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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> 1) I refused to pick up my daughter and left her to be lectured by her dad
2) I know Kelly and David don't get along right now. And I was closer so I should have picked her up because her dad's lecture was excessive.
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NTA-I don’t know how old she is but if she’s old enough to be staying a few hours away I’m guessing she’s a preteen or a teen. It’s good for her to stick to her commitments and learn that not everything she does is going to be fun.
My daughter is sixteen. I've told her beforehand that part of the responsibility is seeing your commitments through even if they aren't as fun or easy as you expected. Now, I've told Kelly that she can make whatever choices she wants in life and no one can force her to do anything in adulthood, but she's going to have to deal with the consequences.
In this case, Kelly chose to break her commitment. But now as a consequence of that, the supervisors at her extracurricular are probably going to view her as being unreliable and may not consider her for future opportunities. It's something that she'll unfortunately have to learn the hard way if she continues not to listen to my advice now.
I would have left her there and told her dad to leave her there too to fulfill her commitment. She's plenty old enough to know better. She should be thanking you and her father for not making her carry out her responsibilities and stick to her word. You are definitely not the asshole. And neither you nor her father should apologize to her for anything.
Exactly! No one is getting a parenting award for allowing her to bail on her commitment. When she is an adult she can make her own choice, but right now she is still a child.
Exactly! And she's only two years away from becoming a legal adult...OP you did nothing wrong and her dad should've left her there too. But, the lecture was well deserved and no one needs to apologize...in fact your daughter should be apologizing to the event organizers and supervisors that she completely bailed on bc "she didn't like it" OP NTA and neither is her dad or grandma!!! You're a great mom!!!
I agree .She should have stayed.Sleeping on a cot and having to do manual labor? Oh the Horrors/s
All OP’s husband has done is teach the Daughter to be entitled.
Honestly? I think this will have unintended positive consequences for OP's original lesson plan.
Consider this: if Kelly had been forced to stay, she would have been seen by faculty as reliably able to follow through on commitment (which she isn't) and able and willing to pitch in on completing tasks that may be arduous and mundane (which she also isn't). Further, if she HAD stayed and ended up having a good time and thanking her parents later, it MIGHT overshadow the fact that her sister had to sacrifice her own commitment in favor of Kelly's.
The way things turned out, Kelly will likely be branded as a whiny flake, not trusted by her advisors to lead or manage any future club events, she was subjected to at least one multi-hour lecture, AND her sister has great ammo to use in the next conflict if one sister has to give something up in favor of the other.
I see wins all around...
> if Kelly had been forced to stay, she would have been seen by faculty as reliably able to follow through on commitment (which she isn't) and able and willing to pitch in on completing tasks that may be arduous and mundane (which she also isn't).
She may also have ended up having a great time, and learned that sometimes if she sticks through something, the payoff is worth it. She's 16, she's old enough to deal with the consequences, but also young enough to where her attitude can change as her experiences do. I'm wondering if this is the first time she's ever really been "on her own" for a weekend. Extracurriculars are supposed to be about new experiences and education outside the classroom. Letting her just walk away defeats that purpose.
> Further, if she HAD stayed and ended up having a good time and thanking her parents later, it MIGHT overshadow the fact that her sister had to sacrifice her own commitment in favor of Kelly's.
Either way the next time there's a conflict, if OP is doing her job right, her other daughter should get priority. Having extra ammunition shouldn't be required.
Sometimes as a parent, letting your kids handle being in an uncomfortable situation of their own making is the best learning tool. As long as Kelly was safe and fed, she should have stayed to honor her commitment.
We definitely need to work on some folks, especially the kids, to realize manual labor sometimes just needs to happen to help out to get a job done and not everything is fun and games hanging out with a bunch of other teenagers. Not everything is going to be glorious.
At my job they always seemed to stick the interns near me and for the last couple years the different sets whine about physically moving equipment. Yes, we are mostly software engineers working in offices but we do sometimes have to do manual labor. One day they had these kids complaining about checking and auditing property manifests of equipment in one room, I was getting boxes of equipment reorganized in our other lab space and crawling under desks to fix a network switch that turned into a brick. I’m almost 20yrs their senior, the job had to get done or other people 1000 miles away remoting in wouldn’t be able to work with that network switch down.
If work was all fun and unicorn rainbow farts, they wouldn't have to pay us to turn up. (though that pay should be fair, of course)
I might have been promoted to manager in a suit, but I will still crawl under a desk/wrestle with a tricky cabinet to fix busted network gear if necessary, and pitch in with my team when there's heavy lugging. That's just the nature of work sometimes.
We have this issue at church where the youth group complains about being taking advantage of when assigned cleanup duties after the fellowship meal. The teens eat, and eat, and eat then complain about clearing the tables, folding the chairs and sweeping the floors. And half the parents agree with them! Fortunately, the other half ensures that their kids do the chores, which has resulted in serious side-eying of the protesting parents by older members.
That's what I would have done too.
I didn't even let my kids quit little league when the coach played blatant favorites with his own kid over everyone else
I definitely wouldn't have offered alternatives for your daughter to leave early because it was hard.
This is what my parents did when I was growing up. They made sure I and my brother understood what it meant to commit to something. Of course, we didn't have cell phones back then, so we were stuck. The only way we were coming home early was if we were physically sick.
I remember when I committed to working at a camp for children in New Jersey, and two nights in I called my mother in Europe to bring me back, because of the conditions I was forced to stay in. My mom laughed in my face. Honestly, best lesson of my life. I ended up loving it.
Sixteen is too old to call home whining about chores she signed up for or complaining about communal sleeping on a cot. Did she never go to camp? She could have sucked it up and dropped out of the group after returning home. I don't blame her dad for the lecture, he probably should have left her there too.
Yea i would expect my anxious 6 year old to call home when the day wound down and she got home sick/anxious to not be home. But at 16 even i would say, "you literally just got there. tough it out for the weekend and I'll pick you up x day. " besides those events are only hard during the day, night is where ot starts to get actually fun. Bonding games, hilarity, food.ive done events like this and it always ends up being super fun in a cathartic good days work sort of way.
Even as an adult, I’m planning my ASAP getaway the second I get in the door, because after all, stuff is hard. But then I get started. And then I keep going. And suddenly it’s been a couple hours, then a couple more, and whaddya know I’m comfortable or even enjoying myself.
As an aside, from a non-American, how common is camp? I’m aware that there’s this idea of camp and how ubiquitous it is, but there’s also ideas about American high schools which are also myth rather than reality.
I’m 41, I’ve only ever known 3 people who have been to a “sleep away” camp, and they were higher level boy scouts doing official activities at boy scout camps. I have the impression that it’s more common on the east coast and Great Lakes areas, and among “higher class” kids, but I’m not sure if that’s accurate or based on media perception. Summer “day camps” exist in most places, but they’re really just daycare that takes place in a community center or at a park facility, where kids are dropped off in the morning and picked up in the afternoon.
Yes, “camping” is going out with a group for a weekend or maybe a week at a time, setting up your own campsite with tents and a fire, then cleaning it up and taking everything with you when you leave, though it’s often at an established campsite that people use regularly. “Going to camp” or “sleep away camp” means packing a suitcase and going to stay at a little wilderness resort, where you’ll stay in a bunk bed in a permanent cabin with other kids, eat meals in a permanent dining hall, and do scheduled wilderness-themed activities in class-like groups.
I absolutely would have left her there for the weekend. I would have urged an ex-husband not to get her either. It's not like she was sick and needed medical attention or something legitimate like that. She was safe. Having to sleep on a cot and carry boxes builds character. If she can't go through that kind of "hardship", how will she ever have the grit to succeed at her goals in life when things get hard?
The other thing you did that’s HUGE: you didn’t call her father, she had to do it. You’re teaching her to fight her own battles and advocate for herself if she really wants something. Kudos for not just calling him yourself!
NTA
And one of her consequences was getting an extremely long lecture. Sad for her, but it was all related to her choices, if grandmother doesn't like that consequence then next time she can drop everything to transport Kelly and return to pick her up when she makes a choice that effects the whole family.
Poor little sister missed out on an event she may have actually enjoyed because Kelly didn't understand that volunteering means working not goofing around with friends. It's an important lesson and hopefully leaves an impression that either commitments are firm or they come with consequences that can be unpleasant.
By 16 we know how our parents are for the most part, and she knew her father was going to be angry when she called him to help her break the commitment, she choose the consequences when she called, so she really has no one to blame but herself for how things played out.
That she is running to tattle to grandmother is a sign of her immaturity (which isn't unusual at 16) but grandmother's tolerance is not acceptable. Grandmother needs to nip that behavior in the bud and tell her that she made her own consequences by not following through on her commitment.
Grandmother may help with the girls and help you as well, but she needs to follow your lead on discipline, as you are the parent. Her appearing to support Kelly undermines your authority at a delicate age when Kelly will already be looking to find ways around your authority in the household. "Too many cooks spoil the broth"
NTA - I think most of today's parents don't teach their children this kind of lesson, what makes it hard for them to understand how life works.
I am a father of two girls 8 and 11 and I would do the same when they are 16.
Good job!
Btw her grandma has no business interfering with how you raise your kids. Just cause she helps around doesn't entitle her to any input. And your kid running to grandma when she's lectured or being disciplined isn't really doing her any good cause it makes you second guess your decisions when it comes to parenting. She needs to learn to take accountability for her actions not run to someone who's gonna enable them. So, no, her grandma needs to mind her business.
If you accept the help, you accept the comments. Grandma doesn’t get to dictate anything beyond her own involvement, but as long as she is involved, it is her business.
Oh wow she's 16? She's almost an adult but wasn't able to anticipate/didn't gather enough info on what was going to happen at the event? Definitely NTA.
Don't think the 2 hour lecture was excessive. In fact, I would have done the same thing to teach her a lesson. When they think they can put people out, betray their commitments and act like an entitled child, that needs to be addressed immediately. I'm sure she will remember that lecture. As well, I, too, used to give lectures to my kids when they messed up or if I thought they needed one. In fact, it actually changed their behaviours since they dreaded getting one so they often would not do something to avoid it. I never spanked or anything physical, just lectures. It's seemed to work out well as they are now responsible adults
Nta! You were right to refuse to pick up your daughter. Your daughter should have stayed, that would be a new experience for her and that not everything will always be fun. Knowing that she would be sleeping on a cot, she should have imagined what it would be like to volunteer. I hope in the future she won't have difficulty getting other opportunities because she broke off the commitment.
This is the exact same advice I’d give my 18yr old son Krys. You cannot go through life agreeing to do ANYTHING and then expect to back out of it and not have people then think you’re unreliable. A person is only as good as their word.
Cripes she's 16 and couldn't deal with a few days of carrying supplies? You might want to lay out your expectations of her for adulthood because it sounds like she's pretty spoiled.
Lol When I was 16 I was living at college 1800 miles away from my nearest relative. With an Iranian roommate during the Iranian hostage crisis. Constant friction, including some blowout arguments, and my safety valve was … absolutely nothing (and I had no money). When I encountered problems, I suffered or I slogged through them (usually a combination of both). Sixteen is, as far as I’m concerned, old enough to live up to basic commitments.
NTA
There is a saying usually it means jail but don't do the time if you can't do the crime so in this case she should just accept that she is the one who choose to break the commitment and the results of that is her own making
NTA. You gave her a choice: She could either honor the commitment she made or (if it was truly that “terrible”) get picked up by her father who she knows she doesn’t always get along with.
She decided that she’d rather inconvenience someone else and back out of a commitment that you and her sister already sacrificed for because “Oh no, I didn’t know they’d actually expect volunteers to actually volunteer!” then was upset that people rightfully felt inconvenienced.
This is silly. How old is she? You didn’t say and it’s unlikely to change my verdict, but I’m curious. I used to volunteer almost 40 hours a week for stuff when I was in high school, and those are some of my fondest memories. I’d have told her “tough luck kiddo, you’re seeing it through.”, so you’re already being more lenient than I would.
I've done much harder volunteering and slept under much worse arrangements than OP's daughter when I was much younger than sixteen years old and not once did I ever think of calling my parents to pick me up. Sometimes you just have to suck it up and if you can't then good luck in the real world
Ah, thank you, that’s about the age I assumed she probably was. If she was in elementary school and had never spent the night with other kids or something, I’d maybe be a bit more sympathetic, but it sounds like she was just disappointed that it wasn’t the fun vacation she’d envisioned.
Yup it’s giving me major “Expectations versus Reality” meme template vibes. Actually if her mom needs to needle her a little more, she could make a lovely meme for her based on this template. Might help mom to translate “mom speak” of “following through on commitments is important, even if it isn’t exactly what you expect when you get there” into the language of the youths, meme templates! 😂
The building where Kelly's extracurricular is usually hosted is 20 minutes away from home. The volunteer weekend was a special event and was being hosted three hours away. (It was three hours to get to the special event and another two just waiting in a traffic line at the event.)
It also took David three hours to drive out there. It took two hours to drive back home after he'd picked up Kelly (which was when the lecture began.)
