Woman Seeks Advice After Son Reacted Badly To Her Pregnancy & Claimed He Is Forced To Parent His Siblings
The pain of being an older sibling.
pikselstock | Shutterstock A woman has posted to the subreddit 'AITA' (Am I The A**Hole) to ask if she is in the wrong after punishing her son for reacting negatively to her pregnancy after he claimed he is forced to parent his younger siblings.
The woman, who is 36, had divorced her ex-husband six years ago, and the two share a 16-year-old son, whom the woman refers to as Jamie in her post.
The woman continues, explaining that she had remarried and has a 10-year-old son, Nick, with her current husband. Nick and Jamie get along most of the time, and are described as being really close.
Her son seems to do a lot for his younger step-brother — maybe more than he is willing to take on.
"Nick depends on Jamie in a lot of things like helping him do homework, fix and organize his toys, cleaning his room etc," the woman wrote in her post.
She revealed that Jamie had started seeing a girl, who has been telling Jamie that his mother and stepfather are "parentifying him by having him do things for Nick."
The woman claimed that Jamie's girlfriend had been "filling his head with nonsense" about how they take away Jamie's time and they don't let him live like other kids his age do.
The woman and her husband ended up having a talk with the girl, which ended up in Jamie getting into a fight with his stepfather, and causing tension around their house.
The woman later found out she was pregnant, and wanted to wait until all of her family were together so she and her husband could make the announcement.
"We did it this past Sunday, and everyone was happy and excited for us except for Jamie who remained quiet for few minutes then loudly asked, 'So am I expected to take care of this one as well?'"
The woman and her husband were shocked at Jamie's outburst, which caused the husband to storm out in anger and the woman started arguing with Jamie, asking him why he said what he had said.
"He said that because it was the truth, he feels as if he has some type of responsibility towards Nick because of the things he has to do for him and felt that he'll do the same for his half sibling," the woman wrote.
She rebuttled, telling him that it was his girlfriend that was filling his head with "nonsense" and that she was "brainwashing him," explaining to Jamie that her and his stepfather don't expect anything of him, and he was wrong to say that.
"I had to punish him for ruining the announcement and making a scene and making my husband upset," she added. Jamie thought the punishment wasn't fair, especially when he was only trying to express his opinion.
He blamed his stepfather for "filling" his mother's head with misinformation, but the woman believes that her husband is innocent in this, and that he knew that Jamie's girlfriend was being rude and intrusive.
She ended her post by explaining that it's been few days since the outburst and Jamie has gone completely silent about everything.
Many people under the Reddit post commented telling the woman that YTA (You're The A**Hole) over punishing her son.
"Raising Nick is NOT Jamie's responsibility, and neither is he a free nanny for you to keep avoiding your responsibilities as parents," one user commented.
Another user commented, "Why is Jamie helping Nick do homework, fix his toys, clean his room? That is a parent’s job. Unless Jamie specifically WANTS to play big bro that way (doubt it) then this sounds like expectations that have been put on him by you and your husband."
"And then to punish him for having feelings, justifiable feelings, about the fact that you very likely will expect him to take part in the parenting of this new child as well???"
"He’s hurting and you refuse to see things from his point of view. I hope you take this as a wake up call."
Nia Tipton is a writer living in Brooklyn. She covers pop culture, social justice issues, and trending topics. Follow her on Instagram.