Sometimes when you look at a bratty or abused child, all you have to do is look at the parents. These people share what made them want to call CPS on these terrible parents.
(Content has been edited for clarity).
All This Little Girl Needed Was A Bit Of Tender, Love And Care
“My dad’s business partner married a Russian woman who had fled the country after publishing an article against the government. She sent the article off to the publishers and hopped on a plane leaving behind her 2-year-old girl in the care of some nannies.
A few years later, she married my dad’s business partner and got the girl a green card, so she came over. The nannies let her do whatever she wanted, or she’d tell mommy to fire them. So this little girl was a wild child. Her mother couldn’t stand her and didn’t try to control her, yet yelled at anyone who tried to discipline her.
The whole company went to Disneyland for a long weekend, and she and my dad’s business partner asked if I could take her around Disneyland while they stayed in the hotel bar drinking. I said, ‘No problem’ because every kid deserves a good Disneyland experience. I managed to coerce some manners into her by the time the three days were up, and even though we had some rough spots, by the end of it, she said please and thank you and hugged me crying because she didn’t want to leave me.
The parents left early on the second day. They didn’t drive her home; they sent a driver to pick her up.
That was pretty much the last time I had contact with her aside from a Christmas party, and sadly she just got worse. She ended up getting kicked out of three schools for disruptive behavior, accusing teachers of violating her as she’d get into trouble or if she just didn’t like them, and finally accusing my dad’s business partner of violating and beating her as well. Very troubled gal, obviously making it up (and I wouldn’t say that lightly- she bragged to her younger brother who told her mom who told the police because she’s so done with it) causing a whole heap of problems for those poor folks.
It sucks because at 10 years old, she could have learned. And she was happy to have someone who gave a darn what she did. But she just went off the rails as she got older and went into middle school because neither of them wanted to deal with it and give her some constructive attention.”
Not All Things Kids Say Are “Make-Believe”
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“I work with an eye doctor. One day I had a child who had a glow stick burst in his eyes (the stuff in there is extremely toxic and filled with shards of glass) three months earlier. The mom refused to get him checked though he complained of pain and blurred vision, saying she thought he was ‘making it up.’
By the time she brought him in, one cornea was destroyed and the other almost as bad from the chemical burns. He might be able to get corneal transplants and bring him to 20/100 or so in the good eye.
The doctor reported that mother to CPS.”
She Just Didn’t Know What To Do With Her Newborn Baby
“I took my little brother and niece to Chuck E. Cheese. While I was waiting for them to finish their game, I looked behind me, and this mom had put her newborn on the dirty floor and left her there while she was looking through her phone.
Two kids almost trampled the baby. And at one point she walked away and sat at a table to eat her pizza while leaving her baby on the floor…”
Her Father Didn’t Even Let Her Have A Childhood
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“My sister is a rural mail carrier, she noticed some suspicious activity at a house and alerted the police who set up a stakeout. It turns out this man was turning out his 14-year-old mentally disabled daughter.”
Not Wanting To Save Your Dying Baby Is An All-Time New Low
“My in-laws just had kids. One is in the NICU. They haven’t visited her once without being forced into it by one of their parents. They talk like they resent the kid’s weakness. I’ve seen worse, but I feel like this is page one in what will be a seismically terrible story.
The act of not attending the NICU would be one thing. Although every parent defending this was present themselves. They hadn’t even been bothering to supply the kid with milk until somebody in the family said something and even then, it is very sparse. When part of your kid’s problem is low weight don’t you think you’d pick up the pace there a bit? And, no, they are not sitting in the hospital wringing their hands. I don’t know if they were allowed or sent home but even when they were at the hospital, they were visibly unconcerned for this kid (and yes, I know what emotionally burnt out looks like, this isn’t it). And in the vein of being sent home, they’ve been using the distance from the hospital as an excuse. Nearly every immediate relative they have lives 600% closer to the hospital than them and have opened their doors, an offer they have rejected. And, even if they weren’t both on leave, they both work far closer to the hospital (and said relatives) than they live so that wouldn’t make sense either. Again, normally this is not enough to judge on its own, but they have made a habit out of being professional martyrs. And, again, before you start chalking it all up to emotional immaturity, these people are way closer to 40 than 20, but I won’t get more specific than that.