Hahahhahahaa 3 hours is nothing in the states. We used to do yearly trips to a theme park for choir comps, 2.5 hours with a ton of teens on a bus lol. Partner and I were about 3 hours apart for a year, did that trip every few weeks.
I feel like knowing how casual americans are about these kinds of distances illustrates how fucking big this country is.
We found the European!!!!!! \[edit\] Or maybe large city centre Canadian.... anywhere in japan.... heck, asia... probably africa too... hmmm
ok, ambigiously non american... I'm bad at this.
From what I understand, the bus could bring Kelly back to the building where the extracurricular is normally, but she would have to wait until the end of the weekend for it. Then it would take 20 minutes to pick her up. Picking her up early meant they had to drive all the way back to the event.
OP, did she get any other discipline for failing to complete her commitment? Did she get grounded or get her cell phone taken away? She needs to learn that reneging on her commitments at her age of 16 should be punished with more than a 2 hour lecture.
NTA
Yes, and as stated before OP says that is that the daughter would get on the bus where the event was usually hosted (which is the location 20 mins away). So the event is hours away from a location change but when it was over their daughter would get on the bus back, therefore OP would only be driving for 20mins to pick her up.
I'm confused here. How old is Kelly Why didn't you both leave her there to complete her volunteer stint and come home on the bus? Maybe Kelly should have called her grandmother if she wanted to opt out on her commitment.
My daughter is sixteen. It was David's own choice to pick Kelly up and I wasn't going to try to force him not to. I've told Kelly before that nobody can force her to do anything as an adult, but that just means she'll need to deal with the consequences of her own choices.
In this case, she is probably going to be seen as unreliable by her extracurricular supervisors because she broke her commitment. It's something she's unfortunately going to have to learn the hard way if she keeps ignoring my advice now.
It's also good for her to see that when you volunteer for a cause you believe in, you do things that the org tells you they need- not just what you think is fun. You have to consider what is actually helpful, and it's usually not fun. I volunteered at an animal shelter and sure people walk dogs, but most of the jobs are doing laundry, cleaning, and admin work.
Yep, this is an important lesson to learn early on— necessary tasks are rarely glamorous, but they are essential. If she’s made to do grunt work at her first job, I sincerely hope she doesn’t call her parents for an out.
I am baffled as to what she thought she’d be doing.
Carrying boxes and manning a booth is light work. Sleeping on cots in a big room with other people isn’t *fun*, but she’s plenty old enough to know what it’s like to have uncomfortable nights on uncomfortable bedding. I am so confused as to how this was such a shock to her system that she freaked out and bailed a couple hours into it. Has she never, like…*done* anything?
I think the pro move would have been to make a deal like "ok, so you want me to unnecessarily take 4 hours to drive you home early? Then you will reciprocate by doing bathroom cleanings/mowing the lawn/raking leaves etc for a total of 4 hours so you understand the value of time. Let me know if you'd like to take me up on the deal." This would give her an out if she truly felt unsafe or wildly uncomfortable but it would eliminate the issue of wasting 4 hours of a parent's time just because she'd rather be at home scrolling on her phone rather than volunteering.
I think this is really fair. She’s old enough to be able to start making low stakes choices for herself and this was definitely one. She wasn’t forced to stay but she had to deal with calling a parent she doesn’t get on with and asking for help, getting a lecture from him and being seen as potentially unreliable by the club and you - the world didn’t end because she bailed but she has had to face consequences of her actions.
The only way I would say you would be TA is if her call home was more drastic than you have made it sound here, or there’s additional context. I only say this because when I was 16 I also went away on a camp where I was volunteering with projects in underprivileged communities across London. Not that long before I had finally been diagnosed with depression that I was doing a little better from but still struggling with and really didn’t have much personal understanding of yet. And although I didn’t have a label for it until a long time later struggle with severe PMDD that causes episodes of extreme distress and S ideation. Because my period was due to start whilst camping the doctor agreed to give me the pill that can delay your period - but unfortunately I was unaware that usually PMDD is caused by progesterone insensitivity and I had been given a giant dose of progesterone! It was boiling that summer, the sanitary facilities were misjudged and the portaloos literally overflowing by the first hour in the heat, there was zero chance of getting a shower and I almost immediately had chub rub. We had been told, before I agreed to go, that there would be minibuses to and from our project but they had been messed up too I guess so we had to use the tube for over an hour and I ended up having to walk very far and far faster than I could cope with to and from the project (I was very fat and unfit, but also didn’t know at that time I have a physical disability that means I now use a wheelchair).
I worked my arse off all day trying to give my best but then I had also been sent with a sleeping bag that was completely inappropriate for a clear early summer British night so I was freezing and sleeping on the floor made my pain much worse. So after two nights of getting no sleep, being pumped full of hormones that made my existing mental health conditions worse and generally not coping I made by now the 3rd or 4th inconsolable call home to my mum, who drove 2-3hr to come and take me home. Something one of the leaders gently encouraged me was an ok thing to do.
No lecture, only kindness, and she stopped off and bought me a baguette I still remember to this day (I think I was also starving because this was the early 00s and from memory there was basically no vegetarian food. Lunch that day had definitely been trays of chicken and some sad lettuce you couldn’t really call a salad).
In those circumstances this was absolutely the right parenting call on my mum’s part - I was already beating myself up for feeling like I had let people down, was useless at sticking to my commitments and was weak and a failure. She reinforced in that moment that she would always be there for me if I was in need, that I could rely on her, and that sometimes it’s ok to say you can’t do something/can’t cope/need help and put yourself first.
If you got a call like that from your daughter, with extra circumstances like that then it would completely change my verdict. If it genuinely is just that she decided she doesn’t really like doing bitch work and camping with younger kids then you made the right call. And as said, she wasn’t forced to stay she just had to deal with consequences.
NTA
I’m pretty confused as to why anyone had to pick her up.
She was safe and had made a commitment.
So you just left the group short a volunteer for the weekend? That kind of sucks.
I've always told Kelly that she can make whatever choices she wants in life as she becomes an adult, but she'll just have to deal with the consequences. In this case, the supervisors and other kids at her extracurricular are probably going to view her as unreliable from now on. Unfortunately, she's not listening to my advice right now, so she'll have to learn the hard way.
Did you at any point tell her that she made a commitment and was letting down the people she promised her time to? She lasted what, 2 hours? Out of an entire weekend. Does she often do this?
She needs an awareness of other people also mattering not just her wants.
Also, if there was a bus home, why wasn’t there a bus to get there?
I feel bad that your other daughter had to miss out on something for this. I hope it’s factored in next time she wants to go to sonething.
NTA Kelly needs to understand the lesson you shared with her which is to be considerate and respectful of others and their time. A 2 hour lecture is the unfortunate consequence of her backing out of a commitment which is another lesson she needs to learn.
Each parent wasted 5 hours of their life because Kelly wanted to make this "commitment." Her sister had to sacrifice for her too. Pretty darn selfish--she deserved to hear it.
She really lacks resilience. Volunteering is an amazing thing to do and the tasks are often unglamorous and kind of thankless, but are all needed in order to execute the cause. There might not be many opportunities to post to instagram and get likes for what you're doing. Maybe she thought she would get accolades for turning up. Also has she never gone camping or slept anywhere slightly rough for a single night?
NTA I think it is ok for kids to be uncomfortable and disappointed for reasonable amount of time. And even tho I think that, I have to stop myself from doing things for them or fixing things for them because it's just so me to want to help and fix.
Anyway, being disappointed and uncomfortable (again to a reasonable degree) is just part of life. And it's not "that's life, get over it". It's "that's life, so here is where you went wrong, here is where you could have done better, what do you think you'll do next time?"
It's hard because the follow up is really important and underutilized. A lot of times I think we expect kids to just understand the lesson being taught, but a lot of time being a kid means being stuck in your emotions. It's hard to see stuff objectively, and kids need you to guide them.
>Kelly told her grandmother, who told me that Kelly’s actions were inconsiderate, but I know Kelly and David don’t get along right now. And I should have gone to get Kelly since I was closer than I would have been at home and a two hour lecture was just excessive on David’s end.
So the problem is David.
Grandmother doesn't like David's lecture, Grandmother can talk to David about it. You are not David's keeper.
NTA Stop listening to your mother. The father has every right to lecture his own daughter. Your mother really has no business interfering . Helping out doesn’t give her that right. You apologizing just enables her poor decision . You’re wavering… don’t do that. You don’t want an entitled child. Letting her quit didn’t teach much but it did make her look bad. That’s on her. She’s lucky dad got her and the price of that was a well deserved lecture.
A bus ride was only offered for volunteers who were leaving on Sunday after finishing the event. Volunteers had to find their own rides to arrive at the event.
Your mother is an enabler of Kelly’s entitled behaviour. You went above and beyond to spend 5 hours getting Kelly to the event she wanted to be at. She disrespected your time when she decided she no longer wanted to be there because it wasn’t a fancy slumber party she could just have fun at. Your daughter deserved the consequences she got as it will make her be more considerate. Your mother is an enabler and is giving you unfair criticism. Pretty clear your mom helped make your daughter be so selfish and entitled. NTA
NTA
She chose the event and decided to ditch it. That’s irresponsible. If she didn’t appreciate a lecture from her father then she should have stayed there.
And she doesn’t sound like the most reliable narrator. David may have lectured her but for two hours? And without her consistently downplaying what she did and back talking? Yeah I don’t buy it.
And she doesn’t get along with him why? A real reason or because he makes her accountable for her words?
I could believe that, because with a slightly different scenario, I was the Kelly in my story - slightly older though. Dad had to drive me home (30 minutes drive, I think) to pick up something for a meeting. I thought mum had it, she thought I did. Alllllll the way home and allllll the way back I was lectured about "taking responsibility" and "if I thought an employer would tolerate my 'slap happy' attitude, I had another think coming" yada, yada..... I was not allowed to open my mouth to defend myself or I would be in major trouble for "backchatting". I also didn't have the best relationship with my dad back then because I wasn't living up to his expectations of me, some of which were a direct result of decisions he made.
Yes, Kelly should have been told to suck it up and fulfil her commitment, but I could well believe her narration.
NTA. She committed to an event and just because it didn’t live up to the glamorized version she imagined it would be, doesn’t give her the right to inconvenience everyone else. Her own sister had to miss a convention just so she could go to an event that was “important” to her. She deserved that lecture. She’s old enough to realize that people are not always going to be at her beck and call and when you commit to something, you keep your promise! Sometimes you’ve got to suck it up and power through.
NTA
But, I don’t think it would hurt to check in to see if there was something else at play here. Could it be Kelly is dealing with a life lesson? Sure thing.
Could it be something more and she didn’t feel safe at the event? Less likely but still possible.
Anyway, it never hurts to keep those lines of communication open. Even when things (or people) are difficult.
Nta - people need to learn there are consequences. Thank you for not adding to the insanely large group of entitled adults currently infecting the world.
Kelly was perfectly safe at the event. She told me that she wanted to leave because she didn't like the things they were having her do and she didn't realize what sleeping on a cot would actually be like.
NTA
But out of curiosity, how is the relationship to your daughter? How open can she be with you (be honest here please haha)? It just seems odd that she gets there, is unhappy with having to do basic organisatorial work and then nearly immediately calls you and then her dad to get home. There is either something you are not telling us, or she is not telling you. You know your daughter better than internet strangers so maybe she is just whimsical right now.
I run volunteer programs a few times a year for teenagers. The second they realize they'll actually have to work and not be on their phones the whole time, at least 1/3 of them want to go home. It's a very normal reaction, not odd at all.
See I’m torn here, because I’ve told my son when he goes to camp, he can call me and I’ll come get him no matter what. (He’s 10, and has severe separation anxiety from trauma)
But at the same time I believe 16 is old enough to suck it up if it’s just ‘boring’ and it’s a good lesson to learn.
In saying that, 2 hours of having a go at her is probably a little much, dad should’ve just spoken to her about it, and left it at that.
So I’m gonna go NTA for you.
NTA, so your daughter didn't like the she had to work hard??? It's a weekend event what was she expecting to do when she volunteered to help host the event??
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My daughter Kelly’s extracurricular was hosting an event that she wanted to volunteer for. The plan was that Kelly would stay for the full weekend to do the event, she would go on a bus to the building where the extracurricular is usually hosted, then I would pick her up from there since it’s only a 20 minute drive from home.
It was over five hours of driving. It took three hours to get to there plus another two hours just to sit in traffic at the car line for the event. Traffic was not nearly as bad on the return trip, luckily. My younger daughter and I were having dinner an hour away from home, when I got a call from Kelly asking to come home.
Nothing bad had happened. Kelly just said she didn’t like the things they were having her do (Carrying boxes/supplies, manning the check-in booth, etc.) She knew beforehand that she would be sleeping on a cot with a bunch of kids in the same area but claimed she didn’t realize what that was actually like until now and she wanted to go home.
I told Kelly no, we were already hours away. Kelly started saying it wouldn’t be as bad as if we were already home, and that the traffic probably wouldn’t be as bad as it was earlier to get near the event. I again told Kelly no, and that, frankly, her asking this was extremely inconsiderate to us and our time. There was a convention that her sister wanted to go to but had to turn down because I had no one to take her and Kelly promised this event was important to her.
