NEED TO KNOW
One night in November, around 10 p.m., Brittanii Lehman’s daughter came into her room holding something she never expected
The teen had caught an opossum and brought it inside to show her mom
The video of the moment later went viral, amassing over 5.8 million views
As a parent, you never know what your kids will surprise you with next.
Brittanii Lehman, however, has grown used to her daughter, Talia, coming home with different creatures — and one night in November was no different, when the 16-year-old entered the home carrying an opossum.
“Opossums come into our garage nearly every night and steal our cat’s food. This night, it was around 10 p.m., Talia saw one sleeping on the shelf on a storage tub,” the Missouri native, 42, tells PEOPLE. “She decided to catch it and bring it in the house to show us.”
Lehman shared a video of the moment on her TikTok page, captioned, “Anyone else’s teenage daughter bring a opossum into your room 10:00 at night?!? No…just me…ok?”
The video went viral, amassing over 5.8 million views. While Lehman admits she was “completely surprised to see [Talia] standing in the doorway holding the opossum,” the family has grown used to the shenanigans.
“She does catch opossums often in our garage, and then she and my husband, Brandon, take them a couple miles from our house to release them,” she says. “They are good creatures, but they make messes in our garage and try to get Talia’s chickens that we have in the backyard.”
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Still, she admits it “just looked so funny to see her standing there holding him like that,” which was why she whipped out her phone to capture the moment.
After her daughter captured the opossum, she let it go outside, and according to Lehman, the teen “has such a big love for animals.”
“Even though the opossums have killed four or five of her chickens, she would never hurt any opossum that she catches,” Lehman shares. “She always catches them and then releases them one to two miles from our house in the woods.”
While it won’t stop them from coming back anytime soon, at least when they do, Talia will be ready to send them back out again.
Read the original article on People