Just rest assured we were wondering if mom was sociopathic way before she had kids and now we are kind of scared to death.”
This Prank Didn’t Go Over So Well With His Daughter
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“When I was 4 years old, my father was being a complete butthole about something. I packed a juice box, a teddy bear, and some socks in my little backpack and said I was running away. He locked me outside, and then he went to a window and started howling like a wolf, knowing that I was terrified of wolves. I screamed and banged on the door until my hands were straight up bleeding. He didn’t let me in for like three hours until my mom got home from work. He did, however, go to the window and howl some more every 15 or 20 minutes. That was 34 years ago. I still occasionally wake up in a puddle of sweat after dreaming that demonic wolves are chasing me around that old neighborhood. Forget everything about parents who pull stunts like this.”
Some People Just Shouldn’t Have Kids
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“At my last job, I was ringing this girl out who looked about my age (early 20s) and had her 8-year-old daughter with her. The daughter was acting out, asking loudly for things and complaining that she wasn’t getting them. Her tactic was to say ‘I won’t be good if you don’t get it for me!’ to which the mom responded ‘I’ll beat your behind!’ Then she asked if I had kids. When I said no, she responded, with her daughter right next to her, ‘Don’t ever have them. I learned my lesson.’
I understand that the kid was acting out, but it was pretty clearly a product of no/spotty discipline and saying in front of them that you wish you had never had them is setting them up for so many issues. Not the most sensational example, but definitely stuck with me as far as how not to parent.”
“The Lack Of Urgency From The Mother Was Freaking Crazy”
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“A woman came into pediatrics and stood in line with her disabled child in his wheelchair, and she waited for about 10 to 15 people back to see the doctor. She was crying softly to herself and when she finally got up to the counter, said: ‘I think he’s having breathing problems.’ My coworker took one look at the kid, who was completely blue and ran back to the nurses. They took the kid to the back, but he had already died, probably a bit before she even came to the hospital with him.
The lack of urgency from the mother was crazy.”
Her Mother Was The Grinch
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“In a shopping mall, I saw a little girl who was probably 6 years old with a long ponytail. She was excited because they’d put the Santa Claus display up for Christmas and she was excited and clapping her hands and asked her mum if she could sit on Santa’s lap when he came.
Evidently, mum didn’t like the enthusiasm and wrapped her hand around her child’s ponytail and YANKED. Pulled the kid off her feet so she fell and she started to cry but the look her mother gave her stopped her from crying out loud. They kept on walking, all the happiness drained from the kid who just cried silently.”
They Were Ready To Call CPS On These Terrible Parents
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“Aside from my sister, the worst parents I’ve seen are friends of a friend. They are my boyfriend’s co-worker’s friends who live a few streets away. One night we got invited over. When we got there, both of them were wasted and smoking. The guy kept trying to pressure me into drinking. I already felt weird, so I was drinking very slowly. Then the crying started.
A little boy, maybe 3 years old, came downstairs in a diaper. This was the middle of winter, and it had been snowing, and I was freezing because they had the door open so they could smoke inside. The mom was yelling at him for crying but finally got him to sit and watch Netflix. He didn’t talk yet, even though he was almost 3 years old. So everyone but me was wasted or high, and then I refused to drink because what if this kid needed to go to the hospital for some reason? Who would drive him?
Anyway, he was ignored by the parents, so I hung out with him and watched Netflix. He was incredibly desperate for attention and snuggled up to me and was hugging me pretty fast. The mom was telling me how she hated being a parent and regretted it. And the dad kept hinting at a threesome. Ugh. I’ve never been back there, and my significant other was tempted to call CPS on them. They had zero interest in being parents, didn’t care that he obviously had a speech problem, didn’t even care that it was below freezing and he was in a diaper. Gah, I hate those parents.”
The Way He Was Raised, He Wouldn’t Want Anyone To Go Through That
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“On the surface, my parents look like friendly people and good parents, but they always make me feel like a failure and just pure garbage My grades are never good enough, there’s too much acne on my face, or they are just mad at something and want to yell at my brothers or me. They have always played up that I MUST go to the best Ivy league colleges and become the best doctor in the history of the world, and if I’m not, I’m not trying hard enough and a complete failure. They only let me apply to these colleges, and I was denied to every single one of them. I’m not horrible at school (4.15 GPA and 1830 on SAT), but not good enough for those colleges.