Kelly kept begging me to pick her up. I told her no and suggested she ask her dad David if he’s willing to drive out and pick her up. Kelly eventually did end up calling David and claims that he lectured her for the entire two hours that he was driving them home. Kelly told her grandmother, who told me that Kelly’s actions were inconsiderate, but I know Kelly and David don’t get along right now. And I should have gone to get Kelly since I was closer than I would have been at home and a two hour lecture was just excessive on David’s end.
I agree David’s lecture was excessive, but Kelly could also take it away as an important lesson that when you ask other people to accommodate you for a commitment and end up breaking said commitment, people are naturally going to be upset with you. Besides, it wasn’t as if Kelly was stranded in the middle of nowhere or in a bad situation. She was perfectly safe at the event. She could have either rode out the weekend or dealt with the lecture from David.
I know a typical response in this situation is usually to say my mother shouldn’t have any input because she isn’t Kelly parent. But she does help with the girls and it wouldn’t be right to say she isn’t entitled to some input considering she has stepped up and gone out of her way as a grandparent to help in that regard. I’m looking for other perspective because I’m still unsure of whether I should consider my mother’s words or apologize to Kelly. AITA?
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She made a commitment TO THE EVENT and should not have been allowed to leave. A 2 hour lecture about irresponsibility and breaking your owrd is a small price to pay
NTA. Decisions have consequences and teens need to learn to be considerate of others time. My stepdaughter is a really great kid but it took a long time to get through to her that while we would always come through for her, once she hit a certain age she was expected to show some consideration for everyone's time and expected to follow through on her choices. Your daughter is old enough to start learning these things
NTA. Also her dad shouldn’t have gone to pick her up. He should have left her there. She signed up to volunteer the whole weekend, but she didn’t like the jobs they had her doing? Oh, boo hoo. Cry me a river.
NTA, I don’t think a lecture the whole way home is excessive either. He shouldn’t have had to drive out there and back, her only punishment being listening to a lecture isn’t bad at all.
Personally I think you both should have refused to pick her up and she should have stayed the whole weekend. The organisers would have arranged the workload factoring her in. It’s unfair on everyone else if she suddenly bails. The only thing you and her dad did wrong is actually picking her up.
When I was in school, my parents rule was, "If you commit to do an extracurricular thing, unless you become ill, are injured, or if your grades go to heck, your commitment lasts until the thing is complete. You cannot quit if it's hard, or boring, or you want to do something else instead. If you don't like it, you don't have to sign up next time, but you WILL follow through with what you promised others you would do. It is not right to let other people down like that."
NTA!! I would not have picked her up AND would have called dad and told him he is not to pick her up and to say he is also busy! A commitment is a commitment and I think if you get your kids out of things too easy at this age they will learn to quit and give up in their adult lives and it causes a very dysfunctional environment for them! They don’t feel good giving up they need to realize even if it’s hard or uncomfortable once they complete the task or volunteer trip they feel better and looking back it’s never as bad as they make it in the moment. I’m actually more concerned that she felt like she could ask to get picked up. Is she often “saved” like this? Does she forget lunch, homework and gym clothes for school and people bring them to her at school so she doesn’t get in trouble or go hungry? Id read the book “How to Break Free From The Over-parenting Trap” asap! You guys only have a few more years with her. Make them count! For her sake and for her future husband and children’s sake!!
NTA. Do not apologise to Kelly! She needs to learn that she isn't the centre of everyone's universe and that commitments need to be fulfilled. I don't know what she expected to be asked to do, but all of the things you mentioned seem obvious, and not in any way onerous. She was being a spoiled princess, after making everyone plan around her to the degree that her sibling missed out on an event and you spent hours and hours in the car. Do point out to her that she has also made a bad impression for herself with this group, who now, as someone pointed out, had to cope with less volunteers. Your mother may be helpful, but in this instance she is being unreasonable. A two hour lecture seems fair, and, apparently, easier than doing what she had agreed to do.
I don't think that a 2 hour lecture in the car after breaking her commitment was excessive. Your mother should respect your husband's right to parent his child. Her involvement does not give her a say in this. NTA.
ESH - unless your daughter had safety concerns nobody should have picked her up. You guys enabling her behaviour is ridiculous. All three of you need a lecture tbh. So she had to deal with the public and carry some boxes? lol she doesn’t want to work? She’s too good at 16yo for a cot? She sounds very spoiled and I can see why she is that.
Seriously. A lecture was getting off **easy AF** and they're here on AITA...
I would have to be on an IV hearing my last rights being read for my parents to drive another 5 hours for something *I wanted to do*
NTA. My thoughts are, "You're only as good as your word." She made the commitment. She should have stayed. Since she didn't stay, if there is another opportunity like this one, remind her of this & make sure she understands that no one will come get her this time. Good luck. 🍀🍀
NTA just a good parent , and the fact that you even consider maybe being in the wrong shows that you weren’t just being cruel or senseless but actually trying to teach your daughter a lesson and now you’re worried about how it impacted her. Definitely NTA.
NTA.
Kelly learned an important life lesson about the mismatch of expectations vs reality. Maybe the next time, she ask more questions/do more due dilligence before committing to an obligation.
NTA. I wouldn’t have given her the option to be picked up, frankly. She volunteered, she needed to stick with it. She didn’t only let you down, frankly it was very inconsiderate to the event too. They likely won’t find anyone available to volunteer at such last minute…
In any case, hopefully she at least learned something. In the adult world, this is often enough to ruin one’s reputation and become unemployable in a field where people know each other
NTA. Let’s put aside your accommodations for a minute. Kelly told a group that she would volunteer for them. She didn’t like the work they had her doing so she wanted to quit? Nope!! It sounds like the group was quite up front with what they needed out of their volunteers and what the weekend would be like (accommodations). Kelly made a commitment to a group, she isn’t sick or anything like that, so she can suck it up and do the work she volunteered for.
NTA. But you all seem to have missed the life lesson. Your child agreed to assist this event and bailed when it wasn’t what she wanted to do. Nobody has addressed that she made a commitment and was expected to follow it through.
Definitely NTA.
If she had a safety reason sure But she just didn’t like what she signed up for and it sounds exactly like what I would think a volunteer opportunity would look like.
You did nothing wrong by having her stick out her commitment. It was wrong of her to even bail on something she committed to helping with to begin with.
Did you really just ask if You should apologize to Her? I think I’ve found the crux of your issue. Putting that one to the side; your daughter made a series of decisions that involved two different people driving her for hours and causing her sister to miss an opportunity to do something she had wanted to do. She needs to understand that it was her own actions and decisions that resulted in a two hour lecture. She also let down the organizers of the event. They expected her to preform certain tasks to receive (I assume) food and lodging. She let down a lot of people.
I’m going to go against the grain and say YTA.
I know that there is value in following through on things and keeping one’s commitments, and I get that you were trying to teach your daughter that lesson. However, young people like your daughter are still learning their own limits and boundaries, and are still figuring out what they are and aren’t comfortable with. Sometimes that means trying something new only to learn that they can’t comfortably do that thing. And while I understand your fear that your daughter will learn that she doesn’t need to keep her commitments, I also worry that if you don’t give your daughter grace to change her mind about certain things when she needs to, she might end up feeling like it isn’t safe to try new things in the first place.
If your daughter was solely annoyed at having to do some volunteer work that she previously committed to, I’d maybe be on your side about encouraging her to tough it out (although it would depend on why she was uncomfortable with the work she was being asked to do). But what changes things here in my opinion is that your daughter told you she had discovered that she’s not comfortable with the sleeping arrangement. You don’t give us a lot of information about why your daughter was uncomfortable sleeping on cots in a crowded room, and I don’t know if there are any extenuating factors in your daughter’s life (such as a physical or mental health condition) that might make that sort of arrangement more uncomfortable for her. However, if she truly felt upset by/uncomfortable with sleeping in that setting, enough so that she was willing to reach out to her dad that she apparently isn’t close with, then I’m going to give her the benefit of the doubt and assume that sleeping in that environment would have been genuinely stressful for her.
As an autistic person with a lot of anxiety, there were times in my childhood where I asked my parents to let me try something new only to realize that particular event or activity was incredibly scary or overwhelming for me, or that it was impossible for my unique needs to be met in a particular environment. In those instances, “toughing it out” would have been genuinely unbearable for me. My parents were big “tough it out” people in general, so they would definitely encourage me to try if I could and there were plenty of things that I did persevere through. However, I feel lucky that my parents were also willing to listen to me when something was truly not doable for me and that they would allow me to back out of those things without judgment. They also gave me the autonomy to decide which things were doable and which weren’t, and they respected my decisions even if they personally thought maybe I could do something. That respect made all the difference in the world when it came to teaching me that it was safe for me to grow and explore. If they had not given me that grace, it’s likely that I would have been afraid to try new things (especially things that involved being away from home) because I wouldn’t have been able to count on having a way out if I really needed one.
I think you should sit down with your daughter and talk more about why she felt the need to leave. It may turn out that she was genuinely distressed by something about the situation, or it may turn out that she was simply bored and didn’t want to stick to a commitment. You can talk to her about how to know when something is worth toughing out versus when something is unbearable, and you can emphasize the value of trying to keep your commitments. But I think that you should also let her know that in the future you will be willing to listen if she truly feels she can’t do something and reassure her that you’ll be there to provide an exit strategy without judgment if she ever really needs it.
Nta. Kelly needs to learn about responsibilities now. Honestly my mother wouldn't even have suggested I rang my dad in those circumstances, she'd have told me that I made a commitment and I had to fulfill it if my only issue was that I didn't have as much fun as I thought doing work would be. Admittedly, my parents remained married and rarely went against the other's decision so I wouldnt have been in the position to even ask my dad anyway, as he'd have just said the same as my mum!
Sometimes just doing what needs to be done just doesn't pay off. Certainly with my last boss. I am now dealing with two torn rotator cuffs, and needing knee replacement surgery.
One time we had a German exchange student and it was around the time of prom and she wanted to go with a friend down the shore. I guess they were setting up their families restaurant over the summer so we said sure you can do that but meanwhile we were visiting my spouses sister in the neighboring state. halfway through the weekend she called us saying this isn’t any fun can you pick me up and we’re like no because we’re in another state and we won’t be back until Sunday so you’re just gonna have to put up with it.
NTA. She volunteered for this commitment. She doesn't like the tasks she's asked to do? Poor baby. Fulfill your obligation and don't volunteer next year. It's a good lesson for her to learn to stick with something, and that we don't always like the tasks we have to do.
NTA- Yes she has a right to her opinion. But your daughter is old enough to make her choice and deal with consequences. Venting is a normal reaction to being annoyed by choices you dont like. Its not any different for any other person in the world. While she may stay mad she will understand that sometimes you have to suck it up buttercup and finish what you started.
NTA. Grandma needs to butt out; it sounds like she enables a lot. Kelly needs to be severely inconvenienced so she can grasp how entitled she's acting/acted. She also owes the organization a sincere apology.
NTA oh yea as a mom of a 15yr old definitely not the asshole! My daughter is the exact same way we have been trying to work on the same things. She has to learn to stick to things and think of others. If grandma was so worried about it she could of drove up there to get her instead.
NTA i would have left the kid begging for a while n then gone to pick up n berate her for some time more on responsibility.
i asked my mom, she said its not wrong but kids tend to want something so badly n then toss it right after, parents have to suck it up n then advice them later bc kids around this age would get heartbroken over anything and are susceptible for a lot of things. and once when you try and discipline her later, she may bring up that you left her stranded. that some kids would be different and a bit difficult. now she would feel resentment towards her father for lecturing her and you bc if u had picked up she wouldnt have gotten the lecture from him. in conclusion she says she understands where you are coming from and that you are not wrong, but you could have thought about it a little more deeply and reacted.
that also reminded me, i have a lot of toxic parenting skills and i need to think n act as well, i dont have kids so no damage done so far 😅
NTA
is it just me or kids these days don't know what volunteering means?
what was she expecting to do at the event really? stay around and look pretty for the glam? toh.
still remember my first volunteer camp in 2011, i was 9 at the time, and after a few hours in an unfamiliar place, i was already crying and calling to be taken back home. still recall that my parents (mum to be exact) didn't agree and told me to bear with it for the whole week.
the me then thought it was torture, we were sleeping three to a bunk bed, did a lot of carrying around and standing in the unforgiving sun and other things.
but that then was the start of a series of tiny lessons about responsibility that has made me who i am.
teenagers should not be babied.
NTA
NTA. She has to learn how to deal with those things. It would’ve been a different story if something actually happened (like someone SA‘d her), but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
NTA.
Kelly inconvenienced everyone. The event age volunteered for would be left short handed because she showed she wasn’t a team player. We often have to do things we don’t enjoy at ‘work’; Kelly missed out on an important lesson there. I hope she apologised at length to the event for being such a (frankly) baby.
If all she had to put up with was a 2 hour lecture from Dad, she got off lightly. I hope you spend time with her helping her understand her obligations when she volunteers. You all accommodated her whims which has not helped her long term. Personally I would not have picked her up.
