Another Mom Wants Her Daughter To Complete A Friend’s Assignments Before Graduation. She Says Absolutely Not.
by Ryan McCarthy
We all know the feeling…there’s one week left in the semester and you realize how much work you’ve procrastinated until the last moment.
And I’m sure every procrastinator has wished for a savior to come in an finish all of their work for them, but unfortunately that’s not something that happens in real life.
But apparently not for lack of trying!
Because when this mom’s daughter was getting ready to graduate, a friend’s parent asked if she would finish all of her daughter’s overdue work so the two could graduate together!
Was she in the wrong to refuse? Decide for yourself!
AITA for not forcing my daughter to do her friend’s homework so she can graduate?
I (42f) have a daughter, “Mia” (17f) who attends online school, and her best friend is “Emily” (17f) who she met in the 6th grade.
Last year, Mia started slipping with her grades a lot.
She did have trouble in school before, but it was usually just math and science based subjects that she struggled with, and reached out for help when she needed it.
This was due to a mental health crisis since our house had burned down, and a lot of valuable things were lost.
Also varying health scares and surgeries with close family members.
After some help from a professional, Mia seemed to be back on track…
I put Mia into counseling and I worked out a deal with her school.
She’d only have to keep her grades passing or above passing in order to graduate.
Mia improved a lot after that, and she has been keeping her grades above passing ever since then.
Her graduation is next month.
But Mia’s friend wasn’t reaping the same benefits…
“Susan” (45f), Emily’s mom, had gotten the same deal, but Emily hasn’t bothered trying to keep it up.
Emily also has struggled in school, but from what Susan and my daughter says, she doesn’t try to actually improve.
Mia herself has tried to help Emily in the subjects she does well in (English and History) in the past and it did work for a little bit, but then her grades dropped again.
I was on the phone with Susan earlier.
She was venting to me about how if Emily didn’t complete her overdue work and get her grades up in the next two weeks she wouldn’t graduate and would have to repeat senior year.
And apparently, Susan thought Emily’s failure was the responsibility of her friend’s daughter to fix!
She then asked me if Mia could take on the responsibility of getting the majority of Emily’s work done, so that Emily can have passing grades and graduate.
I was really shocked that she would ask that and asked if she was joking.
Susan confirmed she was in fact, not joking around and said it would be really nice of my daughter to help out her best friend like that.
I gave her a hard no.
This was super against the school’s policies, and could get them both kicked out before graduation.
But on top of that, Emily has an insane amount of overdue work and Mia has her own work to focus on that would really hurt her grades if ignored in favor of Emily’s.
Despite the refusal, Susan wasn’t taking no for an answer!
Susan tried to argue with, and plead her case to me but I hung up on her without thinking.
Later on, Susan sent me multiple screenshots of Emily’s overdue homework ( 28 in total) and said that Mia would only have to do half of that.
I told this to my husband, thinking he’d agree with me that it’s an insane request.
But her husband was actually on Susan’s side!
To my surprise he said that I should consider it since Mia is doing way better in school than she was before, and Emily has been her best friend for 7 years.
He also that it would probably make both girls feel horrible if one graduated while the other got left behind.
I don’t think I’m TA, but Susan and my husband seem to think otherwise. I would greatly appreciate outsider perspective.
In what world?
Reddit assured her that she wasn’t crazy, and that this sounded like an absolutely terrible idea!
Others were shocked that Susan was encouraging her daughter to cheat instead of making her face her own consequences.
This user said she shouldn’t let Mia’s lack of preparedness jeopardize her daughter’s future!
Many said that she should let both girls know the truth before Susan made her out to be the bad guy.
And finally, this commenter said if she let her daughter do this, her friendship with Mia would be irreversibly changed.
Did she really think she was going to agree to this?
Who would?
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a daughter who invited herself to her parents’ 40th anniversary vacation for all the wrong reasons.
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