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TIFU by Taking My Niece to a Musical

Not recent, but a couple years ago and it haunts me to this day. I (M23) was living with my sister who has a daughter. She was about 8 at the time and we have a relatively close relationship and share a love for musical theater.

Well, my good friend happened to have a leading role in his university's production of American Idiot. Perfect, a chance for my niece and me to bond. Obviously, I tried to see if the musical was appropriate. The only reviews I could find on the matter said things like "I took my 12 year old son and it was fine." Cool, my niece is notoriously mature with the family joke being she's 8 going on 30. I did know about the swearing in the songs and told the parents. They said it was fine as their daughter had already been exposed to the f bomb.

So the day comes and we are super excited. I buy her a churro and we settle in for some quality time together.

It was not appropriate. Not remotely.

Forget the swearing (f bombs were expected, just not in nearly every line). Many scenes were highly sexual and drug use is very explicit. At one point a character ODs and my niece turned to me asking "what happened". 'Uhhhh he got sick and almost died". Somehow that felt like a better explanation.

But what is worse: She. Freaking. Loved. It.

She would not stop talking about it and for weeks listened almost exclusively to the Musical Album. Anytime we were in the car, "can you play Boulevard of Broken Dreams? Can you play American Idiot?" She would blare it in the house.

One time, her grandmother came to visit and my niece played the album. The image of her grandmother yelping as f bombs started dropping left and right is seered into my brain.

Another time, I'm driving her to gymnastics practice and we meet her gym friend at the gas station. My niece asks if I can drive both of them. We get the okay from her friend's mom and we're on our way. As we are buckling up, my niece asks me to play American Idiot.

"I don't know if that would be appropriate"

My niece replies "oh it'll be fine." She then turns to her friend and my 8 year old niece goes "you've heard fuck before right?"

Well, she has now at least.

Her parents never brought it up but I am still so embarrassed. I'm officially the bad influence uncle.

TL;DR: I accidently took my niece to a wholly inappropriate musical for her age and got to deal with the embarrassment for months after.

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