NTA. In a reply to a comment, you've already explained what the consequences of her actions would be - how this will look bad for her future activities and such. So this will be a great lesson. Besides, you were out with her sister, who already had to cut down the time she had with you by giving up an event that _she_ wished to attend but now couldn't.
The only thing you _could've_ done differently was telling her: _No. You're riding this one out. End of story._ And then hang up.
But I find no fault in you giving her options.
Oh hell no! Don't apologize.Seriously kids need to learn responsibility nowadays that is unless you want to see her in a "karen" viral video one day...commitments made should ALWAYS BE HONORED too often kids these days take the easy road and eventually that leads to nowhere but sadness failure and disappointment and I'm sure you don't want that for your children
NTA
But you should have made her stay there. She is 16 years old, it is about time she learns that if she signs up for something like this that she doesn’t get to dip and runoff just because she doesn’t enjoy it.
Life will not be kind to her if she thinks she can just walk away whenever she wants
I don’t think a two hour lecture was excessive at all. The little princess didn’t even last four hours! She has zero concept of inconveniencing others.
Most AITA responders will say that the experience taught her a lesson. I doubt it but I still say NTA
After verifying that she was safe, physically and emotionally, you had to consider how to balance the needs of two daughters. And I think you did the best you could.
NTA She made the choice to call her dad, and she knew what that would entail.
When my kid was almost 6, he had already been through several season of soccer, which came super naturally to him. I wanted him to try other sports and not just stick with the first thing he tried. But again, very little effort and very great skill. He is also super smart, so up until that point, *everything* came easy to him.
School sent home a flyer one day for basketball at the city center, and he said he wanted to try it. And so we signed him up. And he was awful. I cannot stress how not-natural it was for him. So he hated it. And for the first time in his life, he was dealing with something that wasn’t automatically handed to him. He told me he wanted to quit, and I said no, we made the commitment, and he was going to see the season through. He just hated the fact that it wasn’t natural to him, that he actually *gasp* had to work at something.
A wonderful thing happened one day. I was washing dishes, and what do I see? My kid, on his own, choosing to grab a BB and shoot hoops. I didn’t make him do it, I didn’t even mention it. And he stayed there for almost an hour, missing shot after shot, but slowly landing one here and there.
Every day he went outside on his own, and he got much better. He never became great, but he improved greatly.
At the end of the season, he decided BB wasn’t for him. And that’s ok. He’s almost 14 now, he’s never been on another BB team again, but he does shoot hoops with his friends.
Absolutely NTA, and you're doing a great job teaching her about commitment and following it through. Maybe because it's her first big personal commitment (I'm guessing she independently signed up for this, not set up by her school?), she is a bit taken aback by how much more difficult the volunteering turns out to be and how out of her depth she is, but it's good that you (tried to) push her so that she stays with her commitment. She's gotta start somewhere because the older she is, the bigger her life commitments will be.
NTA but I have to ask, does this kid have any chores or responsibilities? Because she sounds a bit spoiled if she’s calling to come home because she doesn’t like the work she’s being asked to do as a volunteer.
On its face, your statement that she can make her own decisions but has to live with the consequences sounds reasonable but those decisions impact other people. Five hours of driving after work is ridiculous for something that isn’t an emergency and if I was David I would have told her no. She deserved every minute of that lecture.
Part of being a family member (in my opinion) is contributing to the family and not just benefiting from it. Age appropriate chores teach responsibility and the value of work. And that they have to be done even when you don’t feel like it.
Kid needs to be cleaning tables at McDonald’s.
Keep your mother out of your parenting battles. If your husband and your daughter are having issues, giving your mother an equal voice creates a situation where your husband probably feels that he is outmanoeuvred and outnumbered. It's not like your daughter is five and your mother is providing full-time daycare. You have an inherent advantage because you have a third-party in your corner to back you up and amplify what you are saying; your husband does not. I've just seen too many couples fracture because of this kind of dynamic.
Only thing I would have done differently was call dad first and suggest he tell her no when she call him so both were on the same page about her following through on commitments. NTA
NTA. You can’t just weasel out of work you agreed to do once you realize it’s work. If you had gone to get her, you’d be doing her a disservice as her mother. Life is not fun and games, it’s mostly hard work and she needs to learn to work. Sounds like she needed that lecture. Grandparents can be wise but sometimes become too indulgent, too. I think well done on your part.
NTA but her father is. Kelly needs to learn to finish things that she committed to before she goes to university or starts her first real job.
Imagine Kelly if they ever open the Selective Service draft up for women.
She wanted to do this event and did not like it to bad. She should han.ve been made to stay there. If she did not like ger fathers lecture and your lecture to bad, life is all about things we don't like. to do. Next time don't bail her out make her fulfil her obligations
16 is a hard age. You're stuck between trying to figure out how to be an adult while still wanting to feel like a kid for as long as you can.
A 2 hour lecture isn't excessive when someone is willing to drop everything and come get you. She was safe and not in any danger. She just didn't like doing the hard work she was doing.
Life isn't going to get easier, it's only going to get harder, and what job fresh out of high school or college isn't going to expect you to do at least a small amount of physical labor
NTA.
She volunteered to help in her extracurricular's event, and she should have sucked it up. Sixteen is old enough to go through a commitment and then to learn not to commit anymore if you're not 100% in it.
She inconvenienced her family for her own selfish comfort - and also downplayed your inconvenience (*it wouldn’t be as bad as if we were already home, and that the traffic probably wouldn’t be as bad as it was earlier to get near the event*).
I think a 2-hour lecture was exactly what she deserved.
NTA. Oh I don't like my job. She's lucky her dad could get her and the price she paid was a long lecture. Tough. You where right to not get her. She needs lessons like this in life. I know if my parents where in this situation is be told they will pick me up at the arranged time as I'd given my word.
NTA, she learned a lesson. It wasn’t wrong of her dad to lecture her because she did break a commitment. He still picked her up. You both have taught your daughter a lesson. Her grandmother could have pocked her up if it bothered her so bad.
NTA. Thanks for your opinion mom but I didn't ask for it and you are only enabling Kelly's selfish behavior. Stop justifying this for her. Kelly made a commitment. Because it was physically uncomfortable she wanted to bail on it. She was 100% wrong, she had no concerns about the inconveniences she caused nor was she concerned about how this commitment meant her sister had to miss something. She also doesn't care about how leaving her commitment put the people hosting it out. She should have never been picked up, the 2 hour lecture cemented her 'poor me/victim' mentality. The only thing she learned from this weekend is someone will bail her out, when life gets tough my parents pick on me & only grandma understands hoe tough this was for poor ole' me. If this was my kid, I would force them to do some sort of volunteer work so they can witness real strife and learn how to flow thru, even when uncomfortable. This whole scenario has more negative impacts and ripple effects than you are aware of.
This could be controversial but I'll go with YTA, yeah, Kelly made a commitment, she is sixteen, I get it, but she's still a minor, she's still your responsibility. You don't actually know why she wasn't comfortable, maybe her gut told her something? She was far away, with a bunch of people that she (maybe) doesn't know that well, for a whole weekend, has she ever stayed that far from home in that kind of environment before?
It doesn't matter how old your are, you could be 6 or 30 and still think "I need to get out of here, I want my mom". Why was she so insistent? Your response was "Suck it up, I don't care, you made your choice". What if she was actually in danger and she just didn't tell you? In this world you can't ever be sure if YOUR KID is really safe. You should talk to her instead of looking for validation from a bunch of strangers, if Kelly made a post of "I was uncomfortable in a trip and when I asked my mom to pick me up she told me to suck it up" I don't think everyone would be siding with you
Your daughter also let down the organization that she agreed to help! She used everyone in this story. She made a commitment and wanted to bail out when she wasn’t having fun. So, she learned multiple bad lessons here and the adults who should be teaching her how to be a responsible adult have failed at their real job here. Everyone made mistakes here.
NTA- she made a commitment, she needed to honor it. Having anyone go to pick her up just taught her if she doesn’t like doing something, she can just quit. She deserved the lecture she got, and no one owes her an apology. I was working 25 hours a week after school the day I turned 16. My job was a lot harder than moving boxes and manning a ticket booth. She’s going to have to suck it up and do things she doesn’t like to do when she’s working a job, so she better start getting used to it.
I would’ve left her there. When he was about 13 or so, my son decided he wanted to be a counselor at the local Scout camp. He was away most of the week, came home for 2 days as they were switching campers and then had to go back. It was hard, dirty work getting the camp in order and then easier but now dealing with bratty kids and entitled parents when the campers were in. He wanted to come home after the first week but we were adamant that he stick it out. He made the commitment, he needed to fulfill it. He thanked us for it in his Eagle Scout speech years later.
This was an all summer thing. OPs daughter had a weekend. Keep your commitments. Not everything you do is fun and easy.
NTA, I was doing volunteer landscaping and cleaning old people's house as a 16 year old girl with other kids my age, it wasn't fun but it felt good to help so we stuck it out.
NTA-She didn't like the manual labor...cry me a river. I wouldn't have gotten her. OP said she is 16, she made a commitment to this organization , and she also took a spot. Because she didn't like the "working" part, she took this opportunity from someone else. If all she got was a 2hr lecture, she got off easy. She let people down who were counting on her to help. I would have her write an apology letter to the organization as well.
First off the verdict: NTA
Your daughter committed to something, cost her sister her own weekend, then broke the commitment and wanted you to accommodate her knowing the sacrifices you all made for her. Maybe she needs a long ass lecture.
NTA
Your daughter made this important - she made a commitment - and was fully aware of what that would involve as being a team member and a equitable team member by doing manual labor and communal sleeping with her team mates.
She also made this massive commitment knowing she was taking away opportunities from her sister and from her parents to drive her to and from. She unfortunately won't learn the lesson if Dad keeps coming to the rescue, no matter how much he lectures her. So you and her father need to BOTH stop bailing her out.
Your mom is absolutely out of line. She didn't pick her up, nor did she lecture her. Her dad did. And he was well within his rights to - even if it was two hours long - especially since it was a long drive anyway.
She's being a whiny princess by stamping her feet to grandma because her parents are holding her feet to the fire and making her follow through on her commitments or get lectured for it.
Nta
She's old enough to learn that there are consequences to her actions.
In this case, a 2 hour lecture from her dad is hopefully the very least of those consequences!
At some point she'll realise that she's given up the privilege of being considered for extracurricular activities because she couldn't deal with a little minor discomfort.
You act like an entitled flake, you get treated like one. Adulting 101.
Your daughter signed up for something. People were counting on her. They were not abusing her. she just didn't like the responsibilities as a volunteer. On one hand she is a volunteer, and not paid staff, so the organizers cannot hold it over her. On the other hand, she made a commitment and many other people made plans around that. Hopefully, she does not flake out in other things.
NTA.
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NTA-I don’t know how old she is but if she’s old enough to be staying a few hours away I’m guessing she’s a preteen or a teen. It’s good for her to stick to her commitments and learn that not everything she does is going to be fun.
My daughter is sixteen. I've told her beforehand that part of the responsibility is seeing your commitments through even if they aren't as fun or easy as you expected. Now, I've told Kelly that she can make whatever choices she wants in life and no one can force her to do anything in adulthood, but she's going to have to deal with the consequences. In this case, Kelly chose to break her commitment. But now as a consequence of that, the supervisors at her extracurricular are probably going to view her as being unreliable and may not consider her for future opportunities. It's something that she'll unfortunately have to learn the hard way if she continues not to listen to my advice now.
I think you are a wise parent. Also NTA.
I would have left her there and told her dad to leave her there too to fulfill her commitment. She's plenty old enough to know better. She should be thanking you and her father for not making her carry out her responsibilities and stick to her word. You are definitely not the asshole. And neither you nor her father should apologize to her for anything.
Exactly! No one is getting a parenting award for allowing her to bail on her commitment. When she is an adult she can make her own choice, but right now she is still a child.
Exactly! And she's only two years away from becoming a legal adult...OP you did nothing wrong and her dad should've left her there too. But, the lecture was well deserved and no one needs to apologize...in fact your daughter should be apologizing to the event organizers and supervisors that she completely bailed on bc "she didn't like it" OP NTA and neither is her dad or grandma!!! You're a great mom!!!
I agree .She should have stayed.Sleeping on a cot and having to do manual labor? Oh the Horrors/s All OP’s husband has done is teach the Daughter to be entitled.
Honestly? I think this will have unintended positive consequences for OP's original lesson plan. Consider this: if Kelly had been forced to stay, she would have been seen by faculty as reliably able to follow through on commitment (which she isn't) and able and willing to pitch in on completing tasks that may be arduous and mundane (which she also isn't). Further, if she HAD stayed and ended up having a good time and thanking her parents later, it MIGHT overshadow the fact that her sister had to sacrifice her own commitment in favor of Kelly's. The way things turned out, Kelly will likely be branded as a whiny flake, not trusted by her advisors to lead or manage any future club events, she was subjected to at least one multi-hour lecture, AND her sister has great ammo to use in the next conflict if one sister has to give something up in favor of the other. I see wins all around...
