Divorce can be hard on young children, but as long as everyone treats them right, they can typically adjust pretty well.

One of the worst things a parent can do after a divorce is try to use the kids to get things from their ex.

In this story, mom constantly guilt trips her kids to try to get her ex to buy things for her new daughter, then gets upset when one of them calls her out on it.

Take a look and see what you think about the situation.

AITA for calling out my mom for years of guilt trips and pressure to make things equal between me and my half sister?

My parents relationship ended when I (18f) was 4 and my brother (15m) was 1.

My mom treated my dad pretty terribly afterward.

She called him a thug and all kinds of stuff because of his appearance and tried to chase him off by suing for child support despite them sharing equal parenting time of us.

Things should get better now that mom is remarried and has another baby, right?

My mom got married when I was 7 and within a few months she had another daughter, my half sister.

This is where things started to get stressful for my brother and me.

My mom and her husband (I don’t and will not call him my stepdad) weren’t doing as great as they expected.

I guess my mom got fired and when she got a new job it was a demotion. Her husband’s company lost a lot of money and paid less.

My mom went back to court to ask for child support and got it. But it didn’t make the difference she expected.

I don’t care how hard things get, I would never ask my ex to buy presents for a child that is not his!

Mom then started asking dad to buy gifts for my half sister’s birthday and for Christmas.

My dad told her he bought for his kids but not for a child she had with someone else.

As if asking her ex for help wasn’t bad enough, now mom is guilt-tripping her kids into trying to get their dad to support her new family.

Mom would then tell my brother and me we needed to ask dad for gifts for our half sister.

We’d say no and she’d start guilt tripping us. She’d say we’re big siblings and we have it way better and if we love our half sister we should want her to be pretty equal to us.

It didn’t stop there and my mom, even though dad never sent anything for my half sister, started thinking he should be willing to buy clothes and school supplies and random little treats because she knew he did that for us at his house.

Mom was really hard on my brother and me because we didn’t ask dad. My brother told her once that dad shouldn’t have to pay when half sister has her dad.

Mom said she’s still part of our family though and we should feel guilty for having more than her.

As if things weren’t bad enough, now it seems like mom is trying to turn the half-siblings against each other.

Out of spite a few years ago my mom told my half sister that dad had taken my brother to laser tag for his birthday and bought him a console and that I got to go to this cooking experience that cost like 500 dollars with my friends and that dad had bought me a gaming computer.

She told my half sister we never asked him to buy her stuff too and that we didn’t want her to have nice things. She was like 8 at the time.

My mom’s husband was just as much of a jerk about it and he would get mad at us for not taking care of our half sister like that.

Surely this can’t even be legal, right?

He even threatened to steal us and leave the country to teach us and dad a lesson because clearly he was a better parent than dad.

I stopped going to mom’s a few months ago, before turning 18 but close enough to it that she’d be too late getting back to court.

I don’t stay in touch much either but she blasted me for not visiting for my half sister’s birthday and started off the guilt trip again.

So I called her out and told her she sucked and was an awful person and parent for treating my brother and me like that.

Mom called me selfish and said I showed how little I cared.

AITA?

Wow. She is definitely not the AH here. If anything, she isn’t being mean enough to her mother.

Let’s take a look at how hard other Redditors come down on this horrible mom.

This commenter brings up an important point.

Dad would definitely have a strong case if he wanted to go for full custody of his son.

I feel bad for all of Mom’s children, including the half-sister.

Hopefully, these kids can get into therapy and overcome what mom put them through.

Parents can’t be emotionally abusive to children and expect them to have a close relationship as an adults!

If you enjoyed that story, read this one about a mom who was forced to bring her three kids with her to apply for government benefits, but ended up getting the job of her dreams.