They have only made me feel like more of a failure and are always yelling at me about still needing to go to these colleges. I have more than once contemplated killing myself, but I always decide against it merely because I don’t want to put my brothers and friends through that. On top of all of this, they are constantly fighting, but only in our house, and in front of my brothers and me, and will try to blame it on us. They both have anger issues and refuse to acknowledge any of it. The worst part is that they always put up a facade in front of all other family/friends, so no one knows, and I feel like I can’t tell anybody. The only thing I know for sure is that I will never be like them and have vowed to be a better husband/parent than they will ever be.”
Something’s Wrong With This Future In-Law
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“My husband’s brother is marrying this gem in a few months:
We’ll start with the fact that she was on illegal substances for the entirety of her pregnancy with their first kid. The second kid is my niece; the third and fourth kids belong to the other guy. She stayed with (and married) the dad of three out of her, four kids, in spite of the fact that he had broken her skull and picked her children up by the throat.
Fast forward to now, she is divorced from and has a restraining order on the loser with whom she has three of her kids. This, however, doesn’t stop her from being a bad parent. She threatens to slap her children in the mouth for misbehaving and then hours later; she’ll slap them in the mouth, unprovoked.
All of her children have had to have their teeth capped because she gave them soda in their bottles. She frequently talks about how fat she’d be if she ate more than once a day (she’s seriously skinny-fat and mushy; no exercise and an amazing amount of soda consumption daily) around her children who already have issues with food because of her poor eating habits.”
Kids Can’t Even Be Kids Nowadays
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“I’m a caricature artist. One of my co-workers was working on a drawing of three teenage girls. When an artist is drawing, kids tend to hover over their shoulder and watch, they’re interested, and I don’t mind it, I’m used to it. So a little sister of one of the girls who couldn’t have been older than 6 was hovering over my co-worker as he’s drawing. She was wearing a cute, pink hoodie with the zipper almost up to her neck.
Her parents are three feet away watching him draw from afar. Her mom tells her to leave him alone and gently pulls her back by her arm, ‘You’re bothering him.’ My co-worker politely says, ‘It’s okay, she can watch, I don’t mind at all.’ So her mom lets her go, and she stands right next to him and watches. Not seconds later her poop-head of a dad pulls her from the back by the hood of her jacket, choking her. She’s not coughing, but defiantly struggling for air. He pulls her towards him, let’s go and picks her up. ‘Shut up, you’re okay,’ he told her as she’s holding her neck coughing and crying.”
Someone Save These Kids
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“My ex-girlfriend and her baby daddy would drive around 20 hours a day with their two kids (1 and 3) in the back, strapped in their seats in dirty diapers. The little one smelled like rotten milk and poop, and it went long enough she developed MRSA under her diaper. Both kids were born addicted to smack and other hard stuff, and the second one was brought in to this world like 12 weeks early by emergency C-section because the mom had endocarditis (infected heart valve) and was having open heart surgery, and also had a blood clot in her leg and a related stroke. A couple of years later the mom, my ex, died of an overdose in my bathroom. The kid’s grandmother is legally blind and not able to have custody of the kids, so the piece of garbage baby daddy still has them. He has a new chick, and they leave the kids to be babysat by one of their junkie friends while they run around selling and doing dope all day.”
“I Want Your Children To Leave This Town Alive”
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“I live in a beach town that thousands of tourists flock to during the summer months. While they are on vacation, they lose their minds. They walk out into the middle of busy streets, speed through this little town, drive wasted, etc. All of the locals know to watch out for the insane tourists. Last summer, I was driving very slowly, about five mph, as there were tourists all over the sidewalks and streets. Out of nowhere, two beautiful little girls (about 5-year-old) run our right in front of my car, maybe about three feet from the bumper.
I look to see where they came from and spot their parents just meandering along, not a care in the world. So, I say through my window to the husband, ‘Sir, this is a bustling town with lots of crazy drivers. Please watch your children closely.’ Well, he lights into me, telling me I was speeding and almost hit his children. There are so many people who witnessed the whole thing, that I say, ‘Nice try, but everybody here saw what happened, and SIR, I want your children to leave this town alive. Now, watch your children, and good day.’ Idiot.”
