gossiping and backstabbing

My daughter at the age of 16 came to me and said mom tell me what to do, I have a friend that I admire dearly and everyone is talking bad about her. I do not want to join in on these conversations, but admitted that she has giggled at a few of the sarcastic comments. Well it ended up that her friend had a very bad body odor and evidently personal hygeine wasnt her best quality. I explained to my daughter sometimes this could be cultural, I told her if I was a feel friend I would approach her and tell her the truth. If she doesnt use deoderant for some reason then perhaps she could use some powder something that would help. My daughters jaw dropped and she said Mom I cant hurt her feelings like that, I said my dear daughter how do you think her feelings would be if she found you were talking behind her back. My daughter went to her the next day and explained this to her, she was embarrassed and said she hadnt even realized this. She has now decided to buy a more potent deoderant that works. She was tight on money and had been buying the cheap dollar store deoderant that did not work.. see all is good, honesty is usually the best policy in most of lifes circumstances. Just choose the words and dont be hurtful and things work out.

Eh, I think we all do this to an extent. It is in our nature to enjoy gossip and sometimes it feels good to make fun of or put someone down behind their back. Of course, there is always a little bit of guilt there, too, isn't there? I try not to gossip, but I find that it happens from time to time. Sometimes my friends do stupid things and I just have to make fun of them! I still love them, and I would be naive to think they didn't do the same to me. I have one friend in particular who I have known for many years and we admit to each other that we talk behind our backs... and laugh about it. We don't care. As long as you have confidence in yourself that kind of stuff seems petty and insignificant.