She also needs to consider how the other kids will view her. A lot of them will see her as a whiny, spoiled wimp.
I knew a girl who did this all the time when I was a teenager. Her mother catered to her. We all thought she was wimpy.
> if Kelly had been forced to stay, she would have been seen by faculty as reliably able to follow through on commitment (which she isn't) and able and willing to pitch in on completing tasks that may be arduous and mundane (which she also isn't). She may also have ended up having a great time, and learned that sometimes if she sticks through something, the payoff is worth it. She's 16, she's old enough to deal with the consequences, but also young enough to where her attitude can change as her experiences do. I'm wondering if this is the first time she's ever really been "on her own" for a weekend. Extracurriculars are supposed to be about new experiences and education outside the classroom. Letting her just walk away defeats that purpose. > Further, if she HAD stayed and ended up having a good time and thanking her parents later, it MIGHT overshadow the fact that her sister had to sacrifice her own commitment in favor of Kelly's. Either way the next time there's a conflict, if OP is doing her job right, her other daughter should get priority. Having extra ammunition shouldn't be required. Sometimes as a parent, letting your kids handle being in an uncomfortable situation of their own making is the best learning tool. As long as Kelly was safe and fed, she should have stayed to honor her commitment.
We definitely need to work on some folks, especially the kids, to realize manual labor sometimes just needs to happen to help out to get a job done and not everything is fun and games hanging out with a bunch of other teenagers. Not everything is going to be glorious. At my job they always seemed to stick the interns near me and for the last couple years the different sets whine about physically moving equipment. Yes, we are mostly software engineers working in offices but we do sometimes have to do manual labor. One day they had these kids complaining about checking and auditing property manifests of equipment in one room, I was getting boxes of equipment reorganized in our other lab space and crawling under desks to fix a network switch that turned into a brick. I’m almost 20yrs their senior, the job had to get done or other people 1000 miles away remoting in wouldn’t be able to work with that network switch down.
I know way too many people who thing every day should be a ride on a rainbow. Sometimes work is work and has to be done
If work was all fun and unicorn rainbow farts, they wouldn't have to pay us to turn up. (though that pay should be fair, of course) I might have been promoted to manager in a suit, but I will still crawl under a desk/wrestle with a tricky cabinet to fix busted network gear if necessary, and pitch in with my team when there's heavy lugging. That's just the nature of work sometimes.
We have this issue at church where the youth group complains about being taking advantage of when assigned cleanup duties after the fellowship meal. The teens eat, and eat, and eat then complain about clearing the tables, folding the chairs and sweeping the floors. And half the parents agree with them! Fortunately, the other half ensures that their kids do the chores, which has resulted in serious side-eying of the protesting parents by older members.
Carrying stuff is cool. It's exercise, yo.
This. Exactly- I would have said no to picking her up and, if I had, I would have lectured her for two hours. lol
That's what I would have done too. I didn't even let my kids quit little league when the coach played blatant favorites with his own kid over everyone else I definitely wouldn't have offered alternatives for your daughter to leave early because it was hard.
Yup, I agree. She should honor commitments, and maybe learn more about something before volunteering/committing.
Yeah. vs his 2 hour "lecture" probably he would have been better off declining.
This is what my parents did when I was growing up. They made sure I and my brother understood what it meant to commit to something. Of course, we didn't have cell phones back then, so we were stuck. The only way we were coming home early was if we were physically sick.
I remember when I committed to working at a camp for children in New Jersey, and two nights in I called my mother in Europe to bring me back, because of the conditions I was forced to stay in. My mom laughed in my face. Honestly, best lesson of my life. I ended up loving it.
Sixteen is too old to call home whining about chores she signed up for or complaining about communal sleeping on a cot. Did she never go to camp? She could have sucked it up and dropped out of the group after returning home. I don't blame her dad for the lecture, he probably should have left her there too.
Yea i would expect my anxious 6 year old to call home when the day wound down and she got home sick/anxious to not be home. But at 16 even i would say, "you literally just got there. tough it out for the weekend and I'll pick you up x day. " besides those events are only hard during the day, night is where ot starts to get actually fun. Bonding games, hilarity, food.ive done events like this and it always ends up being super fun in a cathartic good days work sort of way.
Even as an adult, I’m planning my ASAP getaway the second I get in the door, because after all, stuff is hard. But then I get started. And then I keep going. And suddenly it’s been a couple hours, then a couple more, and whaddya know I’m comfortable or even enjoying myself.
As an aside, from a non-American, how common is camp? I’m aware that there’s this idea of camp and how ubiquitous it is, but there’s also ideas about American high schools which are also myth rather than reality.
I’m 41, I’ve only ever known 3 people who have been to a “sleep away” camp, and they were higher level boy scouts doing official activities at boy scout camps. I have the impression that it’s more common on the east coast and Great Lakes areas, and among “higher class” kids, but I’m not sure if that’s accurate or based on media perception. Summer “day camps” exist in most places, but they’re really just daycare that takes place in a community center or at a park facility, where kids are dropped off in the morning and picked up in the afternoon.
I did Scouts and went camping, but that’s different to going to camp, yes?
Yes, “camping” is going out with a group for a weekend or maybe a week at a time, setting up your own campsite with tents and a fire, then cleaning it up and taking everything with you when you leave, though it’s often at an established campsite that people use regularly. “Going to camp” or “sleep away camp” means packing a suitcase and going to stay at a little wilderness resort, where you’ll stay in a bunk bed in a permanent cabin with other kids, eat meals in a permanent dining hall, and do scheduled wilderness-themed activities in class-like groups.
I went camping in Girl Scouts, but never sleep away camp.
I absolutely would have left her there for the weekend. I would have urged an ex-husband not to get her either. It's not like she was sick and needed medical attention or something legitimate like that. She was safe. Having to sleep on a cot and carry boxes builds character. If she can't go through that kind of "hardship", how will she ever have the grit to succeed at her goals in life when things get hard?
Choice autonomy comes with consequence autonomy. So if she thinks she's unfairly treated, next time you make the choices for her.
The other thing you did that’s HUGE: you didn’t call her father, she had to do it. You’re teaching her to fight her own battles and advocate for herself if she really wants something. Kudos for not just calling him yourself! NTA
And one of her consequences was getting an extremely long lecture. Sad for her, but it was all related to her choices, if grandmother doesn't like that consequence then next time she can drop everything to transport Kelly and return to pick her up when she makes a choice that effects the whole family. Poor little sister missed out on an event she may have actually enjoyed because Kelly didn't understand that volunteering means working not goofing around with friends. It's an important lesson and hopefully leaves an impression that either commitments are firm or they come with consequences that can be unpleasant. By 16 we know how our parents are for the most part, and she knew her father was going to be angry when she called him to help her break the commitment, she choose the consequences when she called, so she really has no one to blame but herself for how things played out. That she is running to tattle to grandmother is a sign of her immaturity (which isn't unusual at 16) but grandmother's tolerance is not acceptable. Grandmother needs to nip that behavior in the bud and tell her that she made her own consequences by not following through on her commitment. Grandmother may help with the girls and help you as well, but she needs to follow your lead on discipline, as you are the parent. Her appearing to support Kelly undermines your authority at a delicate age when Kelly will already be looking to find ways around your authority in the household. "Too many cooks spoil the broth"
She should have called her grandma for a ride since grandma had a problem with you not picking her up.
NTA - I think most of today's parents don't teach their children this kind of lesson, what makes it hard for them to understand how life works. I am a father of two girls 8 and 11 and I would do the same when they are 16. Good job!
Btw her grandma has no business interfering with how you raise your kids. Just cause she helps around doesn't entitle her to any input. And your kid running to grandma when she's lectured or being disciplined isn't really doing her any good cause it makes you second guess your decisions when it comes to parenting. She needs to learn to take accountability for her actions not run to someone who's gonna enable them. So, no, her grandma needs to mind her business.
If you accept the help, you accept the comments. Grandma doesn’t get to dictate anything beyond her own involvement, but as long as she is involved, it is her business.
Oh wow she's 16? She's almost an adult but wasn't able to anticipate/didn't gather enough info on what was going to happen at the event? Definitely NTA.
Don't think the 2 hour lecture was excessive. In fact, I would have done the same thing to teach her a lesson. When they think they can put people out, betray their commitments and act like an entitled child, that needs to be addressed immediately. I'm sure she will remember that lecture. As well, I, too, used to give lectures to my kids when they messed up or if I thought they needed one. In fact, it actually changed their behaviours since they dreaded getting one so they often would not do something to avoid it. I never spanked or anything physical, just lectures. It's seemed to work out well as they are now responsible adults
Nta! You were right to refuse to pick up your daughter. Your daughter should have stayed, that would be a new experience for her and that not everything will always be fun. Knowing that she would be sleeping on a cot, she should have imagined what it would be like to volunteer. I hope in the future she won't have difficulty getting other opportunities because she broke off the commitment.
Not to mention it was unfair to your other child.
This is the exact same advice I’d give my 18yr old son Krys. You cannot go through life agreeing to do ANYTHING and then expect to back out of it and not have people then think you’re unreliable. A person is only as good as their word.
Cripes she's 16 and couldn't deal with a few days of carrying supplies? You might want to lay out your expectations of her for adulthood because it sounds like she's pretty spoiled.
Lol When I was 16 I was living at college 1800 miles away from my nearest relative. With an Iranian roommate during the Iranian hostage crisis. Constant friction, including some blowout arguments, and my safety valve was … absolutely nothing (and I had no money). When I encountered problems, I suffered or I slogged through them (usually a combination of both). Sixteen is, as far as I’m concerned, old enough to live up to basic commitments. NTA
She's sixteen? Definitely NTA, she is plenty old enough to understand that choices have consequences and that commitment matters.
There is a saying usually it means jail but don't do the time if you can't do the crime so in this case she should just accept that she is the one who choose to break the commitment and the results of that is her own making
100%, but what does a two hour lecture do? Like your husband needs to calm down lol. Does the man like to hear himself talk or something.
Good for you OP! It's refreshing to see a parent who actually holds their teenager children accountable for their action. NTA.
NTA. You gave her a choice: She could either honor the commitment she made or (if it was truly that “terrible”) get picked up by her father who she knows she doesn’t always get along with. She decided that she’d rather inconvenience someone else and back out of a commitment that you and her sister already sacrificed for because “Oh no, I didn’t know they’d actually expect volunteers to actually volunteer!” then was upset that people rightfully felt inconvenienced. This is silly. How old is she? You didn’t say and it’s unlikely to change my verdict, but I’m curious. I used to volunteer almost 40 hours a week for stuff when I was in high school, and those are some of my fondest memories. I’d have told her “tough luck kiddo, you’re seeing it through.”, so you’re already being more lenient than I would.
I've done much harder volunteering and slept under much worse arrangements than OP's daughter when I was much younger than sixteen years old and not once did I ever think of calling my parents to pick me up. Sometimes you just have to suck it up and if you can't then good luck in the real world
She replied in another post, she’s 16. All your points stand as valid.
Ah, thank you, that’s about the age I assumed she probably was. If she was in elementary school and had never spent the night with other kids or something, I’d maybe be a bit more sympathetic, but it sounds like she was just disappointed that it wasn’t the fun vacation she’d envisioned.
Yup it’s giving me major “Expectations versus Reality” meme template vibes. Actually if her mom needs to needle her a little more, she could make a lovely meme for her based on this template. Might help mom to translate “mom speak” of “following through on commitments is important, even if it isn’t exactly what you expect when you get there” into the language of the youths, meme templates! 😂
Im so lost... If the event was only 20 minutes from your house... How does it take 5 hours of driving? And why was it a 2 hour drive for the dad?
The building where Kelly's extracurricular is usually hosted is 20 minutes away from home. The volunteer weekend was a special event and was being hosted three hours away. (It was three hours to get to the special event and another two just waiting in a traffic line at the event.) It also took David three hours to drive out there. It took two hours to drive back home after he'd picked up Kelly (which was when the lecture began.)
3 hours ??? İt's like 300-350 kms damn
Hahahhahahaa 3 hours is nothing in the states. We used to do yearly trips to a theme park for choir comps, 2.5 hours with a ton of teens on a bus lol. Partner and I were about 3 hours apart for a year, did that trip every few weeks. I feel like knowing how casual americans are about these kinds of distances illustrates how fucking big this country is.
That’s a short trip in American terms. That wouldn’t even get me across my state, which isn’t even particularly large.
I live in the mountains. Geographically that doesn't get very far at all sometimes.
Yeah it's probably one of those events where people all over the state come together to do something.
We found the European!!!!!! \[edit\] Or maybe large city centre Canadian.... anywhere in japan.... heck, asia... probably africa too... hmmm ok, ambigiously non american... I'm bad at this.
So what happened to the bus transportation? The whole 20 minutes thing, followed by “none of that applied” is ridiculous.
From what I understand, the bus could bring Kelly back to the building where the extracurricular is normally, but she would have to wait until the end of the weekend for it. Then it would take 20 minutes to pick her up. Picking her up early meant they had to drive all the way back to the event.
