This is a tough one…what do parents do when their child has done something so outrageous or so upsetting that they just can’t seem to get over it or forgive them?
Apparently, they get REALLY angry and share their stories on reddit so they can get all that anger off their chests.
AskReddit gives us some gems yet again! Let’s go!
1. Coin collection.
“My grandmother gave me her coin collection before she died. Every silver dollar, half, quarter, dime,nickel and penny form every year since 1885. also, most mints as well. every silver certificate, every bill, EVERYTHING except 50’s and 100’s. This was her masterpiece and her pride and joy.
My stepson took the entire collection and spent it at face value. Took it from a safe box that I never open. I only found out it was him because I went through his room and when I picked up his shorts, he obviously had a ton of coins in the pocket. Reached in, pocket was full of just pennies. at closer look, of course they were steel pennies, wheat pennies, etc…”
2. A stepfather’s story.
“I’m stepfather to my wife’s three kids, a son and two daughters. The younger two are great kids but the oldest daughter has always had a knack for choosing the wrong thing to do in situations. She of course does the normal teenager things of consistently choosing to hang around the wrong people and despite her mother and I’s attempts to get her to not repeat our own past mistakes, etc…
She gets into drugs, ends up regularly doing Crystal meth. We put her in inpatient rehab which she falls out of and relapses. We put her in outpatient rehab which she falls out of and relapses. Insurance has covered all they will so we try having her join Narcotics Anonymous for a while and she again relapses.
When she realizes we are going to find out, she crosses the final line. She robbed us blind while we were both at work and took off with a guy she was hooking up with. I could have even gotten over the material things, stuff is stuff. But she went F*rther than just cleaning out the house. She stole my wife’s identity and cleaned out our bank account.
We were very much living check to check at the time and bills were not all perfectly on time. This was catastrophic to our finances.
Insurance fought the claim as it was a family member who lived in the residence and had permission to use things she took; we also were not great at documenting possessions so they were really fighting the things we claimed. In the end we dropped the entire claim out of frustration and replaced essential things slowly out of our own pocket but we only ever replaced about 25% of the items.
Bills got dangerously behind, having to beg and borrow from family to keep the lights on. Wife took a very hard emotional hit from her daughter doing this and blamed herself despite my assurances that she raised her well and she chose to go down this path on her own. Wife ended up sinking into a depression and lost her job due to calling in too much.
I’ve managed by a small miracle to keep things afloat with the help of family and serious overtime. Wife managed to get another job, paying less but still something.
We’d gotten to an untenable position even with her new job and were losing the house. We managed to find another place that was smaller but a few hundred less in rent as well as less in utilities as it was newer construction.
Daughter was arrested and sent to a local jail pending identity theft charges. Stress was high as wife and daughter tried to work things out. Wife develops medical issues and she has to cease working, turns out the last two years of stress really took a toll and it appears after some significant testing that she has MS and it’s getting worse quickly unless she takes steps to reduce her stress.
Eventually we dropped the identity theft charges with the stipulation on my end that she never, EVER, live with us again for any reason. Daughter moves to another city a couple of hours away, keeps in spars* contact, visits maybe once or twice on her way in and out of town for concerts. She seems to have finally cleaned up but is too broke to help us at all.
Wife in the meantime can’t get disability yet due to her social being royally screwed up due to the identity theft. I get a second job and work 70-80 hour weeks to pay the bills, we downsize a lot. We lose both of our cars and I buy a $1000, 20 year old clunker. We sell whatever we can (not really much left) that doesn’t have too much sentimental value, I cash out my 401k.
It’s now 4 years later. I’m still working 70-80 hours a week. Our bills are finally stable but I’m still paying off almost 80k in debt, I’ve still not gotten a new car and have spent around $1000 a year keeping this old one running. It will be nearly 2020 before I have clawed my way out of this hole.
No, I can never forgive her for this.”
3. Can’t do it anymore…
“My daughter came into my life when she was 18 months old. I started dating her father who had just won full custody of her and was struggling to raise a girl on his own (Man you should have seen the way she was dressed!)
I come from a background of step-parent adoption; my biological father was never in my life and I feel as if I was truly blessed to have this man who owed my mother and I nothing, come in and be the best husband/dad around. So, once it became time and we agreed to marry, I felt that the right thing to do was to adopt her and give her everything that I had been given.
