Mom Shamed for Giving Away Daughter’s Dog Because She Cheated on Exam
The internet is mauling an angry mother after rehoming her daughter's dog as punishment for cheating on an exam, lying about cheating, and feeling no remorse.
In an anonymous post shared on Reddit, the woman explained how her daughter cheated and why she felt she needed to rehome their family pet.
"My daughter has always been that smart kid who relies purely on that to go from grade to grade," says the mother. "She never does her homework, never pays attention in class, and studies the very morning of a test."
"Miraculously, she still gets good enough marks in all the subjects, except for history," she explains.
Hoping to improve her daughter's focus and history grade, the mother says that she threatened her by telling her daughter that she would rehome her dog if she didn't improve her grade considerably on her upcoming exam.
"A couple of months ago, she had an essay coming up, and I spoke to her and said that she needs to do a whole lot better in it than she did in her last history test (37 percent)," says the disgruntled mom.
"She blew me off," she says. "So I told her that if she didn't at least get above 55 percent, I was going to give her dog away to the boy next door."
"Still, she didn't take me seriously but agreed that she'll even get an 80," she said.
"We laughed about it, and when the results came back, she got 78 percent. We took her for a celebratory lunch out with her father," says the mom.
But after cleaning her daughter's room, the mom made a grim discovery about her daughter's good grade.
"Today, I was cleaning up in her room and found this box filled with old papers and tests from the previous year," she explained.
"After looking through a few, I saw an essay which looked familiar. I read it and felt that there was something off, so I took it and asked my daughter if I could reread her one," she said.
"They were almost identical. When I confronted her about it, she lied and said it was her first draft," says the mom, adding, "Finally, in the end, she said it was Debbie's, who is an older friend of hers, who wrote it for the same assignment a couple of years back."
"I did get upset and shouted at her before she went off to her room," says the mom.
"She has no sense of regret or feeling bad about it so I took her dog and went next door to give it to our neighbors," she explained.
"She's been crying ever since, and her father is calling me an a-----e, but I feel like she needs to understand that there are consequences for every action."
Her post now has over 280 comments where most Redditors agree that this level of severe consequence is purely "bad parenting." Others believe it's emotional abuse.
"Family pets are not to be used as bargaining chips in some skewed punishment or reward system," says one Reddit user. "They are living beings that require safety, attention, and affection.
"You should probably work at the whole parenting thing," says another.
"What is actually the cause of your daughter's performance in school? What you describe is, in general, a situation in which she may have some form of ADD or ADHD," chimes in a third Redditor, adding, "It has nothing to do with laziness or lack of effort. Depending on the severity, if she does have ADD, it may be near impossible for her to memorize or process information in which she is not interested."
"Not only is she going to remember it, she's going to be reminded regularly seeing the dog at the neighbors," says another Redditor who disagrees with the decision and believes the dog's safety is a concern." This brings up a danger for the dog too. Dogs can sniff their way home, but they don't understand that you gave them away. I hope it doesn't try to run home daily and eventually get hit by a car."
What do you think of the punishment? See more wild Reddit stories here.