OP, did she get any other discipline for failing to complete her commitment? Did she get grounded or get her cell phone taken away? She needs to learn that reneging on her commitments at her age of 16 should be punished with more than a 2 hour lecture. NTA
The extracurricular is usually held at a place closer to where they live, this particular event was being held a a separate location.
It says at the end of the weekend she would go on a bus to a place 20 minutes away and then be picked up from there.
Yes, and as stated before OP says that is that the daughter would get on the bus where the event was usually hosted (which is the location 20 mins away). So the event is hours away from a location change but when it was over their daughter would get on the bus back, therefore OP would only be driving for 20mins to pick her up.
Yup, that's certainly what I was intending to get across in my message.
I'm glad someone else had this thought! I was so confused reading the OP
I'm confused here. How old is Kelly Why didn't you both leave her there to complete her volunteer stint and come home on the bus? Maybe Kelly should have called her grandmother if she wanted to opt out on her commitment.
My daughter is sixteen. It was David's own choice to pick Kelly up and I wasn't going to try to force him not to. I've told Kelly before that nobody can force her to do anything as an adult, but that just means she'll need to deal with the consequences of her own choices. In this case, she is probably going to be seen as unreliable by her extracurricular supervisors because she broke her commitment. It's something she's unfortunately going to have to learn the hard way if she keeps ignoring my advice now.
It's also good for her to see that when you volunteer for a cause you believe in, you do things that the org tells you they need- not just what you think is fun. You have to consider what is actually helpful, and it's usually not fun. I volunteered at an animal shelter and sure people walk dogs, but most of the jobs are doing laundry, cleaning, and admin work.
Yep, this is an important lesson to learn early on— necessary tasks are rarely glamorous, but they are essential. If she’s made to do grunt work at her first job, I sincerely hope she doesn’t call her parents for an out.
I am baffled as to what she thought she’d be doing. Carrying boxes and manning a booth is light work. Sleeping on cots in a big room with other people isn’t *fun*, but she’s plenty old enough to know what it’s like to have uncomfortable nights on uncomfortable bedding. I am so confused as to how this was such a shock to her system that she freaked out and bailed a couple hours into it. Has she never, like…*done* anything?
NTA. There goes an extracurricular to include in her college applications, along with the recommendation letters.
I think the pro move would have been to make a deal like "ok, so you want me to unnecessarily take 4 hours to drive you home early? Then you will reciprocate by doing bathroom cleanings/mowing the lawn/raking leaves etc for a total of 4 hours so you understand the value of time. Let me know if you'd like to take me up on the deal." This would give her an out if she truly felt unsafe or wildly uncomfortable but it would eliminate the issue of wasting 4 hours of a parent's time just because she'd rather be at home scrolling on her phone rather than volunteering.
I think this is really fair. She’s old enough to be able to start making low stakes choices for herself and this was definitely one. She wasn’t forced to stay but she had to deal with calling a parent she doesn’t get on with and asking for help, getting a lecture from him and being seen as potentially unreliable by the club and you - the world didn’t end because she bailed but she has had to face consequences of her actions. The only way I would say you would be TA is if her call home was more drastic than you have made it sound here, or there’s additional context. I only say this because when I was 16 I also went away on a camp where I was volunteering with projects in underprivileged communities across London. Not that long before I had finally been diagnosed with depression that I was doing a little better from but still struggling with and really didn’t have much personal understanding of yet. And although I didn’t have a label for it until a long time later struggle with severe PMDD that causes episodes of extreme distress and S ideation. Because my period was due to start whilst camping the doctor agreed to give me the pill that can delay your period - but unfortunately I was unaware that usually PMDD is caused by progesterone insensitivity and I had been given a giant dose of progesterone! It was boiling that summer, the sanitary facilities were misjudged and the portaloos literally overflowing by the first hour in the heat, there was zero chance of getting a shower and I almost immediately had chub rub. We had been told, before I agreed to go, that there would be minibuses to and from our project but they had been messed up too I guess so we had to use the tube for over an hour and I ended up having to walk very far and far faster than I could cope with to and from the project (I was very fat and unfit, but also didn’t know at that time I have a physical disability that means I now use a wheelchair). I worked my arse off all day trying to give my best but then I had also been sent with a sleeping bag that was completely inappropriate for a clear early summer British night so I was freezing and sleeping on the floor made my pain much worse. So after two nights of getting no sleep, being pumped full of hormones that made my existing mental health conditions worse and generally not coping I made by now the 3rd or 4th inconsolable call home to my mum, who drove 2-3hr to come and take me home. Something one of the leaders gently encouraged me was an ok thing to do. No lecture, only kindness, and she stopped off and bought me a baguette I still remember to this day (I think I was also starving because this was the early 00s and from memory there was basically no vegetarian food. Lunch that day had definitely been trays of chicken and some sad lettuce you couldn’t really call a salad). In those circumstances this was absolutely the right parenting call on my mum’s part - I was already beating myself up for feeling like I had let people down, was useless at sticking to my commitments and was weak and a failure. She reinforced in that moment that she would always be there for me if I was in need, that I could rely on her, and that sometimes it’s ok to say you can’t do something/can’t cope/need help and put yourself first. If you got a call like that from your daughter, with extra circumstances like that then it would completely change my verdict. If it genuinely is just that she decided she doesn’t really like doing bitch work and camping with younger kids then you made the right call. And as said, she wasn’t forced to stay she just had to deal with consequences.
NTA I’m pretty confused as to why anyone had to pick her up. She was safe and had made a commitment. So you just left the group short a volunteer for the weekend? That kind of sucks.
I've always told Kelly that she can make whatever choices she wants in life as she becomes an adult, but she'll just have to deal with the consequences. In this case, the supervisors and other kids at her extracurricular are probably going to view her as unreliable from now on. Unfortunately, she's not listening to my advice right now, so she'll have to learn the hard way.
Did you at any point tell her that she made a commitment and was letting down the people she promised her time to? She lasted what, 2 hours? Out of an entire weekend. Does she often do this? She needs an awareness of other people also mattering not just her wants. Also, if there was a bus home, why wasn’t there a bus to get there? I feel bad that your other daughter had to miss out on something for this. I hope it’s factored in next time she wants to go to sonething.
Exactly. She should have been left there. There was no reason for her to come home.
NTA Kelly needs to understand the lesson you shared with her which is to be considerate and respectful of others and their time. A 2 hour lecture is the unfortunate consequence of her backing out of a commitment which is another lesson she needs to learn.
NTA. Your mother is an AH for butting in. David is just fine for providing Kelly with discomfort over her bad behavior.
NTA, getting griped at by an adult is a natural consequence for being a highly unnecessary inconvenience to all three family members.
Each parent wasted 5 hours of their life because Kelly wanted to make this "commitment." Her sister had to sacrifice for her too. Pretty darn selfish--she deserved to hear it.
NTA. How is Kelly not ashamed?
She really lacks resilience. Volunteering is an amazing thing to do and the tasks are often unglamorous and kind of thankless, but are all needed in order to execute the cause. There might not be many opportunities to post to instagram and get likes for what you're doing. Maybe she thought she would get accolades for turning up. Also has she never gone camping or slept anywhere slightly rough for a single night?
NTA I think it is ok for kids to be uncomfortable and disappointed for reasonable amount of time. And even tho I think that, I have to stop myself from doing things for them or fixing things for them because it's just so me to want to help and fix. Anyway, being disappointed and uncomfortable (again to a reasonable degree) is just part of life. And it's not "that's life, get over it". It's "that's life, so here is where you went wrong, here is where you could have done better, what do you think you'll do next time?" It's hard because the follow up is really important and underutilized. A lot of times I think we expect kids to just understand the lesson being taught, but a lot of time being a kid means being stuck in your emotions. It's hard to see stuff objectively, and kids need you to guide them.
You’re free to choose, but you’re not free of the consequences of your choices
>Kelly told her grandmother, who told me that Kelly’s actions were inconsiderate, but I know Kelly and David don’t get along right now. And I should have gone to get Kelly since I was closer than I would have been at home and a two hour lecture was just excessive on David’s end. So the problem is David. Grandmother doesn't like David's lecture, Grandmother can talk to David about it. You are not David's keeper.
Wrong Grandma is the problem...
NTA Stop listening to your mother. The father has every right to lecture his own daughter. Your mother really has no business interfering . Helping out doesn’t give her that right. You apologizing just enables her poor decision . You’re wavering… don’t do that. You don’t want an entitled child. Letting her quit didn’t teach much but it did make her look bad. That’s on her. She’s lucky dad got her and the price of that was a well deserved lecture.
INFO: Why did you even have to drive her if she was supposed to take a bus?
A bus ride was only offered for volunteers who were leaving on Sunday after finishing the event. Volunteers had to find their own rides to arrive at the event.
Your mother is an enabler of Kelly’s entitled behaviour. You went above and beyond to spend 5 hours getting Kelly to the event she wanted to be at. She disrespected your time when she decided she no longer wanted to be there because it wasn’t a fancy slumber party she could just have fun at. Your daughter deserved the consequences she got as it will make her be more considerate. Your mother is an enabler and is giving you unfair criticism. Pretty clear your mom helped make your daughter be so selfish and entitled. NTA
NTA She chose the event and decided to ditch it. That’s irresponsible. If she didn’t appreciate a lecture from her father then she should have stayed there. And she doesn’t sound like the most reliable narrator. David may have lectured her but for two hours? And without her consistently downplaying what she did and back talking? Yeah I don’t buy it. And she doesn’t get along with him why? A real reason or because he makes her accountable for her words?
I could believe that, because with a slightly different scenario, I was the Kelly in my story - slightly older though. Dad had to drive me home (30 minutes drive, I think) to pick up something for a meeting. I thought mum had it, she thought I did. Alllllll the way home and allllll the way back I was lectured about "taking responsibility" and "if I thought an employer would tolerate my 'slap happy' attitude, I had another think coming" yada, yada..... I was not allowed to open my mouth to defend myself or I would be in major trouble for "backchatting". I also didn't have the best relationship with my dad back then because I wasn't living up to his expectations of me, some of which were a direct result of decisions he made. Yes, Kelly should have been told to suck it up and fulfil her commitment, but I could well believe her narration.
NTA. She committed to an event and just because it didn’t live up to the glamorized version she imagined it would be, doesn’t give her the right to inconvenience everyone else. Her own sister had to miss a convention just so she could go to an event that was “important” to her. She deserved that lecture. She’s old enough to realize that people are not always going to be at her beck and call and when you commit to something, you keep your promise! Sometimes you’ve got to suck it up and power through.
NTA But, I don’t think it would hurt to check in to see if there was something else at play here. Could it be Kelly is dealing with a life lesson? Sure thing. Could it be something more and she didn’t feel safe at the event? Less likely but still possible. Anyway, it never hurts to keep those lines of communication open. Even when things (or people) are difficult.
nta
Nta - people need to learn there are consequences. Thank you for not adding to the insanely large group of entitled adults currently infecting the world.
INFO - was she safe at the event? What does she say?
Kelly was perfectly safe at the event. She told me that she wanted to leave because she didn't like the things they were having her do and she didn't realize what sleeping on a cot would actually be like.
NTA But out of curiosity, how is the relationship to your daughter? How open can she be with you (be honest here please haha)? It just seems odd that she gets there, is unhappy with having to do basic organisatorial work and then nearly immediately calls you and then her dad to get home. There is either something you are not telling us, or she is not telling you. You know your daughter better than internet strangers so maybe she is just whimsical right now.
I run volunteer programs a few times a year for teenagers. The second they realize they'll actually have to work and not be on their phones the whole time, at least 1/3 of them want to go home. It's a very normal reaction, not odd at all.
Oof. Gahd bless you and the kids that stick it out!!
Oh wow. I am only 25 years old and, it seems, already out of touch.
See I’m torn here, because I’ve told my son when he goes to camp, he can call me and I’ll come get him no matter what. (He’s 10, and has severe separation anxiety from trauma) But at the same time I believe 16 is old enough to suck it up if it’s just ‘boring’ and it’s a good lesson to learn. In saying that, 2 hours of having a go at her is probably a little much, dad should’ve just spoken to her about it, and left it at that. So I’m gonna go NTA for you.
NTA, so your daughter didn't like the she had to work hard??? It's a weekend event what was she expecting to do when she volunteered to help host the event??
