Most ten year olds would love a new scooter or some Pokemon cards for their birthday, but one little girl’s mum decided to turn it in to an opportunity for her to meet some potential future HUSBANDS.
TLC Gypsy Brides US follows the lives of members of the Romanichal traveller community, and in the most recent episode, viewers saw little Mary’s parents clash over whEther she was ready to be “looked at” by potential in-laws.
Mum Lee Ann explained in a VT that she had already begun to plan the birthday party, but her husband Joe wasn’t going to be on board with her true motives.
She tells the camera: "I need to talk to Joe about the party. Most likely it's going to end up being a fight.”
Then, sitting around the table, Mary casually mentions that the party will be a good excuse for networking with other gypsy parents, allowing them a chance to “get a look at her” and letting little Mary "meet future husbands.”
The plan didn’t sit well with Joe, who quizzed his daughter about if she actually wanted to wed at 16, as is tradition.
When she replied “maybe”, he declared that he wasn’t happy, and was thankful that he still had six years to "talk [her] out of trying to get married.”
Furious, Lee Ann responded: "You're going to have to talk me out of it too."
In other scenes from the episode, Lee Ann accused Joe of risking Mary's standing in the Romanichal community by blocking her matrimonial meet 'n' greet themed party.
She raged: "If you had it your way, by the time you think she's ready. She's never going to find a good gypsy boy. If she waits any longer than 18, she's not going to be wanted anymore. That's the way it's done.
"Who's to say that she can't still live her life, get married, have kids and be a Romanichal and still go to school?"
Joe hit back that his daughter - still currently just nine years old - was "not a piece of meat” and that he didn't want to see his child wasting her life scrubbing floors.
He added: "She's not a piece of meat. I'm not doing it, you're not pawning her off to somebody.
"It's a party for a little girl, I'll be damned if she's going to be surrounded and hounded by guys all night. Gypsy or gorger I don't care who they are. A guy is a guy and she's a 10-year-old girl."
The clash of cultures upset Mary, who later admitted she hated seeing tensions boil over, and wished that she could "please everyone”.
She said: "They argue a lot about it. My mom wants me to clean and have children, take care of them. My dad really wants me to become a writer because I love to write.
"I just want to have both, I don't want to just have one."
When the show was filmed, Lee Ann and Joe - 'gorger' - had been married for 15 years. Viewers learned how their union had alienated Lee Ann from the close knit community, who are genetically similar to English Romany gypsies.
She revealed: "When I went to marry my husband, my father stopped speaking to me. I had to make a choice between Joe and my family. It was either marry the man that I love or have my family's approval. Marrying outside of the community has affected my life in a big way. I'm trash, I'm no good because of who I am. That's what a lot of people think.
"I want Mary to be a hundred per cent gypsy. It's very important that Mary marries a Romanichal to keep the blood line and the traditions going.”
Sadly their story ended with only a handful of people attending Mary's party after it was snubbed by Lee Ann's family and other Romanichals. It sparked fury in the torn mum, who denounced her heritage.
Emotional, she declared: "Nobody comes. I'm done. They can all kiss my fat a**. I don't want nothing to do with none of them. Not a single one and I'm no longer a gypsy."