“When I told him he had to go home, he looked me in the eyes and replied, ‘No, I don’t believe I will,’” The mother remembered:
We frequently find ourselves in difficult circumstances when deciding what to do might be difficult. Regrettably, this was the case for one lady who anonymously shared her tale on Reddit’s AITA topic.
Her narrative involved her 13-year-old son, Brian, and his 13-year-old buddy, Tom. The mother claims Tom isn’t a real friend to her kid and merely uses him to play Nintendo Switch. But, because her son is autistic and doesn’t have many friends, she has had to put up with Tom hanging out at their house and staying for sleepovers.
On Tom’s last visit, however, Brian begged him to leave after a long night, but Tom refused. Tom was still there after another try by Brian. This is when Tom’s mother intervened and asked her to leave. Instead of listening to the adult in the matter, Tom flatly said that he would not be leaving.
Tom’s mom tried to take the game system away from him, but he was able to use it as a portable device. The mother attempted to contact Tom’s mother, but she declined since she was too busy at the moment to come to pick up her son.
With no other option, the mother called the local police — they live in a small town, and the officer is a family acquaintance — and he came over to accompany Tom out of their home. Wondering if she had done the right thing in the scenario, the mother sought assistance on Reddit, where she received a mixed bag of comments.
The mother opens her message bluntly, writing:
“My kid, Brian [13], has a buddy named Tom [13], who I despise.”
She points out that Tom doesn’t seem to have ever been told off, so she thinks he doesn’t think his actions have any consequences. Despite telling her son that she believes Tom is simply using him for his Nintendo Switch, Brian is unable to absorb this since he is autistic and “very few other youngsters want to spend out with him.” “Every time Tom comes over, he’ll monopolize the Switch to play one of the games (typically a single-player game),” she adds.
Tom came over one weekend, and we spent the entire evening gaming until 3 a.m. He awoke around 10 a.m., but instead of joining his family for breakfast, he continued to play video games. Around lunchtime, Brian “had reached his limit and told Tom that it was time to go home. Tom ignored him, prompting Brian to seek guidance from his mother. She advised him to be more “assertive,” but he returned an hour later “essentially in tears,” since Tom “was simply ignoring him or giving him brief ‘a little more’ responses.”
The mother then took over and offered to take Tom home, but he declined, saying he’d rather walk the two miles. She went on to say:
“When I told him he had to go home, he looked me in the eyes and said, “No, I don’t believe I will.”
She then attempted to contact Tom’s mother, but she was unable to communicate. The mother then removed the Nintendo from the wall, which turned off the game, but Tom was able to switch to portable mode and sit in Brian’s beanbag chair, “oblivious to whatever [they] said.”
After she felt she had exhausted all possibilities, the mother called the police. Because they reside in a tiny town, the local cop is a good friend, and he came over right away. Once the officer informed Tom that there had been “complaints of trespassing,” Tom stated that he was invited, but the mother told the officer that they “had requested him to go home.”
The officer asked Tom “whether he wanted to be charged with misdemeanor trespassing,” prompting the child to “get his act together” before the cops took him home. On his way out, the mother warned Tom that he would never return to her home and begged him not to speak to Brian at school or privately text him.
Tom’s mother contacted her an hour later, yelling about how “horribly” she’d treated her son. The mother stayed composed and claimed that she had contacted her but had been told that “she was engaged in a conference and couldn’t chat.” She believes Tom told his mother a “lie-filled narrative,” but she had the energy to debate, so she ordered her to “get her act together as a parent” and hung up. Since then, she’s gotten “dozens of angry texts” from Tom’s mother and unknown numbers, prompting her to question if she did the right thing.
Many commenters stated that the mother was not in the wrong in the situation, but many others pointed out that she could have tried a few other options, such as informing Tom’s mother that she was about to call the police, taking the handheld console away from him, and enforcing stricter rules from the start rather than waiting until the situation became so extreme.
What do you think of the mother’s conduct—was she justified in doing what she did? Please share this story so that others may comment.
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