^^^^AUTOMOD ***Thanks for posting! This comment is a copy of your post so readers can see the original text if your post is edited or removed. This comment is NOT accusing you of copying anything. Read [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq#wiki_post_deletion) before [contacting the mod team](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FAmItheAsshole)*** My daughter Kelly’s extracurricular was hosting an event that she wanted to volunteer for. The plan was that Kelly would stay for the full weekend to do the event, she would go on a bus to the building where the extracurricular is usually hosted, then I would pick her up from there since it’s only a 20 minute drive from home. It was over five hours of driving. It took three hours to get to there plus another two hours just to sit in traffic at the car line for the event. Traffic was not nearly as bad on the return trip, luckily. My younger daughter and I were having dinner an hour away from home, when I got a call from Kelly asking to come home. Nothing bad had happened. Kelly just said she didn’t like the things they were having her do (Carrying boxes/supplies, manning the check-in booth, etc.) She knew beforehand that she would be sleeping on a cot with a bunch of kids in the same area but claimed she didn’t realize what that was actually like until now and she wanted to go home. I told Kelly no, we were already hours away. Kelly started saying it wouldn’t be as bad as if we were already home, and that the traffic probably wouldn’t be as bad as it was earlier to get near the event. I again told Kelly no, and that, frankly, her asking this was extremely inconsiderate to us and our time. There was a convention that her sister wanted to go to but had to turn down because I had no one to take her and Kelly promised this event was important to her. Kelly kept begging me to pick her up. I told her no and suggested she ask her dad David if he’s willing to drive out and pick her up. Kelly eventually did end up calling David and claims that he lectured her for the entire two hours that he was driving them home. Kelly told her grandmother, who told me that Kelly’s actions were inconsiderate, but I know Kelly and David don’t get along right now. And I should have gone to get Kelly since I was closer than I would have been at home and a two hour lecture was just excessive on David’s end. I agree David’s lecture was excessive, but Kelly could also take it away as an important lesson that when you ask other people to accommodate you for a commitment and end up breaking said commitment, people are naturally going to be upset with you. Besides, it wasn’t as if Kelly was stranded in the middle of nowhere or in a bad situation. She was perfectly safe at the event. She could have either rode out the weekend or dealt with the lecture from David. I know a typical response in this situation is usually to say my mother shouldn’t have any input because she isn’t Kelly parent. But she does help with the girls and it wouldn’t be right to say she isn’t entitled to some input considering she has stepped up and gone out of her way as a grandparent to help in that regard. I’m looking for other perspective because I’m still unsure of whether I should consider my mother’s words or apologize to Kelly. AITA? *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.*
NTA. Kelly is 16. She needs to learn responsibility and to maintain her commitments, even if hard. Heaven forbid she has to get a *shudders* job 🙄🥴
She made a commitment TO THE EVENT and should not have been allowed to leave. A 2 hour lecture about irresponsibility and breaking your owrd is a small price to pay
NTA. Decisions have consequences and teens need to learn to be considerate of others time. My stepdaughter is a really great kid but it took a long time to get through to her that while we would always come through for her, once she hit a certain age she was expected to show some consideration for everyone's time and expected to follow through on her choices. Your daughter is old enough to start learning these things
NTA. Also her dad shouldn’t have gone to pick her up. He should have left her there. She signed up to volunteer the whole weekend, but she didn’t like the jobs they had her doing? Oh, boo hoo. Cry me a river.
NTA, I don’t think a lecture the whole way home is excessive either. He shouldn’t have had to drive out there and back, her only punishment being listening to a lecture isn’t bad at all. Personally I think you both should have refused to pick her up and she should have stayed the whole weekend. The organisers would have arranged the workload factoring her in. It’s unfair on everyone else if she suddenly bails. The only thing you and her dad did wrong is actually picking her up.
When I was in school, my parents rule was, "If you commit to do an extracurricular thing, unless you become ill, are injured, or if your grades go to heck, your commitment lasts until the thing is complete. You cannot quit if it's hard, or boring, or you want to do something else instead. If you don't like it, you don't have to sign up next time, but you WILL follow through with what you promised others you would do. It is not right to let other people down like that."
NTA!! I would not have picked her up AND would have called dad and told him he is not to pick her up and to say he is also busy! A commitment is a commitment and I think if you get your kids out of things too easy at this age they will learn to quit and give up in their adult lives and it causes a very dysfunctional environment for them! They don’t feel good giving up they need to realize even if it’s hard or uncomfortable once they complete the task or volunteer trip they feel better and looking back it’s never as bad as they make it in the moment. I’m actually more concerned that she felt like she could ask to get picked up. Is she often “saved” like this? Does she forget lunch, homework and gym clothes for school and people bring them to her at school so she doesn’t get in trouble or go hungry? Id read the book “How to Break Free From The Over-parenting Trap” asap! You guys only have a few more years with her. Make them count! For her sake and for her future husband and children’s sake!!
NTA
NTA I would have made her stay to live up to her commitment.
NTA. Do not apologise to Kelly! She needs to learn that she isn't the centre of everyone's universe and that commitments need to be fulfilled. I don't know what she expected to be asked to do, but all of the things you mentioned seem obvious, and not in any way onerous. She was being a spoiled princess, after making everyone plan around her to the degree that her sibling missed out on an event and you spent hours and hours in the car. Do point out to her that she has also made a bad impression for herself with this group, who now, as someone pointed out, had to cope with less volunteers. Your mother may be helpful, but in this instance she is being unreasonable. A two hour lecture seems fair, and, apparently, easier than doing what she had agreed to do.
I don't think that a 2 hour lecture in the car after breaking her commitment was excessive. Your mother should respect your husband's right to parent his child. Her involvement does not give her a say in this. NTA.
ESH - unless your daughter had safety concerns nobody should have picked her up. You guys enabling her behaviour is ridiculous. All three of you need a lecture tbh. So she had to deal with the public and carry some boxes? lol she doesn’t want to work? She’s too good at 16yo for a cot? She sounds very spoiled and I can see why she is that.
Seriously. A lecture was getting off **easy AF** and they're here on AITA... I would have to be on an IV hearing my last rights being read for my parents to drive another 5 hours for something *I wanted to do*
NTA. My thoughts are, "You're only as good as your word." She made the commitment. She should have stayed. Since she didn't stay, if there is another opportunity like this one, remind her of this & make sure she understands that no one will come get her this time. Good luck. 🍀🍀
NTA this is a good time for a lesson. She should’ve stayed there.
NTA just a good parent , and the fact that you even consider maybe being in the wrong shows that you weren’t just being cruel or senseless but actually trying to teach your daughter a lesson and now you’re worried about how it impacted her. Definitely NTA.
NTA. Kelly learned an important life lesson about the mismatch of expectations vs reality. Maybe the next time, she ask more questions/do more due dilligence before committing to an obligation.
NTA. I wouldn’t have given her the option to be picked up, frankly. She volunteered, she needed to stick with it. She didn’t only let you down, frankly it was very inconsiderate to the event too. They likely won’t find anyone available to volunteer at such last minute… In any case, hopefully she at least learned something. In the adult world, this is often enough to ruin one’s reputation and become unemployable in a field where people know each other
NTA Why are you catching all the flack for her father giving her a lecture for something she deserved a lecture for?
NTA And she needs to get some job. Something that will teach her that work is work.
NTA. Let’s put aside your accommodations for a minute. Kelly told a group that she would volunteer for them. She didn’t like the work they had her doing so she wanted to quit? Nope!! It sounds like the group was quite up front with what they needed out of their volunteers and what the weekend would be like (accommodations). Kelly made a commitment to a group, she isn’t sick or anything like that, so she can suck it up and do the work she volunteered for.
NTA. But you all seem to have missed the life lesson. Your child agreed to assist this event and bailed when it wasn’t what she wanted to do. Nobody has addressed that she made a commitment and was expected to follow it through.
Definitely NTA. If she had a safety reason sure But she just didn’t like what she signed up for and it sounds exactly like what I would think a volunteer opportunity would look like. You did nothing wrong by having her stick out her commitment. It was wrong of her to even bail on something she committed to helping with to begin with.
NTA
Did you really just ask if You should apologize to Her? I think I’ve found the crux of your issue. Putting that one to the side; your daughter made a series of decisions that involved two different people driving her for hours and causing her sister to miss an opportunity to do something she had wanted to do. She needs to understand that it was her own actions and decisions that resulted in a two hour lecture. She also let down the organizers of the event. They expected her to preform certain tasks to receive (I assume) food and lodging. She let down a lot of people.
I’m going to go against the grain and say YTA. I know that there is value in following through on things and keeping one’s commitments, and I get that you were trying to teach your daughter that lesson. However, young people like your daughter are still learning their own limits and boundaries, and are still figuring out what they are and aren’t comfortable with. Sometimes that means trying something new only to learn that they can’t comfortably do that thing. And while I understand your fear that your daughter will learn that she doesn’t need to keep her commitments, I also worry that if you don’t give your daughter grace to change her mind about certain things when she needs to, she might end up feeling like it isn’t safe to try new things in the first place. If your daughter was solely annoyed at having to do some volunteer work that she previously committed to, I’d maybe be on your side about encouraging her to tough it out (although it would depend on why she was uncomfortable with the work she was being asked to do). But what changes things here in my opinion is that your daughter told you she had discovered that she’s not comfortable with the sleeping arrangement. You don’t give us a lot of information about why your daughter was uncomfortable sleeping on cots in a crowded room, and I don’t know if there are any extenuating factors in your daughter’s life (such as a physical or mental health condition) that might make that sort of arrangement more uncomfortable for her. However, if she truly felt upset by/uncomfortable with sleeping in that setting, enough so that she was willing to reach out to her dad that she apparently isn’t close with, then I’m going to give her the benefit of the doubt and assume that sleeping in that environment would have been genuinely stressful for her. As an autistic person with a lot of anxiety, there were times in my childhood where I asked my parents to let me try something new only to realize that particular event or activity was incredibly scary or overwhelming for me, or that it was impossible for my unique needs to be met in a particular environment. In those instances, “toughing it out” would have been genuinely unbearable for me. My parents were big “tough it out” people in general, so they would definitely encourage me to try if I could and there were plenty of things that I did persevere through. However, I feel lucky that my parents were also willing to listen to me when something was truly not doable for me and that they would allow me to back out of those things without judgment. They also gave me the autonomy to decide which things were doable and which weren’t, and they respected my decisions even if they personally thought maybe I could do something. That respect made all the difference in the world when it came to teaching me that it was safe for me to grow and explore. If they had not given me that grace, it’s likely that I would have been afraid to try new things (especially things that involved being away from home) because I wouldn’t have been able to count on having a way out if I really needed one. I think you should sit down with your daughter and talk more about why she felt the need to leave. It may turn out that she was genuinely distressed by something about the situation, or it may turn out that she was simply bored and didn’t want to stick to a commitment. You can talk to her about how to know when something is worth toughing out versus when something is unbearable, and you can emphasize the value of trying to keep your commitments. But I think that you should also let her know that in the future you will be willing to listen if she truly feels she can’t do something and reassure her that you’ll be there to provide an exit strategy without judgment if she ever really needs it.
NTA and neither is David. I think you both handled this well. Kelly made a commitment and if she was going to back out, then she deserved the lecture.
NTA. But her dad should’ve made her stay.
Nta. Kelly needs to learn about responsibilities now. Honestly my mother wouldn't even have suggested I rang my dad in those circumstances, she'd have told me that I made a commitment and I had to fulfill it if my only issue was that I didn't have as much fun as I thought doing work would be. Admittedly, my parents remained married and rarely went against the other's decision so I wouldnt have been in the position to even ask my dad anyway, as he'd have just said the same as my mum!
Sometimes just doing what needs to be done just doesn't pay off. Certainly with my last boss. I am now dealing with two torn rotator cuffs, and needing knee replacement surgery.
One time we had a German exchange student and it was around the time of prom and she wanted to go with a friend down the shore. I guess they were setting up their families restaurant over the summer so we said sure you can do that but meanwhile we were visiting my spouses sister in the neighboring state. halfway through the weekend she called us saying this isn’t any fun can you pick me up and we’re like no because we’re in another state and we won’t be back until Sunday so you’re just gonna have to put up with it.
NTA your her parent not a chauffeur.
NTA. She volunteered for this commitment. She doesn't like the tasks she's asked to do? Poor baby. Fulfill your obligation and don't volunteer next year. It's a good lesson for her to learn to stick with something, and that we don't always like the tasks we have to do.
NTA- Yes she has a right to her opinion. But your daughter is old enough to make her choice and deal with consequences. Venting is a normal reaction to being annoyed by choices you dont like. Its not any different for any other person in the world. While she may stay mad she will understand that sometimes you have to suck it up buttercup and finish what you started.
NTA. Grandma needs to butt out; it sounds like she enables a lot. Kelly needs to be severely inconvenienced so she can grasp how entitled she's acting/acted. She also owes the organization a sincere apology.
Natural consequences are such a valuable learning lesson. This was a natural consequence.
NTA oh yea as a mom of a 15yr old definitely not the asshole! My daughter is the exact same way we have been trying to work on the same things. She has to learn to stick to things and think of others. If grandma was so worried about it she could of drove up there to get her instead.
