Mom Secretly ‘Abandons’ Daughter On Bus To Teach Her A Lesson, Sparks Family Feud

The story, posted to Reddit’s anonymous “Am I the A-Hole” forum, saw the mom detail a lesson she attempted to teach her 15-year-old girl — only for it to blow up in her face as her own parents and sisters took the teen’s side.

Read on to see the full story and how Redditors reacted.

“I (41 female) have a 15 year old daughter, let’s call her Beth, with my husband. On the weekends/ after work during the week primarily use public transportation,” OP — (a.k.a. the “original poster”) began.

“Most of the time Beth rides with us on the bus she refuses to sit next to us (in normal teenage fashion) and prefers to sit as far away from us as possible. She also has a bad habit of putting earphones in and zoning out, not paying attention to our bus stop so my husband and I have to squeeze through the packed bus and get her attention so she gets off the bus with us,” the woman continued.

She said the three of them have had many talks about how “dangerous it is to be completely unaware of your surroundings,” especially when using public transit — but said the teen “refuses to pay attention to the bus stops or sit closer to us so we can easily get her attention.” This as the girl also wants her own bus pass, something which has given her parents pause since she does “not pay attention which could easily become a problem.”

Then came the attempted lesson.

“When we got on the bus Beth chose to sit in the very back while I sat at the front. The bus was unusually empty that day and I got an idea. The next bus stop was the stop in front of our house and I exited the bus but Beth did not (she wasn’t paying any attention),” said the mom — who added that she then “booked it” to the next stop and met the bus there.

“She was angry, saying that I had abandoned her on the bus and that she was terrified when she looked up and didn’t see me there,” said the mom, who added she apologize for “scaring” the teen before reinforcing “how dangerous” it is for her to not pay closer attention to her surroundings.

While the woman’s husband “agreed that it was a justified lesson to teach,” the child then told the OP’s mom and sister about the incident, and they said she was the a-hole in the situation.

“Our side: Beth wants her own city buss pass but when we ride with her we have issues getting her to pay attention and stick with us … This was a last resort after me and my husband have had several talks about being safe in public and being responsible,” said OP, who added that her daughter, parents and sister feel “it was cruel to punish her by leaving.”

She said they told her she “should have resorted to other methods that did not involve me getting off the bus without her. Anything could have happened in the 4 minutes she was alone and it was completely irresponsible to leave her.”

The post sparked a pretty massive reaction on Reddit, where it received more than 2K comments and over 4.5K votes. In the end, OP was deemed “not the A-hole.”

“Your family needs to back all the way off. If she really wants to start travelling alone, running and complaining to her grandparents about four minutes isn’t convincing me,” read the most popular comment. “She’s being a drama queen, because she ignored your repeated warnings, scared herself and ran to others to whine. So no bus pass until she proves she can handle it, by paying attention to her surroundings. And your family needs to back off.”

“Beth can’t have it all the ways. She doesn’t get to be ‘grown’ and sit by herself if she can’t pay attention like a grownup,” added another, while someone else with a similar sentiment wrote, “either she is a responsible person who can be fine on the bus by herself, or she gets treated like a kid and isn’t allowed to wander off. She doesn’t get both ways.”

“Question- are you sure your family knows you left your 15 year old on a bus? Because it sounds like they think you left your ten year old in a crack den,” read another comment, which made OP laugh.

One person, who admitted it seemed like they were “in the minority,” said they believed OP was in the wrong.

“You’ve established a routine where you always tell her to get off the bus. With no warning, you stopped that. Her experience is in paying attention to when you go to her to get off, not in watching her surroundings,” they wrote, before offering up a suggestion.

“If you don’t think she’s responsible enough for a bus pass, then teach her to be responsible enough,” they continued, telling the mother she should have said, “Beth, if you want your own bus pass, you have to show me that you can be independent and safe. Next time we ride the bus, I’m not going to tell you when to get off, you need to pay attention on your own.”

“Try that a few times,” they added. “Maybe if it’s a 20 minute ride, teach her to set a timer for 16 minutes, to stop listening to music, and looking around.”

In the end, OP admitted that idea was “definitely a better way to go about it than what I did.”

The mother also added she and her husband were “leaning” toward waiting to get the teen her own bus pass — and said one commenter’s suggestion to “tell her that in six months you will re-evaluate but if she doesn’t start paying attention to her surroundings in that time then she won’t get the bus pass” was a great idea.

What do you think?