Fast forward 3 years, and long story short, the marriage is over. Over the upcoming months I start finding drawings of myself tied to a tree. Myself being beaten like a piñata… I know cause they say MOM->. I try to get her into counseling and her father refuses. We/I did my best to make sure she knew it wasn’t her fault, I wasn’t leaving her, etc. yet there was so much anger aimed at me.
Fast forward again 5 more years. She is now 9ish and continually more aggressive and is now mastering the arts of emotional manipulation. Even when the truth is easier, she lies. Stealing, failing at school, bullying, and yet at the same time claiming she is a victim. She knows she is adopted (we never hid it) and twice has told me that I am a horrible person and should never have picked her. Each woman her father dates is better than me and she lays constant shame. Each woman brings another tantrum demanding that I give her up and let “a better person raise her.” I’m working my single ass off to provide for her the half of the year she is with me, but I do not see any appreciation. Just hate.
At age 11 we find out that she is smoking, doing drugs and had had more sexual partners that I had through my 20’s. She is stealing my diamonds and thong underwear. I have to install a lock on my bedroom to keep my things safe from her and still her father will not allow counseling. Her answer for why she does it all “I dunno, cause I can.” Nothing is stolen at her dad’s house and now we are stuck in this cycle: Dad’s house is good, dad doesn’t need to discipline. Mom’s house is bad and she’s always chosing the route that will get her in trouble.
At age 12 she ran away from her dad’s home in the middle of the night. I really had no clue kids in the 2000’s would actually tie bedsheets together and shimmy out windows, but alas, the sheet billowing in the wind was proof. This was somehow my fault, not sure how, and, the first time I heard all of the malicious rumors she has been spreading about me. When speaking with the local law enforcement, a neighbor came out screaming and crying that I be taken into custody for physical and mental abuse of my daughter. For 3 years my kid had been playing on this woman’s sympathies, telling her that I force her to have s^x with my boyfriends, burn her with cigarettes, beat her and threaten to kill her father if she tries to speak up. Then I find out the whole neighborhood believe this is true. They believed that I was beating the cr*p out of my kid and my ex-husband for years!
We also discover at this same time that she has over 20 social media accounts, each one representing another side of her personality. One she was a gang member, toting guns to school and beating others. One she was a rape victim, reaching out to persons on chat to “build her back up.” Another she was a blasphemous angry teen who beat the hell out of her mother. The only common theme across her stories was the horrible mother she had to endure.
A week later she was admitted to the psychiatric children’s ward due to an incident at school. There they blanket diagnosed her with Depression, suicidal ideation and Oppositional Defiant Disorder. This was also the first and only time that she blamed her father for everything and begged to live with me with no visits to her father and, because I knew she needed the help, I agreed for the short-term, take FMLA and work to get her better. For 3 months we lived with no separation.
She was never left home alone, she was worked back into society with established visits, counseling, socialization. I did it all. I lived life on edge waiting for her to steal, run, scream, anything. Police to come to my door and tell me I was arrested for kidnapping her. Something. It’s been on-going for so many years I expected it. Eventually we worked her father back into her life and returned to our week on week off visits. Things…seemed better…
Age 13, Now we are cutting because life is so horrible. At least that is the costume she wears around some. Dr.’s and all of us are starting to realize that this isn’t depression, this is something more. ADHD, Bi-Polar, Schizophrenia, Cluster B Psyochopathies… Can’t find a name for it, can’t find a medical cocktail that works.
And her stories keep changing. The name carved on her arm? This boy raped her cause mom let him do it. The heart carved on her thigh? For the love my mother doesn’t give me. It’s been a total of 7 rages against me now. Heartless, cruel rages holding me responsible for every bad choice she’s ever made. Demanding that I leave her and I’m cracking. I’m starting to show physical signs of the stress and damage all of this has done to me over the years. I can’t be around my friend’s kids cause I no longer enjoy children.
Today, she is 15. In mid November I received a 9 page letter from her demanding that I change or she is going to return to the old her. That she hates me and the worst thing I have ever done in my life was adopt her and that I either need to her go…or die. In the folded up pages was a 1” thick roll of folded toilet paper covered in her blood. In her letter she told me that I am the only reason she cuts and that she will continue to cut until she gets what she wants.
