^ iawtc. (I live in the States, and I

That's totally relevant to this FML.

haha thats funny as hell, best comment on here

No, 11 years old is absolutely old enough to understand fantasy VS reality. Then again, her mom probably should've actually told her about that whole thing. OP - Sorry, but YDI for parenting fail.

Wow, the girl most likely knows that hogwarts isn't real but all fans (especially if you are under 11) still have this shread of hope that their letter will come one day.

heh hem but all the elder people waiting for acceptance letters you get accepted at age 10/11? so if you WERE going to get one you wouldve gotten one and or been experiencing magical powers.

Yeah no, OP is totally a bitch. I mean, how dare she try to do something cute and creative for her daughter. Just because her daughter doesn't have the mental capacity to understand that it was a FAKE letter of acceptance to a FICTIONAL school from a FICTIONAL book with FICTIONAL characters, that TOTALLY makes OP a bitch. That was all sarcasm by the way. But if you admit to reacting the same way if you got a fake letter of acceptance to Hogwarts, you'll probably have to look that word up.

No, the OP is a bitch for presenting it to her daughter in a way that made it seem real instead of informing her that the mother had made it herself before/during giving it to the girl. She's a bitch for letting the girl have a glimmer of hope and excitement and telling her it was fake AFTERWARDS. Maybe it's because I've always been an imaginative sort of person, but it baffles me when people think that having an imagination equals not being able to tell the difference between fantasy and reality. I got the first harry potter book for my eighth birthday and quickly became a fan of the series. I knew it was all fiction, but I still liked to think "what if it were real?". Hell, I'm in college now and I'll occasionally see a movie, read a book, or play a video game where something in in makes me think "how awesome would it be if stuff like that existed?". The whole point of fantasy is an escape from reality, after all, and I pity those people who either lost their sense of wonder as a child or never had the mental capacity to imagine unreal scenarios in the first place. From the time I turned eleven until the end of that summer (since my birthday is in the spring) I would sometimes daydream of what it would be like if I didn't have to go to the local junior high, which looks like a prison, and instead could go to Hogwarts Castle. I knew it wouldn't happen, nor did I expect it to, but I still liked to escape into that fantasy for a little while. We never talked about it out loud at the time, but many friends of mine have since admitted to having the same thoughts while we were talking about the past. Had I found an acceptance letter in the mail at that age I would have been amazed and (while I may have questioned it at first sight) might have even believed it. That little girl was having the exact reaction I described and had her hopes that the letter gave her ripped out from under her. If her mother had said "look what mommy made for you" or let her know in some other way that the letter was a fake while giving it to her then it would have been stupid of the girl to react the way she did, but because the mother left the letter out for her to find (as is obvious by the "she then showed it to me" part) and let the girl get excited over it I'm not surprised that she threw a fit. It may have been a bit much to literally stamp on her mothers foot, but the overall tantrum seems fitting.