How a parent chooses to punish their kids is, within reason, up to them. Doing the discipline dance with your children can be fraught with danger though, especially if the punishment doesn’t fit the crime. Some parents find this out the hard way.

For one woman, her and her husband’s decision to withhold birthday presents for their teen son’s 16th and 17th birthday came back to bite them. Now that their son is in his twenties and they desperately need money for medical bills, he’s cut them off entirely. 

More info: Reddit

Revenge is a dish best served cold, as this woman and her husband found out much to their chagrin

Image credits: senivpetro / Freepik (not the actual photo)

When he was a teen, the couple punished their son for bullying a kid at school by withholding his birthday presents for two years in a row

Image credits: Keira Burton / Pexels (not the actual photo)

Now that their son is in his mid-twenties and earning well, the couple asked for his help to pay his dad’s medical bills

Image credits: Natanael Melchor / Unsplash (not the actual photo)

Their son told them to get lost in no uncertain terms, but the dad wouldn’t stop pestering him

Image credits: anonymous

The woman has begged her husband to quit asking, fearing it will drive their son away even further, but turned to the web to ask if doing so was a jerk move

OP begins her story by telling the community that she and her husband have always had a complicated relationship with their son, but he’s very close to his aunts. According to OP, when her son was a teen, he got into hot water for bullying someone at school. Not knowing how to handle this, OP and her husband decided to withhold his birthday gifts for two years in a row.

Following this, OP says their son became more distant and even told them coldly that one day they’d regret their actions. 

Now that he’s 24 and financially secure, OP says that her son has cut them off entirely. She adds that, recently, her husband had a medical emergency, leaving them with a mountain of bills. Struggling to cope, the couple reached out to their son for help. He flatly refused, crushing his dad who is apparently filled with regret about how they treated him in the past.

OP goes on to say that their son has what she calls “a peculiar tendency” to spoil all the women he considers family, most pointedly his dad’s younger sisters, upon whom he lavishes attention and financial support. The sisters have helped out OP and her husband from time to time, but OP thinks they’re hesitant to do more in case they jeopardize their close relationship with OP’s son.

According to OP, her husband is heartbroken because every time he reaches out to their son for help or to try to fix things, he’s met with anger or silence. Now, finally, OP has pleaded with her husband to stop asking their son for money, fearing it will drive him even further away from reconciliation. 

OP concludes her post by sharing that her husband is upset with her and has accused her of giving up on their son, but she doesn’t know what else to do, and wonders if she’s the jerk in the family drama.

From what she tells us in her post, it would seem that OP, and to a greater extent, her husband feel entitled to a portion of their grown son’s wealth, despite their harsh treatment of him when he was a developing adult. 

But what, if anything, does the son owe his parents? And is there any way for OP and her husband to repair the relationship with him? We went looking for answers.

Image credits: freepik / Freepik (not the actual photo)

In her post for the Institute for Family Studies, Ashley McGuire writes that it would seem that at the root of familial breakdown is a lost sense of obligation: husbands and wives to each other, parents to their children, and children to their parents. 

McGuire goes on to add that a culture steeped in radical individualism has given people license to abandon their most fundamental obligations to their primary communities: their families.

Despite this, most children are surprisingly keen to help their folks out. Nearly two-thirds of children surveyed say they plan to provide their parents with at least some financial aid. The same percentage of those surveyed said they were even willing to let their parents stay with them once they retire.

If OP and her husband hadn’t been so reckless with their punishment when their son was in his teens, who knows, they might have been reaping the benefits now that he’s older and they need the help. Is there anything they can do to turn things around?

In her article for HuffPost, Marie Holmes writes that, if you’re hoping to reconnect with an adult child who you’ve became estranged from, you should do your own work before reaching out, respect your child’s boundaries, be prepared to listen, and, crucially, show them that you see their perspective.

Only time (and a lot of soul searching) will tell if OP and her husband can mend fences with their rightfully disdainful son. Perhaps they should start with an apology rather than a demand.    

Do you think OP’s son is justified in his treatment of his parents? Who’s acting most like a jerk in this unpleasant situation? Let us know your opinion in the comments!

In the comments, readers slammed the woman for her disingenuous post and agreed that both parents were money-hungry jerks with no plans for real reconciliation

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