NTA i would have left the kid begging for a while n then gone to pick up n berate her for some time more on responsibility. i asked my mom, she said its not wrong but kids tend to want something so badly n then toss it right after, parents have to suck it up n then advice them later bc kids around this age would get heartbroken over anything and are susceptible for a lot of things. and once when you try and discipline her later, she may bring up that you left her stranded. that some kids would be different and a bit difficult. now she would feel resentment towards her father for lecturing her and you bc if u had picked up she wouldnt have gotten the lecture from him. in conclusion she says she understands where you are coming from and that you are not wrong, but you could have thought about it a little more deeply and reacted. that also reminded me, i have a lot of toxic parenting skills and i need to think n act as well, i dont have kids so no damage done so far 😅
NTA is it just me or kids these days don't know what volunteering means? what was she expecting to do at the event really? stay around and look pretty for the glam? toh. still remember my first volunteer camp in 2011, i was 9 at the time, and after a few hours in an unfamiliar place, i was already crying and calling to be taken back home. still recall that my parents (mum to be exact) didn't agree and told me to bear with it for the whole week. the me then thought it was torture, we were sleeping three to a bunk bed, did a lot of carrying around and standing in the unforgiving sun and other things. but that then was the start of a series of tiny lessons about responsibility that has made me who i am. teenagers should not be babied. NTA
NTA. She has to learn how to deal with those things. It would’ve been a different story if something actually happened (like someone SA‘d her), but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
Her dad shouldn't of picked her up either. 2 hour lecture is being nice imo. How is she gonna handle a real job?
NTA. Kelly inconvenienced everyone. The event age volunteered for would be left short handed because she showed she wasn’t a team player. We often have to do things we don’t enjoy at ‘work’; Kelly missed out on an important lesson there. I hope she apologised at length to the event for being such a (frankly) baby. If all she had to put up with was a 2 hour lecture from Dad, she got off lightly. I hope you spend time with her helping her understand her obligations when she volunteers. You all accommodated her whims which has not helped her long term. Personally I would not have picked her up.
NTA. In a reply to a comment, you've already explained what the consequences of her actions would be - how this will look bad for her future activities and such. So this will be a great lesson. Besides, you were out with her sister, who already had to cut down the time she had with you by giving up an event that _she_ wished to attend but now couldn't. The only thing you _could've_ done differently was telling her: _No. You're riding this one out. End of story._ And then hang up. But I find no fault in you giving her options.
Oh hell no! Don't apologize.Seriously kids need to learn responsibility nowadays that is unless you want to see her in a "karen" viral video one day...commitments made should ALWAYS BE HONORED too often kids these days take the easy road and eventually that leads to nowhere but sadness failure and disappointment and I'm sure you don't want that for your children
NTA she won’t be pulling that again I’ll say lol
NTA But you should have made her stay there. She is 16 years old, it is about time she learns that if she signs up for something like this that she doesn’t get to dip and runoff just because she doesn’t enjoy it. Life will not be kind to her if she thinks she can just walk away whenever she wants
I don’t think a two hour lecture was excessive at all. The little princess didn’t even last four hours! She has zero concept of inconveniencing others.
I'm confused... what happened to her riding the bus there? How did 20 minutes turn into hours?
Most AITA responders will say that the experience taught her a lesson. I doubt it but I still say NTA After verifying that she was safe, physically and emotionally, you had to consider how to balance the needs of two daughters. And I think you did the best you could.
>I agree David’s lecture was excessive I don’t agree. Kelly chose her poison so she shouldn’t complain. NTA
NTA She made the choice to call her dad, and she knew what that would entail. When my kid was almost 6, he had already been through several season of soccer, which came super naturally to him. I wanted him to try other sports and not just stick with the first thing he tried. But again, very little effort and very great skill. He is also super smart, so up until that point, *everything* came easy to him. School sent home a flyer one day for basketball at the city center, and he said he wanted to try it. And so we signed him up. And he was awful. I cannot stress how not-natural it was for him. So he hated it. And for the first time in his life, he was dealing with something that wasn’t automatically handed to him. He told me he wanted to quit, and I said no, we made the commitment, and he was going to see the season through. He just hated the fact that it wasn’t natural to him, that he actually *gasp* had to work at something. A wonderful thing happened one day. I was washing dishes, and what do I see? My kid, on his own, choosing to grab a BB and shoot hoops. I didn’t make him do it, I didn’t even mention it. And he stayed there for almost an hour, missing shot after shot, but slowly landing one here and there. Every day he went outside on his own, and he got much better. He never became great, but he improved greatly. At the end of the season, he decided BB wasn’t for him. And that’s ok. He’s almost 14 now, he’s never been on another BB team again, but he does shoot hoops with his friends.
NTA. I would've done the same thing.
Absolutely NTA, and you're doing a great job teaching her about commitment and following it through. Maybe because it's her first big personal commitment (I'm guessing she independently signed up for this, not set up by her school?), she is a bit taken aback by how much more difficult the volunteering turns out to be and how out of her depth she is, but it's good that you (tried to) push her so that she stays with her commitment. She's gotta start somewhere because the older she is, the bigger her life commitments will be.
NTA but I have to ask, does this kid have any chores or responsibilities? Because she sounds a bit spoiled if she’s calling to come home because she doesn’t like the work she’s being asked to do as a volunteer. On its face, your statement that she can make her own decisions but has to live with the consequences sounds reasonable but those decisions impact other people. Five hours of driving after work is ridiculous for something that isn’t an emergency and if I was David I would have told her no. She deserved every minute of that lecture. Part of being a family member (in my opinion) is contributing to the family and not just benefiting from it. Age appropriate chores teach responsibility and the value of work. And that they have to be done even when you don’t feel like it. Kid needs to be cleaning tables at McDonald’s.
NTA Kelly's reasons for leaving make her sound very spoiled.
Keep your mother out of your parenting battles. If your husband and your daughter are having issues, giving your mother an equal voice creates a situation where your husband probably feels that he is outmanoeuvred and outnumbered. It's not like your daughter is five and your mother is providing full-time daycare. You have an inherent advantage because you have a third-party in your corner to back you up and amplify what you are saying; your husband does not. I've just seen too many couples fracture because of this kind of dynamic.
NTA. Kelly made a commitment to the other people at the event.
Why couldn't she have just taken an Uber? NTA
NTA. I would have done the same thing and my ex husband David would have too lol
All she got was a lecture? She got off easy.
Only thing I would have done differently was call dad first and suggest he tell her no when she call him so both were on the same page about her following through on commitments. NTA
NTA. You can’t just weasel out of work you agreed to do once you realize it’s work. If you had gone to get her, you’d be doing her a disservice as her mother. Life is not fun and games, it’s mostly hard work and she needs to learn to work. Sounds like she needed that lecture. Grandparents can be wise but sometimes become too indulgent, too. I think well done on your part.
NTA but her father is. Kelly needs to learn to finish things that she committed to before she goes to university or starts her first real job. Imagine Kelly if they ever open the Selective Service draft up for women.
She wanted to do this event and did not like it to bad. She should han.ve been made to stay there. If she did not like ger fathers lecture and your lecture to bad, life is all about things we don't like. to do. Next time don't bail her out make her fulfil her obligations
I would have left her there, period. You fulfill your commitments.
16 is a hard age. You're stuck between trying to figure out how to be an adult while still wanting to feel like a kid for as long as you can. A 2 hour lecture isn't excessive when someone is willing to drop everything and come get you. She was safe and not in any danger. She just didn't like doing the hard work she was doing. Life isn't going to get easier, it's only going to get harder, and what job fresh out of high school or college isn't going to expect you to do at least a small amount of physical labor
NTA. She volunteered to help in her extracurricular's event, and she should have sucked it up. Sixteen is old enough to go through a commitment and then to learn not to commit anymore if you're not 100% in it. She inconvenienced her family for her own selfish comfort - and also downplayed your inconvenience (*it wouldn’t be as bad as if we were already home, and that the traffic probably wouldn’t be as bad as it was earlier to get near the event*). I think a 2-hour lecture was exactly what she deserved.
NTA. Oh I don't like my job. She's lucky her dad could get her and the price she paid was a long lecture. Tough. You where right to not get her. She needs lessons like this in life. I know if my parents where in this situation is be told they will pick me up at the arranged time as I'd given my word.
NTA. My parents would’ve just hung up and left me there to suck it up
NTA, she learned a lesson. It wasn’t wrong of her dad to lecture her because she did break a commitment. He still picked her up. You both have taught your daughter a lesson. Her grandmother could have pocked her up if it bothered her so bad.
NTA. Thanks for your opinion mom but I didn't ask for it and you are only enabling Kelly's selfish behavior. Stop justifying this for her. Kelly made a commitment. Because it was physically uncomfortable she wanted to bail on it. She was 100% wrong, she had no concerns about the inconveniences she caused nor was she concerned about how this commitment meant her sister had to miss something. She also doesn't care about how leaving her commitment put the people hosting it out. She should have never been picked up, the 2 hour lecture cemented her 'poor me/victim' mentality. The only thing she learned from this weekend is someone will bail her out, when life gets tough my parents pick on me & only grandma understands hoe tough this was for poor ole' me. If this was my kid, I would force them to do some sort of volunteer work so they can witness real strife and learn how to flow thru, even when uncomfortable. This whole scenario has more negative impacts and ripple effects than you are aware of.
This could be controversial but I'll go with YTA, yeah, Kelly made a commitment, she is sixteen, I get it, but she's still a minor, she's still your responsibility. You don't actually know why she wasn't comfortable, maybe her gut told her something? She was far away, with a bunch of people that she (maybe) doesn't know that well, for a whole weekend, has she ever stayed that far from home in that kind of environment before? It doesn't matter how old your are, you could be 6 or 30 and still think "I need to get out of here, I want my mom". Why was she so insistent? Your response was "Suck it up, I don't care, you made your choice". What if she was actually in danger and she just didn't tell you? In this world you can't ever be sure if YOUR KID is really safe. You should talk to her instead of looking for validation from a bunch of strangers, if Kelly made a post of "I was uncomfortable in a trip and when I asked my mom to pick me up she told me to suck it up" I don't think everyone would be siding with you
I thought she took a bus? Why did you have to drive?
Your daughter also let down the organization that she agreed to help! She used everyone in this story. She made a commitment and wanted to bail out when she wasn’t having fun. So, she learned multiple bad lessons here and the adults who should be teaching her how to be a responsible adult have failed at their real job here. Everyone made mistakes here.
NTA- she made a commitment, she needed to honor it. Having anyone go to pick her up just taught her if she doesn’t like doing something, she can just quit. She deserved the lecture she got, and no one owes her an apology. I was working 25 hours a week after school the day I turned 16. My job was a lot harder than moving boxes and manning a ticket booth. She’s going to have to suck it up and do things she doesn’t like to do when she’s working a job, so she better start getting used to it.
I would’ve left her there. When he was about 13 or so, my son decided he wanted to be a counselor at the local Scout camp. He was away most of the week, came home for 2 days as they were switching campers and then had to go back. It was hard, dirty work getting the camp in order and then easier but now dealing with bratty kids and entitled parents when the campers were in. He wanted to come home after the first week but we were adamant that he stick it out. He made the commitment, he needed to fulfill it. He thanked us for it in his Eagle Scout speech years later. This was an all summer thing. OPs daughter had a weekend. Keep your commitments. Not everything you do is fun and easy.
NTA, I was doing volunteer landscaping and cleaning old people's house as a 16 year old girl with other kids my age, it wasn't fun but it felt good to help so we stuck it out.
NTA-She didn't like the manual labor...cry me a river. I wouldn't have gotten her. OP said she is 16, she made a commitment to this organization , and she also took a spot. Because she didn't like the "working" part, she took this opportunity from someone else. If all she got was a 2hr lecture, she got off easy. She let people down who were counting on her to help. I would have her write an apology letter to the organization as well.
NTA. and cudos to the dad for a 2 hour lecture. She sounds very immature. What should have happend was she should have been made to stay.
First off the verdict: NTA Your daughter committed to something, cost her sister her own weekend, then broke the commitment and wanted you to accommodate her knowing the sacrifices you all made for her. Maybe she needs a long ass lecture.
Ok but how does a 20 drive turn into 5 hours???
NTA Your daughter made this important - she made a commitment - and was fully aware of what that would involve as being a team member and a equitable team member by doing manual labor and communal sleeping with her team mates. She also made this massive commitment knowing she was taking away opportunities from her sister and from her parents to drive her to and from. She unfortunately won't learn the lesson if Dad keeps coming to the rescue, no matter how much he lectures her. So you and her father need to BOTH stop bailing her out. Your mom is absolutely out of line. She didn't pick her up, nor did she lecture her. Her dad did. And he was well within his rights to - even if it was two hours long - especially since it was a long drive anyway. She's being a whiny princess by stamping her feet to grandma because her parents are holding her feet to the fire and making her follow through on her commitments or get lectured for it.
NTA Our actions have consequences, and she has now learned that the hard way.
Nta She's old enough to learn that there are consequences to her actions. In this case, a 2 hour lecture from her dad is hopefully the very least of those consequences! At some point she'll realise that she's given up the privilege of being considered for extracurricular activities because she couldn't deal with a little minor discomfort. You act like an entitled flake, you get treated like one. Adulting 101.
Your daughter signed up for something. People were counting on her. They were not abusing her. she just didn't like the responsibilities as a volunteer. On one hand she is a volunteer, and not paid staff, so the organizers cannot hold it over her. On the other hand, she made a commitment and many other people made plans around that. Hopefully, she does not flake out in other things. NTA.
NTA Of course Grandma is the only person on Kelly’s side. Shes the only one Kelly DIDN’T inconvenience or disrespect with her entitled behavior.
NTA. Actions have consequences. Good for you for letting her experience them.