Mother Punishes Her Teenage Daughter After She Excluded Her 'Overweight' Friend From Her Birthday Trip
"I didn't work so hard for this vacation so my pictures will be ruined."
CandyRetriever / Shutterstock For her birthday, one girl’s mother promised her a vacation with her closest friends.
However, she was horrified to learn that her daughter was planning to exclude her best friend from the festivities. When she asked her daughter why, she was appalled by her response.
A mother learned that her teenage daughter excluded her best friend from her birthday trip due to her weight.
Sharing her story to Reddit, the 42-year-old mom revealed that her daughter, Abby, had recently turned 18.
As backstory, Abby's mom explained that her daughter put on weight when she went through puberty. She decided to embark on a weight-loss journey where her mother would reward her with a gift each time she reached a milestone.
A year into her weight-loss journey, Abby asked her mother if could reward her with a fully-funded vacation with her friends to celebrate her 18th birthday.
As they began planning the trip, the mom discovered that Abby was not planning on inviting her best friend, Betty. “Betty loves traveling and was looking forward to the vacation so I asked why,” she wrote. Abby’s answer shook her to her core.
“Apparently, Abby uninvited her because she is ‘too chubby to look good in pictures.”
Photo: Sobbotina Anna / Shutterstock
While the mother tried to reason with her daughter, explaining that it was unfair and hurtful to exclude her best friend from her birthday all because of her weight, the teenager claimed that she "didn't work so hard for this vacation so my pictures will be ruined."
The mother demanded that Abby apologize to Betty for shaming her over her weight, and reminded her how she would feel if someone did the same to her.
“I also threatened to cancel the vacation if she didn't apologize because although I am glad she is so confident in her own skin now, it is not an excuse to put others down,” she wrote.
Later that day, the woman received an angry phone call from Abby’s father, who claimed that her reasoning was not an excuse to cancel the trip. “I told him off for enabling her bullying and hung up,” she wrote. “[I] then called Abby and reminded her I was not asking her to invite Betty if she doesn't want to but to apologize for how unnecessarily mean and hurtful she was.”
Instead of apologizing, the woman said that Abby attempted to convince Betty to tell her mother that she wasn’t going on the trip because she wasn’t feeling well, and not because Abby had excluded her.
“When Betty said no, she sent a ton of hateful texts and body-shaming insults I can't even write down,” the mother wrote. The vile text messages were enough to solidify her decision.
The mother canceled the vacation due to her daughter’s treatment of her best friend.
“My ex tried to rebook but it's a very popular place with a long waiting list so soon after I canceled, the girls were replaced with other people,” she shared.
Abby stopped speaking to her, and the woman wondered if she had gone too far.
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“Some of my friends agree with my approach while others think I should have put my daughter first,” she wrote.
She asked other Redditors if she was being unfair to her daughter and if she should have just let her go on the trip despite her atrocious treatment of Betty.
Most people applauded the mother for her decision, believing that she was teaching her daughter a valuable lesson on how you should treat people.
“Teaching your daughter to not be a horrible human being IS putting her first,” one Redditor pointed out. “I commend your strength and parenting skills. This was the right thing to do and would've been hard to do. Well done, you deserve to go on holiday yourself,” another user commented.
“Uninviting someone because you only want skinny people in your pictures is a disgusting attitude frankly,” another user wrote. “I am totally with you that this needs to have consequences, and while I'm very much against breaking promises I do believe this is an exception.”
It's likely Abby's internalized feelings about herself and her weight may be responsible for her hateful rhetoric.
According to the New York Times, the reactions Americans have toward those who are overweight, particularly those more than 25 to 35% heavier than the so-called ideal weight, are astonishingly negative.
Researchers who study the psychology of body image claim that those who are considered to be of “normal” weight “fear the fat person because obesity embodies in the most graphic way possible the terrible potential they see lurking in themselves.”
Photo: Pressmaster / Shutterstock
"The fat person represents the part of us that has gone to seed, has morally disintegrated," Dr. Susan C. Wooley, director of the eating disorders clinic at the University of Cincinnati, told the New York Times. "It's the only physical trait I can think of which, although it's talked about in terms of appearance, is associated with so many things other than appearance."
Those who have embarked on weight loss journeys like Abby may place a significant value on weight, believing that it defines one’s self-worth.
While it is okay and even perfectly natural to feel confident in your skin after losing weight, it is never acceptable to put others down because of their weight.
During adolescence, it is not uncommon for people to gain weight, with the average weight gain for females during puberty being around 30 pounds.
Even after puberty, our bodies are bound to change and fluctuate throughout our entire lives, and it is no reason to be excluded from your best friend’s birthday.
Megan Quinn is a writer at YourTango who covers entertainment and news, self, love, and relationships.