A lot of parents take the lessons we try to teach our kids very seriously. Most of us want to raise kind, empathetic kids who will grow to become kind, empathetic adults. It’s not always easy to know if our kids are actually absorbing and acting on the lessons we try to impart, and sometimes we end up hoping for the best.
One mom recently wrote a post on Reddit asking for advice. She says that she’s tried to teach her daughters, who are 16 and 14, to respect everyone regardless of their social standing in life. Unfortunately, it seems that her youngest hasn’t exactly absorbed the lesson the way the mom had hoped.
The mom decided to take quick, decisive action. It seems like it worked, but now the rest of her family thinks she overreacted.
She explains that she had both her children when she was pretty young, and she had to hit rock bottom before she could really provide:
“I (34F) am a single mother to two girls, ‘Jasmine’ (16F) and ‘Jessica’ (14F). Their dad died when I was pregnant with Jess, and I had to work hard. We hit rock bottom, and I was barely making paycheque to paycheque but I managed to get a degree, become successful and we live well. Point is, I know how [expletive] hard it is to be at the bottom of society, and my daughters know this, which is why I was livid at my daughter’s actions.”
“Yesterday, Jasmine showed me a video of Jessica cussing a homeless man out and telling him, ‘stop asking me for money, you’d earn it yourself if you weren’t so [expletive] lazy and spending what you earned on substances.'”
The man was surprised, and he pushed back.
When the man balked, the situation got worse:
“When the homeless man complained about the cold (we live in NE England), Jessica responded ‘Yeah people camp for fun, even in December, you can’t complain, you’re living someone’s holiday.’ Fury was an understatement for what I felt, as I thought I had raised an empathetic daughter.”
So the mom took action.
She didn’t want to let her daughter get away with her awful behavior, so she put a plan into motion:
“Along with finding the homeless man and making her apologise and help pay for a hotel room for a night for him (she paid £20), as well as signing her up to volunteer...