5 days later I packed up her things and sent her to her dads. I can’t do it anymore and I feel like sh^t for giving up. But, I now resent her for taking away all those years and destroying my interest in children. I have no interest in ever having one of my own now and I cannot look at my niece and nephew with affection because I am so jaded.
I do not know if I will attempt contact with her any more. I don’t know if my heart or my head can take it anymore. I believe the anger is mis-placed, as it is all mother related so could be abandonment issues stemming back to her biological mother, but I don’t know if she realizes, or will ever realize what she has done. All I know is… don’t ask me to babysit.”
4. About my stepson…
“My stepson came in to my life when he was 12. He had a younger brother that was 6 at the time, also my stepson. Younger brother was relatively normal, but older stepson was having a lot of trouble in school, got in trouble all the time.
Older stepson is in counseling because of his behavior. He’s cutting himself in school, there’s a suicide attempt. I’m devoting lots of time to trying to help him, trying to fix his life – he’s incredibly intelligent and thoughtful. In the middle of this all, we find he has tens of thousands of pictures of child porn on his computer (EDIT: only looked at a small sampling, but it was the prepubescent kind). We delete them, consult a lawyer, bring it up in counseling, lock the computer down, install monitoring software. Stepson figures out how to get around everything, is clearly addicted to child pornography.
He’s 15, nearly 16. He brings home his 14 year old girlfriend’s underwear, I take them away (EDIT: his therapy program specifically forbade this, see comments for details), he comes at me with a knife. Police are called, but he’s smart and knows how to work them. We find a treatment program to deal with child pornography addiction. Go to counseling once a week and group counseling once a week. Part of this program is admitting your wrongs. You have to come out and admit it in front of the group. He drops a bombshell: he’s been molesting his younger brother since he was 6 or 7 and he forcibly raped his now ex-girlfriend.
The DA won’t press charges because there’s no proof, so we have to do this all “voluntarily.” We have to ask the state to please take him and give him services. If we don’t, the state will take his younger brother and place him in protective care. It’s a pretty traumatic process. He’s removed from the home and placed in a day treatment program by social services, but only after several awkward months.
In the meantime, his younger brother is having issues. He throws tantrums all the time, has to be restrained at home. We learn how to restrain our kid to prevent him from hurting himself.
Treatment does not go well. He hates the program, hates the restrictions on his life. He’s much smarter than the other kids in the program, so he becomes sort of a ringleader. He’s labeled high risk and a potential psychopath. Eventually, he’s about to turn 18 and the state is going to end their custody over him since he’s a voluntary case. He has to figure out what to do or he’ll be homeless, as he can’t come back to living with us. He asks if we could just kick his younger brother out of the home and make him go live in state care so he can come live at home.
I forgave him for most of it, but I’ll never be able to forgive him for that moment where he was absolutely remorseless – where he asked if he could just take the place of his victim because the path he had chosen made his life harder. He knew very well what he was asking. He was never sorry for his actions.”
5. DONE.
“My sister escaped a controlling abusive marriage when I was 12. She had nothing but her 6 month old son when she moved back in to my parents home. I spent the next 15 years very active in raising that child, was basically another parent. When he was a teenager, he helped his father blindside my sister with a lawsuit suing for custody. Her ex tried this every other year or so, just to haul her into court and force her to have to deal with him but they never went anywhere before this.
He was old enough that his wishes would be considered and she didn’t have the $ to fight. Keep in mind that my nephew had never made any mention of wanting to live with his dad. So, that little sh^t sat in court and spewed out the most hurtful lies about my sister. She was a single mom and had her share of problems but she worked her ass off and the whole family chipped in to make sure his life was the best we could all provide. After hearing that kid tell a judge about my sister parading men through the house and leaving him alone for days while she was out whoring, I saw my sister completely give up on her son.
Now he’s in his 20’s and lives in his dad’s basement. I understand that he is another victim of his father’s psycho control but when he said those things about my sister and I saw her heart break like that, I was done too.”