This Kid Is Going To Be Deaf Before He Turns The Age Of 20
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“I was at a shooting range some years ago and heard a nice pop-pop-pop coming from the berm over from mine. I walked over after a few minutes and saw that it was a dad and his kid. The kid was maybe 14, but one of those that barely had any muscle. Weighed maybe 80lbs. Anyway, when I finally walked over, the kid was clumsily holding an automatic (down range) but was awkwardly asking his dad for earplugs. I went to get the range master when I heard the plea ‘Please dad, if I shoot it just once, can I please have earplugs?’ I heard that and started stepping to the range master; he was maybe 30 yards away. As I’m leaving the edge of the berm, the kid starts to ask again for earplugs, and that’s when the dad rips this one ‘Shut the heck up, put that weapon down range, pretend it’s the gosh darn president and pull the trigger!’ (or very darn close to that). Anyway, I reported it up and haven’t been to that range since.”
Helicopter Parenting Isn’t The Best Way To Get A Job
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“I work at a tech support center. Pretty cool place, despite the monotony of the calls and frustration over tech-illiterate customers. I was sitting at my desk during a break, when an older woman and her son, probably around 18-20 years old, walk through and to my manager’s office. I could see through the glass door that this was an interview. However, I also noticed the son not speaking much, and the woman waving her hands and asking most of the questions. It couldn’t have lasted more than 15 minutes.
When they were leaving, the mother looked angry, and the boy looked distraught. I walked up to my manager’s office and asked how did it go.
‘Seriously? That guy brought his mom to the interview? He barely spoke, and she was the one who handed me his resume!’
‘Is he getting the job?’
‘Of course not! If he can’t handle an interview without his mom, he can’t handle the call center.'”
It Was All About “Me, Me, Me” For This Narcissistic Mother
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“The other night I was reminded of part of the reason why my mother and I have a bad relationship. She pushed her way into making my anniversary with my boyfriend about her by inviting herself to dinner with us. I’d felt unwell all day, and at dinner, I almost passed out, so I stepped outside for some fresh air. My boyfriend came with me because he wanted to make sure I was going to be alright. After a while, and just as I was starting to feel better, my mother came storming outside and started having a go at me because I left her sitting by herself.
She didn’t check if I was feeling better. She didn’t care that I was sick in the first place, she only cared that I had been ‘selfish’ by stepping outside. The anxiety made me feel worse again, to the point where I was almost throwing up by the time I got home. She’s done stuff like this my whole life. Every time I was sick, she would always be more concerned about how me being home from school would affect her, and would yell at me for hours if she ever happened to get sick as a result of being exposed to me. I’m now 21 and finally standing up for myself, but it’s still not fun. Mum hasn’t spoken to me since, and I’m told she’s expecting an apology.”
This Is What Happens When You Don’t Discipline Your Kids
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“I used to work for an after-school program, from there I have two stories.
The first story is of a younger student. The child was 6 years old and in first grade. The program attire when teaching science was a lab coat, so that is what I was wearing that day. The child in question came up to me during the lesson and decided to reach into my lab coat pockets to take my car keys and wallet. I got them back and told the child to sit quietly and that he had strike one (the three strike system was our go to at this program). After a few minutes, he started yelling and toppling chairs in the classroom, where I sent him to a corner and told him he had strike two. We almost finished the lesson, and I saw the student reaching up to a shelf full of heavy books. I told him not to touch them; that pulling them would be strike three, and I’d need to talk to his parents. Sure enough within a minute or two, every book was on the floor.
Generally, at the end of lessons, we’d give the children a cheap little toy. Dollar store type thing. I told this student to wait for me in the classroom, and I’d give the toy to his parent who’d be coming to pick him up. When his mother showed up, I explained the situation to her and tried to hand her the toy. She began shouting at me about how her child was an indigo child and that I shouldn’t have stifled his natural curiosity when I stopped him from running my pockets. I can’t even imagine what my parents would do if they were in that situation.
The other story is shorter. There was a middle school portion of the after-school program which was more for kids in danger of staying back than for fun science stuff. One girl was 15 in middle school (grade 8) and was fully planning to be in middle school again with a driver’s license the next year. One day she was bragging about how the night before she left a demand letter (her words0 for her parents saying she would run away from home if she didn’t get 200 dollars of make-up, and a promise of a car for her 16th birthday.”