It's fascinating to see the way kids' interests develop. In today's day and age, where kids have access to the internet at a young age, they can become interested in some niche topics.
An aunt took to Reddit to ask for opinions after she got in trouble for indulging her nephew's interests. She explained that her curious 5-year-old nephew is a video game enthusiast. He talks to her about gaming, which progressed into conversations about other electronics and eventually landed on animatronics.
Pretty cool that a 5-year-old is interested in that kind of tech, right? Apparently, his mom didn't think so. She felt that the aunt's conversation with her curious nephew around the subject has ruined some childhood magic for the little boy. She's especially upset because she was planning on taking the child and his little brother to Disney. Now, she feels that's ruined and feels the aunt is to blame.
Spending time with other people's children can be difficult. You have to be careful that you're respecting the rules of their parenting. On some subjects, you may not know where they stand.
One aunt found herself in a predicament after spending time with her 5-year-old nephew.
The aunt took to Reddit to explain she's a constant in her two nephews' lives.
"I (30F) have two young nephews who we'll call Jack (5M) and George (2M)," she explained. "I see these kids every single day due to how close I live to their home and I'm basically their nanny."
"For some unfathomable reason their parents got Jack really into video games from a very young age and all he likes to do is watch Lets Plays constantly," she noted. She also pointed out that she doesn't necessarily agree with this approach.
"I'm not sure it's healthy for a 5-year-old to be that into Fortnite but hey not my kid, not my choice."
"He knows I also play a lot of games and just goes on and on talking about them to me and subsequently asks a lot of questions," she continued.
"One day he was telling me about how his favorite YouTubers were playing Five Nights At Freddies and how cool and scary it was and he asked me if animatronics were a real thing."
The scary video game's storyline relies heavily on animatronics.
"Thinking nothing of such a simple question I said yeah, the game itself is based on the real-life franchise called Chuck E Cheese," the aunt continued. "I also offhandedly mentioned that Disney makes some of the best animatronics in the world."
That's where the real trouble began.
"This blew Jack's mind and he went to watching all sorts of ride videos on YouTube about the different rides in Disneyland that had animatronics in them and even started pointing them out to George and explaining to him how 'animatronics are robots that look real,'" the aunt explained.
"Their mom found out about what I had told Jack and got [expletive] off because she and her husband were planning on taking the kids to Disneyland soon and now the 'magic is ruined' since he now knows that everything is fake. She thinks Jack, being the little chatterbox he is, will ruin it for other kids as well."
While mom is mad, the aunt really doesn't believe she mishandled the situation.
"I don't think I ruined his potential experience by inadvertently getting the kid interested in robotics in the entertainment industry," she wrote. "If anything I think I made him more excited than ever by the concept of theme parks and their inner workings."
Practically everyone agreed with the aunt, saying she was only meeting the kid at his own level.
"NAH, if anything you made the experience more magical for the kid," one commenter wrote. "I think mom here is severely underestimating her kid's intelligence."
Many pointed out that Disney isn't shy about letting people behind the curtain. Different parks have different attractions that show how animatronics and other magical elements work. It doesn't diminish the fun, it just shows it from another angle.
Others also noticed that at the end of the day, he's 5. He'll have fun at Disney no matter what.
"As a life long Disney kid, I'm confused," one person wrote. "Character meet-and-greets is where the 'real-life cartoon' magic goes down. Everyone knows the rides are just rides."
These stories are based on posts found on Reddit. Reddit is a user-generated social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website where registered members submit content to the site and can up- or down-vote the content. The accuracy and authenticity of each story cannot be confirmed by our staff.