6. My sister.
“I’m not a parent, but I know my mom will never forgive my sister. When my grandmother died she left each one of us have a wedding set, my sister being the oldest chose my grandmother’s, and I got my great grandmothers (which was a 2.5ct diamond hers was 1ct) anyways, my sister brought some friends over and raided my parents house, stole my dad’s chainsaw and tv, stole all of my mom’s jewelry including a pendant that was from the Women’s Right’s Movement and stole 800 in cash that was for my mom’s work. (she collects insurance payments so she has cash) It was hidden in my room, so they went through everything. She pawned her wedding set and stole mine along with a ring that was my grandfather’s and my tennis bracelet my father gave to my mother on their wedding day. (Mom gave it to me when I got engaged)
The pendant meant the world to my mom as my grandmother used to tell stories of her mother to my mother when she was younger. My mom and grandmother were very close and a lot of my mom’s jewelry was my grandmothers.
My sister laughed about it. She didn’t care and still doesn’t.
She’s also called the police on my dad for hitting her, and threatening her with a gun and also for slapping around her son. (None of that being true). She’s a bitch.”
7. Not going down that road again.
“My eldest step-son, then 15 tears old, stole my car in the middle of the night, while drunk, and took his friends ‘joyriding’. They wrote the car off (I have no idea how they managed it) and dumped it before running off. My eldest was spotted and the police caught him. They brought him home to us at 0630 on the morning of my birthday to give us the news. I found the car in the middle of a housing estate, with several dents and scr*pes on the bodywork, no brakes left, no clutch, half the gearbox casing missing and two flat tyres.
The engine still ran, but only just (Volkswagen) Luckily, no one was injured during this night of madness. I had just finished paying of the loan for the car, it took 4 years of hard work to do that. I threw him out. This was the final straw in a long list of wild behaviour over the previous three years, I couldn’t take any more. His mother didn’t agree with my handling of the situation and a year later we split up over it. I won’t be going down that road again.”
8. Violated.
“Son took my 74 mint condition stratocaster(and by mint, I mean not a single solitary flaw) apart while experimenting with LSD and lost most of the pieces. I found it months after he did it. Mind you, I didn’t check up on him much because he was a straight A student who did everything he was ever told, never spoke back, never really did anything wrong.
Had no idea he was getting high or experimenting with anything. Found the guitar wrapped in a blanket under his bed. Everything was missing except the neck and the body. I cried. my first nice guitar. I quit playing it 20 years ago because it was actually going up in value. I didn’t speak to him for a month(he was 16). I felt so violated and couldn’t do anything about it. He had no clue where the parts were.”
9. I paid for those teeth.
“After reading some of these responses my answer seems so trivial but will share it anyway. I won’t forgive my daughter for not wearing her retainer after her braces came off. She had beautiful teeth afterwards but over time they have shifted.”
10. Thief!
“I’ll speak on behalf of my mother. My sister stole all of my mom’s jewelry in order to pay for a few music festivals she wanted to go to a couple of summers ago. The f*cked up part is that the majority of my mom’s jewelry were items my late father gave her, including her engagement ring. We both still love her, but damn will we never forgive her for that. Just thinking about it make me want to punch her….”
11. Study harder!
“Not a parent but I think my mom still blames me for not going to an ivy league school…it’s been ten years and she still talks about how I didn’t study as hard as I could for my SATs. Woes of being an Asian mom to underachieving kids…”
12. This is awful.
“This is something my mom and I both can’t forgive my brother for.
He was diagnosed with autism when he was 2. My mom quit her 80k/year job so that she could take him to doctors appointments, make every meal from scratch to avoid his dietary restrictions, and tutor him. He had always been a smart kid, he just has a hard time with speech.
He was 8 when this happened. My mom and I were a little torn up over the death of our 20 year old cat that she had gotten before I was born. But a few months later, I found a kitten in the rain outside the library. She was only about 2 1/2 weeks old, so I took her home.
My mom and I (but mostly my mom) raised her. She would get up every 2-3 hours to feed her through the night and take care of her all morning. I would play with her and care for her after I got home from school. We put a lot of time and love into this kitten.
One day, we caught my autistic brother carrying her around in a pillow case. My mom flipped sh^t a little bit, but we sat him down and told him that he could hurt her very badly by doing that. He is good at knowing his restrictions so we told him he wasn’t allowed to touch her until she was full grown.
