As a parent, what do you tell a teenager who finds out they have a disease?

Do you sympathize with them and give them a break?

Or do you take the route of this parent and tell them that their disease doesn’t excuse them from their responsibilities?

Hmmm, that’s a tough one.

Check out this person’s story and see if you think they’re being a little bit too harsh on their daughter.

AITA for telling my daughter her disease is not an excuse to neglect her responsibilities?

“My daughter (17f) got diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes late April. Her DX wasn’t really dramatic or anything. My step sister has had it since she was a child, so when I noticed that she was drinking a lot I immediately brought her to the doctor and here we are.

I can honestly say we’ve adjusted pretty well. My step sister came over when she came home and helped us out a lot. My daughter is old enough that she can handle most of it on her own.

here’s the problem, ever since her DX she has completely stopped taking care of anything around the house. We have quite a few animals that she and her siblings (6 and 9) share the responsibilities of, they have had to step up a ton because she won’t even feed the dogs anymore.

Because they are so young, there’s a lot of things that they cannot physically do. I am a single mom who had to get a second job to pay for her insulin (obviously i don’t hold that against her, it’s not her fault) but i don’t have the time for the animals. Not to mention her grades are all Fs now.

the other day i hit a breaking point and basically told her that if she doesn’t start helping out, I will start rehoming the animals that her siblings can’t handle. She had a total breakdown telling me i have no idea what she’s going through and how hard it is.

I told her it’s not an excuse to completely neglect everything and that she had to get her s**t together or the animals will be finding new homes. She ran out of the room crying and has spoken about 3 words to me since then.

I understand that this disease is a lot to handle, and i’m trying to be as supportive as possible, but i don’t know what to do anymore.

my step sister says I need to give her time to adjust, but i don’t know if i can. Am i a terrible person for doing this?”

Here’s what people had to say on Reddit.

This person said they’re an a**hole.

Another individual said they don’t seem to be helping out their daughter very much.

And one Reddit user said they approached this harshly, but it sounds like they can’t handle all of this right now.

She needs to face the facts on this one, that’s for sure.