Nowadays, it’s practically impossible to live without our phones. For parents, there is a constant debate about when kids are ready to have their own phone, but sometimes, it’s a necessity. If you’re a working or single parent, giving your kids a phone is a vital lifeline for communication. So what do you do when that lifeline gets compromised? A mom on Reddit asked the community if she was right for threatening legal action after a tween boy stole her son’s phone.
In addition to stealing the phone, the child lied. And when his mom got involved and offered to make it right, she ended up ghosting them.
The woman’s son’s phone went missing from his bag.
Asking the AITA community for advice, the mom explained that she used the Find My iPhone feature to locate her son’s phone. It led her to a house.
“I banged on the front door and was answered by a mum,” she wrote. She explained that she had tracked the phone to the house, only to find out the other woman’s son and his friends had just left. She followed the other mom to another house.
“At this house all 3 kids are there and I tell him I don’t care who stole it just hand it back and it’s done. All 3 kids swear black and blue that they have never seen it and know nothing about it,” she wrote. “I exchange numbers with the mum from the first house and the dad from the second house. Then I have to leave knowing full well one of them has it.”
When she got home, she received a call from the other mom.
That mom had checked security footage at her home and found that the kid who claimed not to have the phone was “miraculously” holding one. The other parent was also made aware. The OP then got a call from the mom of the guilty kid, asking if they could come over.
“Her and her son arrive teary eyed and apologetic. I just ask for the phone back and she shakes her head saying that he has smashed and destroyed it,” she wrote.
The OP explained that although her son’s phone wasn’t expensive, it was her only means of communicating with him, which is important because she’s a single parent.
The mom of the vandal offered to buy a new phone, but OP said she’d rather the woman give her $100 so she could find a compatible phone.
After agreeing, the guilty mom went MIA.
“Last message I sent was me saying if I didn’t receive payment I would report and charge her 11 year old son,” the OP wrote. She then wondered if she was wrong for threatening legal action against a tween boy. No one found her at fault.
“Both the parent and child are at fault. Parent for raising her kid that they even do it in the first place, that they’d smash it after then try dip on OP,” one commenter wrote. “But in the end, it doesn’t matter. It needs to be made right, and either that gets done asap or other consequences come knocking. No guilt in it, call the police, coz then it’ll get sorted. There will be a report, a court case, you can hit small claims after.”
Another commenter chimed in, writing, “You gave them a chance to make it right and now they’re ignoring you. Proceed with pressing charges. Actions have consequences.”
The OP shared an update on the tween boy and his mom.
“So after not responding to my messages for over a week I messaged last night saying I was going to the police in the morning to make a report,” the OP wrote. “And the money was transferred this morning.”
She explained that she didn’t immediately go to the authorities because she was hoping the mom would do the right thing. “At the end of the day though I’m not going to raise my son to be walked all over and to stick to your word,” she shared, adding that the issue was “all sorted.”
