Mom Makes Her Teenage Daughter Miss Therapy To Clean Her Room — 'I Refuse To Live Like Slobs'
Her mother insisted that she needed to clean her room.
Monstera / Pexels A mother has sparked a debate after her daughter was forced to miss an important appointment to make sure her room was clean.
Posting to the subreddit "r/AmItheA--hole" (AITA) — a forum where users try to figure out if they were wrong or not in an argument that has been bothering them — she explained that her daughter's closet is an "absolute pigsty."
She made her teenage daughter miss her therapy appointment to clean her room.
In her Reddit post, she wrote that she had been trying to make her 17-year-old daughter clean her room for weeks, but she just kept brushing it off and promising to do it later.
After hearing her daughter's excuses and not seeing any results, she decided to give her an ultimatum — she can either clean her room, or she won't be allowed to go out with her friends or see her boyfriend.
"Unfortunately, that week she had work and prior commitments at school so only had one free afternoon where she was going to see her therapist (she is in therapy for depression and anxiety)," she remarked.
Her daughter had also planned a trip with her boyfriend and his family to go on a trip the following weekend.
"I figured missing that would finally get through to her to get it done after several weeks of constantly putting it off."
As a result of her mother's insistence, she decided to cancel her therapy appointment since it was her only free afternoon and she didn't want to miss going out with her boyfriend.
When the information was relayed to her daughter's therapist, she felt as if her mother had gone about it all wrong.
"Her therapist said I was wrong to do this because she needs her therapy and this was a 'dumb hill to die on,'" she recounted.
"I told her she's been putting this off for weeks and won't listen and I don't know how else to get through to her. I refuse to live like slobs!"
Most Reddit users who commented on the woman's post were divided on whether or not she was in the wrong.
Some Reddit users sided with the woman's therapist and pointed out that she shouldn't have let her daughter cancel her therapy appointment.
"Have you considered the depression and anxiety [are] getting in her way of cleaning it? Have you offered a strategy to work together or small steps to the big goal of full cleaning?" one user questioned.
Another user added, "I suggest you reschedule for her and schedule something for yourself — maybe learn some coping skills."
"At least do some research into why depressed folks struggle with hygiene before you go off on an already very fragile human."
However, other users felt entirely different about the entire debacle.
"She chose to cancel her therapy appointment over missing time with her boyfriend over the weekend," a third user pointed out.
"Missing one therapy session will not kill her daughter, and she may be able to keep her closet and room clean [so] as to not have to deal with such a thing again."
A fourth user chimed in, "Setting a limit of a room being clean before you can go out is reasonable."
"There may have been additional support and encouragement that could have been given, but working with the information provided, I’m in agreement with you."
Nia Tipton is a writer living in Brooklyn. She covers pop culture, social justice issues, and trending topics. Keep up with her on Instagram and Twitter.