Everything went well for another month and a half, until one night we found her on her side struggling to breathe. I picked her up so we could rush her to the emergency vet and she was bleeding from the mouth. She died soon after we got there.
An autopsy showed that one of her ribs punctured her lung and another punctured her heart. We found out that night that my brother had gotten mad, so he put her in a pillowcase and dropped her from the top of his closet. It was at least a 6 foot drop. He did it on purpose. I don’t think he meant to kill her, but his intention was to hurt her.
This may not be as traumatic as some of the other stories in this thread, but my mom will never forgive him. She loved that cat immensely.”
13. A bad situation.
“I married a woman 8 years older than I was who had teenage kids when I was 26. I had a 4 year old son from an ex girlfriend. 5 years went by with no issues then her 17 year old son started stealing sh^t from us. He stole my xbox, 2 tvs, and computer. All within the same day and the neighbors seen him doing it. They thought he was moving out so they didn’t think much of it. he tried to say it was someone else. Still has yet to admit to it but I know it was him because this is how stupid his friends and him were.
I didn’t cancel live since it was prepaid and just made a new username. I invited my old username to the party and asked “is ryan with you?” and they replied, no he is with Jenny (who was his girlfriend at the time). It ended up being his best friend who was constantly over. That I could have forgiven him for only after he replaced everything. Shortly after it came out from my son that he had been touching him “down there”.
His mother argued that my son could just be making it up. I told her that he was no longer allowed over when my son was there and I was going to confront him about it next time he was over… well there wasn’t a next time because he got arrested for raping a girl with 3 other guys when she was passed out at a party. I refused to pay for any lawyer for the little sh^t. His mother actually got a second job to do so.
Thankfully we had never kept our finances together. He only two years. Between that time when we cleaned out his room there was a CD spindle that I went through and there was child porn on them. I turned them into the cops and nothing ever came of it. I told his mother that he was never allowed over at all and if I seen him again then I would beat his f*cking ass and make sure it violated his parole and he went right back to prison. That stupid bit*h kept sneaking him into the house while I was at work and asleep to feed him and spend time with him when he got out. Neighbors told me of that and she denied it to my face. I was all ready getting ready to file for divorce.
Out of boredom I got a program that recorded movement from my webcam and sure enough that f*cker was in my house on camera. Then during divorce we found that his mother opened up several credit cards in my name without my consent after I had filed then ran them up. Her parents paid them off so I wouldn’t press charges.
I can’t forgive him or her. I’m sure he will be locked up soon enough again.”
14. I’m the kid who can’t be forgiven.
“I am the kid who will never get my moms forgiveness. I was a weird kid with no friends and was chubby and was dealing with watching my dad go through chemotherapy, he passed in eigth grade and it threw me off pretty bad, so I wasn’t to mentally stable. I’ve had depression and anxiety since I was in 4th grade and have gotten better since, but none of these are excuses for what I did when I was 14, freshman year.
I molested my older sister while she was sleeping for about a month and she caught on after a while and confronted me and since that day I’ve felt like a monster. I know if my dad was here I can’t imagine the disappointment he’d feel having his own son destroy his little angel. One day my mom and my sister were arguing and my sister broke down and told my mom what I had done. She was furious, but took the church, therapy route instead of huge punishment and I’m so thankful for that, even though I damn near deserve death in my eyes.
I have changed so much since but ever since that day i can’t get the thought of what I did out of my head and it has been the reason for a suicide attempt I tried two years ago. I wish I could go back and fix it but I can’t and I will never get over what I did. This was 5 years ago and we have, for the most part, been doing well but definitely not good and I know my mom will always love me but neither her or my sister will ever fully forgive me and I have to accept those consequences for my stupid actions. I will never forgive myself.”
15. That’s a lot of money.
“Kid took my credit card and used it to purchase over $5000 worth of games, consoles, and in-game purchases over a few years. He hid them in his room and only took them out when I was out. Needless to say, I took them away, had him pay the $5000 back with every pay check he got from his job, and denied him from ever using a credit card.
I have to say, it’s really satisfying to have him come into the living room and beg to play his games while I sit and play GTA.”
Yeah, I can see why people would never want to forgive their kids. I mean… how could those kids do things like that to their family members? Sociopaths are alive and well, folks!
Which of these stories seemed fair? How about unfair?
Let us know in the comments!