Once a child become a legal adult, some parents find that they have an entirely new host of issues to contend with. For starters, their now-adult child can make their own decisions about so much — including how and when they tell other people about their own life experiences.
One mom recently shared on Reddit that her 19-year-old YouTuber daughter is stirring up familial drama on the internet. It seems the teen has shared intimate details about the mom's boyfriend.
The mom says that her daughter's channel has around 2,000 followers, but the stuff she's sharing is so private that it shouldn't even be shared with that many people.
Her daughter recently started posting a new kind of video.
The mom writes that her daughter was mostly posting about her job at a restaurant, but recently shifted gears:
"She mostly makes videos about going to her restaurant job and handling 'young adult life', but recently she's been posting a lot of content in the 'mental health category.'"
And the mom's boyfriend has become a topic.
The mom, who is 51, also writes that her daughter has turned her attention to a specific person: the mom's boyfriend.
"She's been talking about how she's estranged from both her parents and how she hates my partner of 4 years (27M)," says the mom.
The mom gets it ... kind of.
The mom says she realizes her daughter will have her own opinions:
"I accept that she can have her opinions about any partner I may have but in one of her blogs and a subsequent video, she 'opened up' about her high school years."
But she doesn't agree with them.
"In the content she posted, she claims that my boyfriend is bipolar and that he'd go through periods where he was very amicable and gregarious and others where he'd sleep in the guest room and close all the curtains to his room. And claims that I hid his mental illness from the world."
The mom took offense at the label.
The mom tried talking to her daughter, but they didn't see eye-to-eye:
"I called my daughter and confronted her on publicly labeling my boyfriend 'bipolar.' Those claims are factually untrue. My boyfriend's therapists all unanimously determined he was not bipolar, he just had anxiety and a pattern of avoidance towards that anxiety due to a bad childhood that he subsequently channels into a general state of sullenness."
She admits her boyfriend and daughter didn't really get along.
The mom also writes that her boyfriend had to "deal with" her daughter:
"He also has had to deal with fighting with my daughter. Once his brother gave him the moniker 'The Grim' and it caught on with my daughter and she would call him ( his name), The Grim which exasperated his moods."
Here's what really bothers the mom the most.
Ultimately, she writes that her daughter's descriptions of both her and the boyfriend are what really bother her the most:
"The way her online presence portrayed him was like he was chemically imbalanced and off his meds and that I was an enabler. I was not an enabler and simply appreciated that when things in his life were going smoothly he was extremely creative, intelligent, focused, and funny.
"He was spontaneous and would try to do nice things for both of us and apologize for his anxiety. And while his sullen days were bad, he ultimately still always made the most responsible decisions in everything he did."
The mom asked her daughter to take the video down.
So the mom asked her daughter to take the video down. When her daughter refused, the mom got her lawyer involved:
"I told my daughter to take it down because she was basically defaming him and she refused and said she was trying to tell her story.
"I ended up having my lawyer send a cease and desist to my daughter regarding her slandering my boyfriend’s state of mental health."
Now everyone is upset.
The daughter is angry and told her mom she doesn't have money for legal fees. The mom wants the video down. No one is winning here, so the mom opened up the question to Reddit: Who is in the wrong?
Many people think the mom is being selfish.
The top comment on the post is a real zinger:
"So you were 47 with a 15 y/o daughter when you started dating a 23 y/o?
"My god, how uncomfortable for her that you brought in somebody so close to her in age, who also has moody behavior notorious enough to get him the nickname 'the grim'. And he fights with your kid??"
"I'm having a hard time believing your daughter didn't have a problem with this (for many reasons), yet you never mention it in the post. In fact, you barely mention anything beyond your feelings on the matter."
The daughter has her own right to tell her story.
The same person continued, "Your daughter has a right to vent, especially since I'm getting the impression that you wouldn't listen if she tried to talk to you about it. If she hasn't named this guy in the video, then she's not doing anything wrong."
People think the mom has been putting her boyfriend first.
Another person added:
"My guess is that this is the latest in a long series of stories where you put your partner first, you second, and your daughter nowhere on the list."
And they started examining the relationship.
People were also very interested in the details of the mom's relationship, which is probably not what she expected. One commenter noted:
"Someone who is enjoying the results of their partner’s mental illness is probably not encouraging them to get actual help. Also, taking in a young man who has been through serious childhood trauma when you are old enough to be his mother is very questionable."
Ultimately, it's not looking good for the mom. At all.
"You failed [your] daughter and are reaping what you sowed."
These stories are based on posts found on Reddit. Reddit is a user-generated social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website where registered members submit content to the site and can up- or down-vote the content. The accuracy and authenticity of each story cannot be confirmed by our staff.
