If you and your teen were crashing at someone's house because you had nowhere else to go, how would you protect your child and go about ensuring that child's safety? Without your own home — or that of a trusted family member — it could get complicated pretty quickly.
A woman recently posted in Reddit's AITA forum explaining that she is a recovering drug addict and needed a place to stay, so she moved herself and her daughter into a home where the circumstances are a bit sketchy. She tried to establish some house rules to keep her daughter safe, but a recent run-in with a visitor at the house has her nervous and wondering if she reacted the right way while trying to protect her daughter.
The mother and daughter have fallen on hard times.
The original poster, 53, explained that she and her daughter, 16, have a strained relationship. The teen lived with her father, but he was recently diagnosed with cancer, and she needed a place to stay while he received treatment. She went to stay with her girlfriend, but things didn't go well, and she had nowhere else to turn but her mother.
"I'm not in the best situation right now. I live with two friends that I recently made amends with, I don't have my own room or anything but any place to live is good," OP wrote. "I've struggled with addiction my daughter's whole life, and I made a lot of horrible mistakes to her, so we have a bit of a strained relationship, but I'm really trying to be better."
OP tried to set some rules to keep her daughter safe.
OP wanted to be sure that her daughter was comfortable in the home, so she asked that people respect her when she slept by being quiet and not sitting on the couch while she was sleeping.
"I'll keep context for that second one brief, but my daughter has gone through way more than she should have in the past and is known to react extremely when people touch her unexpectedly or strangers are too close to her," she explained. "I didn't need her to wake up and have some strange man sitting next to her."
One day, she heard screaming from the other room and found a man yelling at her daughter, who she thought looked "scared to death."
OP and the man got into a huge fight.
OP took the man outside, and they got into a heated argument. She isn't clear on what exactly happened on the couch, but the circumstances don't sound good.
"What happened was he 'apparently' didn't have a place to sit, so he sat next to my daughter who was sleeping on the couch. I'm not sure I can mention this next part, but I'll just say that she woke up, saw him there, and didn't take it well," she wrote.
OP demanded that he leave. Before he did, he called her daughter a "little b—-" and said she shouldn't stay there. Her friends backed her up, but OP wonders if she should have been calmer.
Um, is this a drug house?
OP, Reddit wants to get right to it. What kind of house do you have your daughter staying in?
"am i taking f—ing crazy pills? you moved your daughter into a trap house with you and people are praising you for stopping one of the other junkies from touching her?" one reader wrote. "YTA. all f—ing day. do better for your daughter. and please call social services."
"He was supposed to … get 'something,' talk a while and leave? This is a trap house. And your daughter shouldn't be in there," another person commented.
"YTA. sounds like you brought your daughter to a drug house and expected it to go well?" someone else speculated. "I can only imagine the new nightmare to come. Hopefully she can find somewhere safe and a good therapist."
But some people think OP is doing the best she can in this situation.
Plenty of Redditors believe OP tried her best to protect her daughter by making the rules known.
"NTA – you and your roommates make the rules since it's your house," someone wrote. "Since you had specifically told him to not go near your daughter, he's the a–hole for sitting next to her while asleep."
"Nta. You have to take your daughter and your roommates supported you," another person commented. "Not to mention that man was a guest not a occupant and so he has no right to say she doesnt belong. Not to mention calling a 16 yr old frightened girl."
"NTA I am sorry for whatever trauma your daughter went through," someone else wrote. "She didn't deserve to get triggered by waking up like that. You did the right thing and protected your daughter. I hope your daughter and you get a place to yourselves so she can feel safe and have her own room."
Redditors want OP and her daughter to be safe.
Although the opinions were mixed, the constant theme was that Redditors want OP and her daughter to stay safe. You will never be an a–hole for trying to protect your child. Redditors hope that OP will continue on her road to recovery and that she and her daughter will find a better place to live.
"It sounds like you've done a h— of a lot of work to get to the point where you do the right thing by your daughter. Well done for that," one person wrote. "This was you being a good parent, and helping your daughter reinforce her boundaries. She deserves to feel safe, and she didn't. The guy who did that after being asked not to was in the wrong. Stick to your guns, and be proud of yourself for having good instincts here."
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