...
By Daniella Gray
Reporter
0
Share
Newsweek is a Trust Project member
See more of our trusted coverage when you search.Prefer Newsweek on Googleto see more of our trusted coverage when you search.
A mom of two was left in tears after finding out why her 4-year-old son’s clothes smelled faintly of her perfume.
Kay Braud, 33, discovered that her 10-year-old daughter who is "generally not openly affectionate" had been spraying her perfume on her son’s clothes every day before he got dressed. When Kay asked her why she did that, her daughter Aveline, said: "When he's stressed out, he likes to smell your shirt, and since you aren't at school with him, I wanted him to have a way to not be stressed out."
The gesture was a glimpse into her daughter’s rarely seen, deeply empathetic side. "Aveline is six years older, and she's the independent, wants-to-be-left-to-herself type," Kay told Newsweek. "She doesn't understand why other people get emotional so easy."
Read More on Family & Parenting
Aveline has a habit of self-soothing in her own way, Kay said. "If she's feeling sad or stressed, she just tells me she's going to go in her room and listen to sad music so she can cry. She tells me so I don't worry and interrupt."
Her son, Atlas, is a little different from his sister. "He’s more like me, and wildly emotional," Kay said. "He's always loud, always excited, always so much energy; and when he's sad, he's really deeply sad."
That difference in temperament is exactly what led to Aveline’s thoughtful ritual. After noticing Atlas sometimes got upset when their dad dropped them off at school, Aveline began sneaking into his room each morning after Kay laid out his clothes.
There, she would spritz them lightly with her mother’s perfume—just enough to make him feel close to Mom, even when she wasn’t there.
"I wasn't shocked because I know how much she loves him," Kay said. "But it was really sweet to know that not only was she smart enough to recognize that [it would] help him—she did it in such a way that no one knew about it because she didn't want the praise."
...
In fact, it took Kay a while to even tell the story publicly. She shared what happened in a post on Threads (@okay.braud), which has received more than 1.1 million views, 165,000 likes and over 800 comments.
After Kay checked with Aveline first to make sure she was fine to share the story beyond Threads, the daughter gave her mom one instruction: "Make sure that they know that I'm only sweet when I want to be sweet, OK? They can't just expect me to be nice all the time."
Kay said that her daughter is quietly thoughtful. "If you expect her to do something, she's not going to do it, but if you just let her do her own thing, she’ll be incredibly kind. [For example], I love gummies and she'll just randomly come home from school and be like, ‘Mama, I got a pack of gummies today, and I saved them for you.’"
"You can't point out that she's sweet to her because then she's, like, 'Absolutely not. That's not who I am,,'" Kay said.
View 0 Comments
Submit Correction
View Editorial & AI Guidelines