Parent Left Furious When Another Mom Launched A Fundraiser To Help The Homeless Teen They Kicked Out — They Say She's 'Slandering' Them
She was just trying to be honest about why the homeless teen needed help. But did she take things too far?
Pixabay / Pexels "Tough love" is something a lot of parents embrace, but it's easily taken too far. When a mom felt a teen in her community had been the victim of this type of situation, she quickly jumped in to help. But as she shared in a post to the "r/AmITheA--hole" subReddit, a forum where people try to figure out if they were in the wrong in a conflict, her intervention ended up sparking all kinds of drama.
A teen's parents kicked her out of the house and cut off financial support on her 18th birthday.
The girl, Lily, had not even graduated high school yet and was still very much dependent on her parents. That didn't stop them from cutting her loose anyway and turning her into a homeless teen in desperate need of help.
Lily was thrust into a predicament no teen should have to face—bouncing from couch to couch at friends' houses and contemplating dropping out of school to get a job to support herself. When the mother of Lily's best friend found out about her situation, she immediately leapt into action to help in any way she could.
The mom launched a fundraiser, saying it was for a homeless teen kicked out by their parents.
The mom immediately took Lily in and gave her food and shelter on the condition that she stay in school and graduate. Lily decided she also wanted to contribute whatever she could toward bills, groceries and other necessities. So, she and the mom's daughter came up with the idea of a barbecue fundraiser.
The mom then got to work helping them put it on, advertising it in a local Facebook group, on flyers, and on social media. The ads, written by Lily, stated "As you may know, my parents kicked me out of the house and cut off any financial support on my 18th birthday, leaving me homeless with no money or car."
The fundraiser was a roaring success—"almost all of our neighbors came by," the mom writes, "and so many kids from my [daughters'] school, and a lot of our family and family friends." They ended up raising thousands of dollars for Lily, which the mom has put into a college fund she plans to surprise Lily with at graduation.
It seemed like a story in which a homeless teen kicked out by their parents got the happy ending they so deserved. Until Lily's parents found out, that is.
The homeless teen's parents accused the mom of 'slander' for telling people they kicked their daughter out.
"Lily's 'parents' are irate," the mom writes. They'd seen the Facebook ad for the fundraiser, and the mom got a phone call from Lily's father "screaming into the phone at me for 'slandering' their family online," which she calls "bullsh-t" and pointedly told him to "buck up and act like a parent."
She then got a call from Lily's mom, screaming at her about how "I don't know what she and her husband have been through, and it was trashy of me to be begging the whole town for money for myself and acting like it was their fault." The mom, quite rightly, responded by asking, "Well is it your fault?" After all, there's kind of only one party to blame for a homeless teen kicked out by their parents.
Unsurprisingly, Lily's parents didn't see it that way, and claimed their daughter was "ungrateful" for the fact they'd "given her everything" The mom calls this "BS because they ain't even giving her a roof over her head." Which is pretty hard to argue with.
Most people online were shocked that a fundraiser for a homeless teen kicked out by their parents would stir up so much drama.
"If they didn't want to get slandered," one Redditor wrote, "maybe don't kick your child out the instant they become an adult?" Another whole-heartedly agreed. "If you want some empathy, justify why you did what you did," they wrote. "Don't make people feel guilty because you're facing the consequences of your actions."
People were equally outraged by Lily's parents on TikTok.
One TikTok user scoffed at the way Lily's parents seem to "expect a Nobel prize for the bare minimum like food and shelter, BUT THEY AINT EVEN DOING THAT." Another wrote that Lily's parents "only care because people see what a--holes they are."
One woman put a finer point on the situation, writing that "Lily's parents failed her," and statistics show she's exactly right. Homeless teens kicked out by their parents face overwhelming odds, and the outcomes are frequently grim. According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, one in three teens like Lily ends up being victims of human trafficking or being lured into prostitution within just 48 hours of becoming homeless.
And homeless teens are at much higher risk of mental health and substance abuse issues, with suicide being the number-one cause of death among homeless teens according to the National Youth Network.
Thankfully, Lily had people to help her from turning into one of these awful statistics. "Slander" should probably be the very least of her parent's worries.
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.