” and laugh, so it doesn’t feel like a big heavy therapy talk that makes her uncomfortable. She draws these really cute little mermaids with sparkly gel pens, and she gave me one last month, and I stuck it on my fridge, right by the door where everyone can see it. When she came over last weekend she saw it and said “oh I can draw you a better one, that one’s messy, I’m sorry” and I told her no, that’s my favorite thing I have on my fridge, it’s not going anywhere. She just stared at it for a minute and didn’t apologize again, which I counted as a win.
I found one of her pink star hair ties on my couch this morning, left over from her visit, and I just stood there holding it for a minute, feeling all weird and sad. I remember what it’s like to be that age, scared you’re too much, or not enough, so you just shrink down and apologize for everything to make up for it. I know it’s a habit that sticks with you, too. I still catch myself apologizing for asking for an extra napkin at a restaurant, for taking too long to answer a text, for things that don’t even matter. It took me until I was 25 to stop apologizing when people bumped into me on the street. I just don’t want her to have to spend that many years hating to take up space.
I don’t have a big solution, or a happy ending here. I can’t move her in with me, I can’t fix my aunt’s lifelong stress, I can’t make all the mean kids at school stop being awful. I just worry about her, that’s all. It’s just one of those quiet, constant worries that sits in the back of your chest, you know?
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