Man Wonders If He Went Too Far After Stepson Ruined His Daughter's Books

Updated September 8, 2021

While there's a lot about parenting that's clearly difficult, it seems that one of the most common tightropes that parents have to walk comes when it's time to discipline a child for bad behavior.

After all, it's easy to let your knee-jerk reaction to what they did compel you to hand down an unreasonable punishment. But at the same time, doing too little in the aftermath of an incident teaches children that no matter what they do, they won't have to face any real consequences.

Of course, this delicate balance gets even harder to maintain if you've got other adults in your life who undermine you every time you put your foot down. And that's exactly what has one dad wondering what to do about his stepson.

Although this man said he and his 16-year-old stepson Levi have some mutual respect, the boy is nonetheless prone to destructive behavior.

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And as he explained in a Reddit post, Levi can be quite mean to both the man and his two biological daughters.

This seems particularly true in the case of his 12-year-old daughter Susan, who made a hobby out of collecting old children's books after a period of difficulty reading and learning earlier in life.

In addition to teasing her for being a voracious reader, Levi has been known to throw away things that belong to other family members after small arguments.

But recently, this tendency escalated after Susan refused to lend him her camera for a trip. In response, he dumped her entire book collection into the pool.

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Although Levi's mother was able to get them out, there's obviously some water damage and some were torn.

As the man wrote, "It was horrific because some of those books are hard to get and meant a lot to Susan as a part of her life."

But while the man intended to discuss an appropriate punishment with his wife after this occurred, the same thing happened that apparently does every time Levi engages in similar behavior.

Namely, he was able to retreat to his biological dad's house and avoid all consequences for his actions.

And from the sounds of it, this dad outright refuses to see any punishment come Levi's way and refuses to let the man even see the boy until he promises he won't do anything in writing. He also blocked the man's attempts to bring Levi to a family therapy session the man has since arranged.

As the man said, "He even said he'd get CPS involved if I ever try to punish him because I'm not his dad, I have no right."

In response, the man said that Levi can indeed stay at his dad's until he's ready to come home and face the consequences of his actions, but the mom and his in-laws want him to let the situation go.

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But in his words, "They're asking me to let it go but this will only encourage Levi to do worse if I don't deal with it now."

And not only could Reddit not agree more, but they were deeply concerned about what kind of child Levi's biological parents are raising.

As one user put it, "I wonder if anyone has sat the wife down and asked her how she feels knowing that the way her son treats his stepsister now is likely how he will treat the women he dates later in life. He will not respect boundaries or the word no, and he will destroy their possessions when he’s unhappy and take off to keep the upper hand. She’s raising an abuser."

In the words of another, "At work he could be repeatedly fired for behavior like this. Your wife not punishing him IS SETTING HIM UP FOR FAILURE. She needs to see that she's not only failing to keep Susan safe, she's also failing her son for convenience."

Indeed, many commenters seemed appalled at how little Susan's well-being seems to matter to anyone involved but her father.

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As one user said, "If you let this go it’ll show your daughter that she means nothing and can be stepped on whenever, it’ll also show Levi he’s immune to punishments and he’ll keep doing it."

So ultimately, the message from Reddit was clear. As many replies said, "This is the hill to die on."

h/t: Reddit | throw4privacy5

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