How do you cope making decisions under pressure?

For some of us it’s like second nature: remaining calm in a stressful situation feels no different to choosing which pair of socks to put on in the morning.

For others, making decisions in the face of impending disaster feels suddenly impossible, as we overanalyze the ramifications of every little choice we could make.

Luckily for everyone involved, the mom in this story falls into the former category.

And when disaster struck and her neighbor’s kid was left stranded, her maternal instincts kicked in and she leapt into action.

Sadly, her good intentions weren’t appreciated by everyone.

Read on to find out what happened to make her question her spur-of-the-moment decision.

AITA for bringing my neighbor’s kid inside my house during a hailstorm?

Recently we had a hailstorm with about 10 minutes’ notice.

I went outside to pull the car into the middle parking space to try and avoid damage.

While I was outside, the neighbors were leaving.

I mentioned there was a hailstorm coming and they said they were just going to the store, okay, not what I’d do but I didn’t say anything.

Let’s see what happened when the hailstorm began.

Two minutes later they are gone and I’m covering my plants with a heavy tarp and going inside, their kid was outside and couldn’t get in.

The neighbors’ car was nowhere in sight.

I told him they said they were going to the store and asked if he could get inside. He said they said they’d be back fast.

I went inside but took a peep out the peephole. I could see him running back and forth between the overhang by the front door and the carport area in the back.

This was when she decided to take action.

The storm immediately kicked up, so I opened the from door and yelled to him (cause it was so loud) to come in my house.

He ran inside and I told him, “these are my kids, you can sit here, do you need a phone to call your mom?”

He didn’t know her number off the top of his head and his device was smashed – I don’t know if it was from the hail or not.

So I watched the peephole, and when his mom pulled up, I opened the door for a second for him to wave at her.

The worst of it lasted about 10 minutes so when it let up I ran him out to his parents’ car.

But when she got back home, the tension started.

My husband said I overreacted – but the kid was like 12 and running back and forth trying to find cover, which he couldn’t find because the hail was going down AND sideways.

We had dead birds, messed up trees, and dents on our car hood.

Some of the hail balls measured over 3” in diameter.

And the whole situation has left her in a state of turmoil.

Did I do the wrong thing by bringing this kid inside?

I really don’t know what else I could have done, and there wasn’t any time to ask, “do you feel safe coming inside?” because he couldn’t hear me and the hail was coming in sideways, with lots of wind.

My kids saw how bad it was when I opened the door and said they thought that was the right thing to do.

My husband was watching tv in the middle of the house and didn’t see how severe it was as he never even got up to check.

AITA?

It seems like this woman’s motherly instincts kicked in for sure.

Stranger danger is a thing, of course, but how could someone watch a kid caught out in a big hailstorm and not help?

Something much worse could have happened to the kid if he’d been left outside.

Let’s see what Reddit thought about this.

This person agreed that she’d done all the right things.

While others couldn’t even comprehend what her husband’s problem was.

And others confirmed from experience that her actions were all good.

There are a lot of problematic people in this story, but the mom who took in the neighbors’ kid is not one of them.

She did nothing wrong.

If you liked this post, you might want to read this story about a teacher who taught the school’s administration a lesson after they made a sick kid take a final exam.