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Dad Overhears Son Bragging About Asking A Girl On A Date As A Prank, Teaches Him A Lesson

Recently, a dad turned to the AITA community on Reddit for a moral judgement. In a post that amassed 3.5k upvotes and 1.2k comments, dad explained that he overheard his 16-year-old son talking about something he didn’t like.

“My son recently had some friends over and things were going fine, I went upstairs at one point to bring them the pizza they had ordered when I overheard my son talking about how his friends owed him something,” the dad wrote.

It turned out the teen son pulled a prank on a girl in his class and this didn’t sit well with his father.

A dad wonders if he crossed the line by punishing his teen son for pulling a prank on a girl from his class

Dad Overhears Son Bragging About Asking A Girl On A Date As A Prank, Teaches Him A Lesson

Image credits: valeriygoncharukphoto (not the actual photo)

Dad Overhears Son Bragging About Asking A Girl On A Date As A Prank, Teaches Him A Lesson

Image credits: Max Fischer (not the actual photo)

Dad Overhears Son Bragging About Asking A Girl On A Date As A Prank, Teaches Him A Lesson

Image credits: Kindel Media (not the actual photo)

Dad Overhears Son Bragging About Asking A Girl On A Date As A Prank, Teaches Him A Lesson

Image credits: advicedadneeds39

Social media and, especially, YouTube are filled with pranks—DIY ones, hidden camera stunts, scare gags, you name it. There are countless different prank categories, from children pranking their clueless parents and grandparents to parents even pulling pranks on their little kids.

But as much as they are liked online, in reality, most pranking is very controversial. We’ve all heard about pranks going wrong, people getting real and lasting trauma from the prank scares, and victims having their self-esteem shattered.

Asking someone out on a date as a prank is commonly viewed as extremely problematic. Danny Jackson, an LGBTQ+ writer, recounted a hurtful high school memory of getting asked on a date in this piece for Medium.

“’Do you want to go out for real, though?’ Jack asked. My heart soared. I could only nod. For that moment, I was on top of the world,” Jackson wrote. “Then Jack spoke again. ‘Oh, just kidding!’ He started laughing like crazy.”

Not only did Jackson spend the entire winter fighting heartache, he could barely look at Jack. “I’m not sure how long it took to get over what had happened,” Jackson wrote, adding that the main point of the piece is to tell people not to ask people out as a joke.

The author explained: “Especially not teenage girls, whose self-esteem is already at a massively critical stage. One wrong move and she could suffer from self-esteem problems for the remainder of her life.”

Many people expressed their support for the dad in the comments

Dad Overhears Son Bragging About Asking A Girl On A Date As A Prank, Teaches Him A Lesson

Others shared similar stories

Dad Overhears Son Bragging About Asking A Girl On A Date As A Prank, Teaches Him A Lesson

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Liucija Adomaite is a creative mind with years of experience in copywriting. She has a dynamic set of experiences from advertising, academia, and journalism. This time, she has set out on a journey to investigate the ways in which we communicate ideas on a large scale. Her current mission is to find a magic formula for how to make ideas, news, and other such things spread like a virus.

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Austėja is a Photo Editor at Bored Panda with a BA in Photography.

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Austėja is a Photo Editor at Bored Panda with a BA in Photography.

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What do you think ?

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Libstak 1 year ago

The wife was clearly a nasty piece in her school days and still is. How is this "not hurting anybody"? This girl is somebody and she will be hurt by this. But according to wifey as she lost the gene lottery her feelings don't have the same value as those people who randomly won it. Could not be more sickened by the son, wife's and in laws attitude, not to mention the rotten friend group.

72points

Teatime Thots 1 year ago (edited)

That was my first thought too. "It's not hurting anybody." as if he and his dipshit friends are the only anybodys on earth, and everyone else is just an NPC playing backdrop to the movie that is this kid's life. Now, if this WERE a movie, however, she'd have turned the prankster down because she genuinely thought he wasn't good enough to bother with.

16points

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MsLou 1 year ago

What if this girl was already at her breaking point and this prank just pushed her over the edge? This was not a prank or a joke, this is bullying

54points

Mary Rogers 1 year ago

Exactly. This girl may already have been bullied in the past since she is not popular. This kind of behavior can and does lead to suicide.

25points

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Kiryn Silverwing 1 year ago

I can tell you 100% that if this had happened when I was a teen I would have gone through with the plans I was already thinking about. I only made it through high school because I was basically ignored by everyone, but this kind of negative attention would have literally killed me.

8points

Magpie 1 year ago

If I were the parent in this situation, I'd call the school and turn my own kid in, for a couple of reasons. Some bits of this "prank" certainly occurred on school grounds so the school needs to address this bullying and strongly punish this kid. Most importantly, if this girl is already struggling, there is a good chance some staff members are aware and will know to check in with her more or, at the very least, be more alert to any subtle indications that she's becoming catastrophically and dangerously broken and possibly close to harming herself. Even if she isn't close to her breaking point, school counselors may be able to mitigate some of the fall-out once everyone else knows about this s****y prank. Either the school or the dad needs to find a program where bullies can go see what damage s**t like this does and speak to victims of bullying so MAYBE they can understand how this deeply impacts the people they are cruel to. (I'd also be thinking long and hard about my marriage)

1point

Niki A 1 year ago

Male or female, this is utter b******t. No one wants to be the target of this, and it's humiliating. Your wife literally seems super shallow.

47points

Magpie 1 year ago

I'd go even further than calling her shallow. She lacks empathy, and that is a very bad personality defect. I wonder if she's said things like this in the past.

8points

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Libstak 1 year ago

72points

Teatime Thots 1 year ago (edited)

16points

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MsLou 1 year ago

What if this girl was already at her breaking point and this prank just pushed her over the edge? This was not a prank or a joke, this is bullying

54points

Mary Rogers 1 year ago

Exactly. This girl may already have been bullied in the past since she is not popular. This kind of behavior can and does lead to suicide.

25points

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Kiryn Silverwing 1 year ago

8points

Magpie 1 year ago

1point

Niki A 1 year ago

Male or female, this is utter b******t. No one wants to be the target of this, and it's humiliating. Your wife literally seems super shallow.

47points

Magpie 1 year ago

I'd go even further than calling her shallow. She lacks empathy, and that is a very bad personality defect. I wonder if she's said things like this in the past.

8points

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Dad Overhears Son Bragging About Asking A Girl On A Date As A Prank, Teaches Him A Lesson

A dad wonders if he crossed the line by punishing his teen son for pulling a prank on a girl from his class

Many people expressed their support for the dad in the comments

Others shared similar stories

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Liucija Adomaite

Liucija Adomaite

Austėja Akavickaitė

Austėja Akavickaitė