Fairy tales depict stepmothers as evil people who care only about their own children because they draw inspiration from real life. Sometimes children don’t accept their new family member because they just don’t like them, but it can happen that the new mom or dad doesn’t really care about their stepchild and it’s more damaging when the adult is the one not accepting their new family.
A 16-year-old went on Reddit to find out if she is being a brat and making everyone’s lives harder for no reason when she couldn’t bear her stepdad and stepbrother anymore. But worst of all is the feeling that her mom is not on her side.
More info: Reddit
16-year-old feels mistreated by her stepdad and her mom doesn't support her, but feels bad for making her mom cry by telling her she'll live with her dad
Image credits: Askar Abayev (not the actual photo)
When the Original Poster (OP) was about 10 years old, her mom met Gary and eventually married him. The 16-year-old pinpoints this event as the moment when her relationship with her started declining.
This was because Gary had a son who was 3 years older than OP and he would get everything he wanted. Only that the younger stepsister would be paying the cost and her mom wouldn’t say anything about it.
The teen used to get along well with her mom, but it changed after she met and married her stepdad
Image credits: TAIshouldcounttoo
A few examples of how the teen would be mistreated was that if Ian wanted to go on a vacation or get a car for his birthday, the parents would take the funds from OP and she needed to wait a year longer to get braces and needed to quit volleyball to save up the money.
She once was actually told to her face that she wasn’t family and told to find somewhere to stay while Gary’s family was staying over. The teen was feeling unwanted there, but thankfully she has a dad who understands how hard it is for her.
The stepdad would always favor his son and actually take from his stepdaughter to be able to fulfill his son's wishes
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And because her dad just came back from overseas, he immediately offered his daughter a place to live with him. There is not too much to think about for the OP and she already told her mom and stepdad.
Well, that caused a lot of emotions as the teen’s mom didn’t expect it at all, but didn’t admit that her daughter was being mistreated. Gary blamed his stepdaughter for making her mom cry and being ungrateful to their family, and the teen spoke her mind about how she believed the only thing about her that Gary cared about was her child support money.
What is worse, the teen's mom wouldn't do anything about it, so when her dad asked her to move in with him, she agreed
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Gary and OP’s mom think that the teen is just being difficult, but her dad is prepared to go to court over this and her grandparents are also on their side. However, nobody wants to see their mom cry, so the girl can’t get rid of this feeling of guilt.
People in the comments reassured the teen that her feelings are valid and the few examples of her mistreatment she gave are horrifying. They were truly mad at OP’s mom for not standing up for her daughter and at Gary for being a lousy stepdad.
However, her mom didn't take it well and her stepdad was pretty angry too
Image credits: TAIshouldcounttoo
While the OP wasn’t forced to clean the house all day, her place in her family truly resembles that of Cinderella’s from Charles Perrault’s fairy tale. Scientists even took her name to call the phenomenon of differentiated treatment of stepchildren and coined the term “Cinderella effect.”
It includes all kinds of abuse and mistreatment, from killing the stepchild to financially favoring your own. Martin Daly and Margo Wilson say in their research, “a stepchild must rarely have been as valuable to a stepparent’s expected fitness as a child of one’s own would be, and we may therefore anticipate that stepparents will not, in general, feel such whole-hearted, self-sacrificial love for their wards as genetic parents so often do.”
Nobody wants to see their mom cry and she was pretty savage when she snapped back at her stepdad
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From an evolutionary point of view, Robert L. Trivers explains that it’s just not worth investing your resources in an offspring that you are not biologically related to because then you have less of those resources for yourself and your own children.
It’s not that hard to come to this conclusion by looking at other animals, but if we consider ourselves to be a superior species, wouldn’t we fight this part of us, realizing that everyone deserves to be loved and respected?
So despite being supported by her dad and grandparents, she wonders if she was too cruel
Image credits: TAIshouldcounttoo
Image credits: OakleyOriginals (not the actual photo)
This is all the teen wants and she is trying to find it elsewhere if she can’t get it from her mom. Thankfully, her dad is fighting for her and her grandparents are also very understanding. Random strangers on the internet probably added even more confidence and we would like to hear from our readers as well. Do you think the mom actually didn’t notice the mistreatment? Do you agree that the only thing that her stepdad cared about was to get that child support money and give it to his son? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
People in the comments believed that the teenager couldn't be more right and encouraged her to fight for the right to stay with her dad
Image credits: Jonathan Borba (not the actual photo)
