on: March 21, 2024, 03:21:55 AM
Link to original post by u/Substantial-Egg-1971 ----> https://www.reddit.com/r/AITAH/comments/1bjl0f4/aitah_for_telling_my_mom_she_is_dead_to_me_if_she/
Another user in the comments suggested that the bully might be intentionally trying to get close to OP's mom. What are your thoughts? Post copied below
AITAH for telling my mom she is dead to me if she mentors my bully?
So my[16m] mom[40s] is a teacher at my school. Our school has a special elective you can take which is being a teacher's aide during your elective period. It's mostly stuff like grading papers for them, making copies, mentoring, etc... It's pretty much always just the teacher's favorite student at the time. I found out at the beginning of the semester that my mom chose "Dave"[17m] to be her TA.
Dave has made my life a living nightmare since middle school. He has bullied me mercilessly both physically and emotionally since 6th grade. I don't want to get into everything he's done to me, but everyone is fully aware of it, including the school and my parents. There have been countless meetings with school administration and suspensions on his end but it never stopped him. Since we've been in high school I haven't had to see him as much, which is a relief, but the times that I do are always terrible.
When I found out that he was her new TA, I was obviously very hurt and confused. I asked her why would she want to spend extra time with someone who made my life so terrible? She said that she had him in one of her classes and that he really isn't such a bad kid, but he has a really terrible home life that she can't tell me about that makes him act out. For the record, my mom has always had a soft spot for kids who come from bad homes. I reminded her of all the things he had done to me and she said that she understands but he really needs help right now. I told her I get that, but why does it have to be you? We have a huge school full of teachers and staff who can mentor him. Why does it have to be you? She told me to stop being selfish and some kids have it harder than I can imagine and she's just trying to help.
I was honest with her and told her that if she continued to have him as her aide, she was dead to me. She was choosing him over me and she would not longer be my mother. I would no longer talk to her and the minute I turned 18, I was moving out and she would never hear from me again. She rolled her eyes and said I was being dramatic but after a couple of days of ignoring her, I was grounded. It didn't change my mind and my dad then tried to force me to talk to her. I still refused so they pretty much took everything away from me one by one for the past few weeks. I no longer have my car, computer, guitar, and most recently my art supplies and I have to come home from school and go straight to my room and am not allowed out except dinner until I start talking to her again. They don't realize that this is just strengthening my resolve. I'm going to sit in this empty room every day silently until I'm 18 and they'll never see me again.
My mom keeps coming in crying and begging me to talk to her which makes me feel kind of bad but she still won't remove Dave as her aide. Am I taking this too far? I just feel so betrayed.
Update:
I'm sorry I stopped answering everyone's questions. I just kind of freaked out when this blew up out of nowhere and I almost deleted it a few times because I was scared someone at school would see it and recognize me. Everyone letting me know that it's not my fault helped a lot though so I felt less embarrassed about someone I know potentially seeing it.
Nothing has really changed, but a lot of you made a good point that if I'm really going to go this route, then I need to come up with a plan for what I'm going to do when I get out. I considered the military like some people suggested, but then I remembered my school has a special trade program. You go to our school for half a day, then spend the other half at our local community college taking trade classes. I think depending on what you are doing you can get an associates degree or whatever certifications you need by the time you graduate. I went to my guidance counselor during lunch today and told her I wanted to switch to that program. She acted really surprised and asked why did I want to change now since I'm already taking AP classes and am on the college track. I told her I didn't want to talk about it but I would need to be ready for independence when I graduated and this seemed like the best way. She said it might be too late to change this semester but she would look into it for me and let me know.
« Last Edit: March 21, 2024, 10:00:36 PM by gt2chill »
