Redditor Comprehensive-Rip776 is a mother whose 13-year-old son, Brian, is on the spectrum.
Brian’s friend, Tom, is a frequent visitor to the house, and the Redditor is not a fan of the young guest for various reasons.
When Tom’s behavior went too far on a recent visit, the frustrated mom did what she thought was necessary.
When her course of action was met with backlash from Tom’s parents, she began having doubts about her handling of the situation.
She visited the “Am I the A**hole?” (AITA) subReddit and asked:
“AITA for calling the police on my son’s friend?”
The Original Poster (OP) explained:
“My son, Brian [13] has a friend, Tom [13] who I really dislike. To put it in the gentlest possible terms, Tom has never been disciplined a single day in his life, and is under the impression that there are not and never will be any consequences for his actions.”
“However, since Brian is on the spectrum, very few other children want to hang out with him. I have tried to tell him that Tom is using him for his Nintendo Switch, but he is unable to process that.”
“Every time Tom comes over, he’ll hog the Switch to play one of the games (often times a single player game).”
“Over the weekend, Tom came over for a sleepover. As usual, he raced right up to Brian’s room, turned on the game, and sat there for hours.”
“He played until 3am on Sunday morning, and then he woke up at 10am, and without joining us for breakfast, started playing more.”
“At around 12, Brian had reached his limit and told Tom that it was time to go home. He was tuned out completely.”
“Brian then came to me asking what he should do, and I told him to be more assertive. An hour later, he came back, basically in tears, saying that no matter what he said, Tom was just ignoring him or giving him short ‘a little more’ answers.”
“I walked in to find Tom, as usual, mouth breathing at the screen. I told him I had to drive him home, and Tom responded that he’d walk (it’s like two miles).”
“Then I told him that he had to go home, and the kid legitimately looked me in the eye and said ‘No, I don’t think I will’.”
“He actually tried to pull off the Captain America line. I then called his mother who didn’t pick up.”
“Finally, I unplugged the machine from the wall causing his game to turn off, but he attached the controller to the handheld part and sat on Brian’s beanbag chair, again impervious to anything we said.”
“At my limit, I went into the other room and called the police. Since we live in a small town, the police officer (a good friend of ours) came right over.”
“He walked up to Tom and said there had been complaints of trespassing, which Tom responded to by saying he was invited. The officer looked at me, and I assured him that we had asked him to go home.”
“Then the officer asked if he wanted to be charged with misdemeanor trespassing. Tom finally got his act together and was taken home by the police, but on his way out I told him that he was never going to step foot in my house again.”
“I told him not to talk to Brian at school and not to text Brian privately.”
“An hour later Tom’s mother called me and shrieked over the phone until hoarse about how horribly I had treated her son.”
“I stayed calm and told her I had called her, but she said she was busy in a meeting and couldn’t talk. I guarantee that Tom fed her some lie-filled story, but I didn’t have the energy, told her to get her sh*t together as a parent, and just hung up on her.”
“I’ve received dozens of anger-filled texts, both from Tom’s mother and numbers I don’t know. I wouldn’t care what those trashy parents think, but I wonder if they have a point.”
Strangers on the internet were asked to declare one of the following:
- NTA – Not the A**hole
- YTA – You’re the A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everybody Sucks Here
Redditors had their speculations about Tom’s mother and her motives.
“Oh I bet Mom isn’t clueless. I bet she wanted OP to keep her son longer so she didn’t have to deal with the spoiled brat.” – Beecakeband
“My thoughts exactly. While Tom’s over at OP’s hogging someone else’s Switch, she doesn’t have him under her feet and hasn’t had to shell out for a console herself.”
“And now she’s upset that the free entertainment for her son has been cut off.” – shadowofshinra
“No the mom is not clueless. I wouldn’t be surprised if she is the mom of one of those entitled parent stories where they harass and call cops on strangers because her ‘precious baby’ want SOMEONE ELSE’S toy/console/dog/whatever.”
“The mother knows what kind of spoiled brat she has, she raised him.” – wearetheawesomes2
Redditors continued to side with the OP and believed she had to do what she felt was necessary at that moment.
“NTA, In my opinion. I have a brother who is also on the spectrum and it would make me very angry if someone he considered a friend would take advantage of him like that.”
“Obviously calling the police seems a little extreme, but Tom wasn’t listening to any reason and he needed to learn that his actions have consequences.”
“You have a right to protect your son and if calling your police friend to give Tom some form of discipline was the only method, then I agree.” – AblazedSapphire
“NTA. You took all the proper steps. At that point it was down to calling the police or physically dragging the little brat out of your home.”
“Both for the child’s safety and for you not getting sued, calling the police was the right thing to do.” – Memento_Mori420
“NTA. If the harassing texts continue from the mother and from numbers of people you don’t know please contact the police again about harassment oh, this woman gave your number out to strangers for the specific purpose of harassing you.” – FortuneWhereThoutBe
Overall, Redditors agreed Tom lacked discipline and that the OP had to take matters into her own hands, especially after she was unable to reach his mother.
Hopefully, Tom’s brush with the police will make him more aware of his behavior in the future.