They’re often disparaged in the media, but single-parent families can sometimes be the strongest grounding for a kid to grow up in.

Rather than a precarious environment, these kids can be given a solid base for their own lives if their guardian is strong, stable, empathetic and nurturing.

And for the kid in this story, who was raised solely by his dad from birth, that was exactly what he received.

So when his biological mom comes crawling back, seventeen years after abandoning him, with the expectation of playing happy families, he is understandably not impressed.

But her reaction to his rejection is unexpected, leading to the threat of a legal dispute.

Read on to find out how her illusions of family came crashing down.

AITA for refusing to meet my bio mother’s husband and kids and saying no to any kind of relationship or contact with them?

I (17, male) was raised by my dad.

My biological mother wasn’t ready or whatever, and gave me to dad to raise at birth.

She lived about an hour from us so I saw her around but she never talked to me.

When I was little I would try to wave or speak to her and she didn’t want to know.

Eventually I stopped seeing her as anything to me.

Her parents were a different thing and they had to be kept from me because they tried taking me from my dad and tried to make my bio mom raise me even though she didn’t want me.

Dad did everything he could to shield me from that stuff, but I ended up speaking to different court people when I was six because of the fight my bio grandparents put up.

Through all that my dad was amazing.

Let’s see how their arrangement has been threatened in the years since.

I guess sometime in the last three or four years my bio mother has gotten married and she had kids with her husband.

She reached out to dad a few months ago and told him she wanted to see me.

Dad talked to me and I didn’t want to see her, so he told her no.

But she got a lawyer involved and dad’s lawyer and her lawyer were communicating and she made the threat through her lawyer that she would sue for custody or visitation if dad didn’t comply with making me talk to her.

I told dad to agree.

I didn’t want to go to court.

I didn’t want a therapist getting involved.

I have zero interest in a relationship with her and I knew that would potentially be pushed for until I’m 18, so I agreed to meet with her.

It was awful.

She told me about her husband and kids and how she felt it would be good for me to meet them and have a relationship with them.

I turned her down and said it would never happen.

That was the end of us talking.

But the situation didn’t end there.

But she’s pressed dad on it through the lawyers and she’s prepared to go to court and pay a ton of money for this to happen.

I don’t care if her kids are related to me through blood, I will die saying I am an only child and they will never be siblings in my eyes.

So I reached out and said if she pushed that she would have to explain to her kids why their “brother” is so disinterested in them and why he’s never happy to see them and makes no effort to be in their lives.

I told her I’ll be 18 sooner than she realizes, and she can’t make me hang around.

I told her I don’t care if her kids get hurt.

I told her she’ll be left to pick up the pieces with her husband.

Read on to find out how his explanation affected things further.

Her husband raged at dad after everything happened.

My bio mother backed down after I made the threat to not care about her kids feelings.

Her husband thinks badly of me for saying it.

He’s being awful to dad over it, and dad blocked his number but he has access to my bio mother’s number.

Dad doesn’t block her because he likes being prepared for her dragging the lawyers into it.

Let’s see how the kid has been left feeling in the aftermath of all this chaos.

The whole thing’s a mess.

And I don’t feel guilty about it because of this random guy or these random kids.

I don’t care about the kids being blood.

I don’t even care if she turns into an awful mother to them some day and they want to bond with me over it.

We’re not family.

But I know dad’s dealing with the reaction to it and I do feel bad about that.

He doesn’t say it bothers him but he’s finding it harder to keep what’s going on from me.

AITA?

When you’ve been so pushed away and unwanted by your mother your whole life, it’s no wonder that it’s going to cause some kind of a visceral reaction when suddenly, out of the blue, she wants a relationship.

It’s no coincidence that it’s happening now that she’s playing happy families with this new guy.

Of course this kid is protective of his dad and their life together – for the first seventeen years of his life, it’s all he had.

Let’s see what folks on Reddit thought about this.

This person was totally behind his choices.

And others questioned the mom’s motives.

While this Redditor encouraged him to let her be petty, to her own detriment.

Maybe there’s a tiny chance that his mom has regrets over the way she acted in the past.

But it’s too little, too late; if she wants to make amends, this is definitely not the way to go about it.

This kid is totally right for refusing a relationship with the woman who has refused a relationship with him for seventeen years.

He’s made a perfectly nice life for himself, and she’s lost the privilege of being part of it.

Good for him.

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.