Imagine living in an HOA neighborhood where there’s a community gym. What would you do if you met a teenage neighbor there who complained about his brother? Would you mind your own business or try to help him out?

In this story, one couple is in this situation, and when they get a chance, they try to help him out by talking to his parents about their parenting.

Unsolicited parenting advice usually doesn’t go over well, and this was no exception. However, was it worth it? They may have actually helped the teen.

Let’s read all about it.

AITA for “causing a stir” after a HOA event?

My husband (26M) and I (25F) moved into our new home about 6 months ago, and we live in a HOA.

This is the first time either of us have lived in a HOA and we’ve been trying to adjust and learn more about it.

We’ve been starting to get more involved in the community as time has gone by.

One of the families in our community is a family of 4, the mom Jen (33F), the dad Manny (32M) and their two boys, Rayce (13M) and Murray (11M).

They really only knew Rayce.

My husband and I have met Rayce a number of times in the past 6 months, always in the fitness center.

The minimum age to use the fitness center alone is 13, so he’s just old enough to be there without parents, so we hadn’t met his parents or Murray yet.

Rayce would talk to us sometimes, about a variety of things like his girlfriend, school, ect.

It sounds like Rayce talks a lot about everything going on in his life.

He only brought up his family a few times, and the main thing we remember about his family was that he told us he hated his brother, he told us this was after Murray had been mean to one of Rayce’s friends, so we could see why he was mad.

He mentioned his brother was “introverted and nerdy” and was glad he never wanted to go to the gym.

Rayce also mentioned he was not a natural blonde one day. He was talking about how he and his baseball teammates dyed their hair blonde for some tournament he was in, and when Rayce saw the blonde, he liked it better than his natural dark brown hair.

Rayce has a fairly normal fluffy, fairly short haircut that I’ve seen a lot of middle school boys have.

I can see why Rayce doesn’t like his brother.

On Saturday, our HOA had a “winter block party”, so we decided to go.

We ended up running into Rayce and his family, my husband made a comment about how Rayce didn’t look related to his family bc he dyes his hair.

Then Murray said “like a ***”.

My husband and I were shocked and didn’t know what to say, but we could see Rayce was uncomfortable.

They wanted to help Rayce.

Murray and the parents had walked to a different booth at the party, when Rayce apologized to us and told us Murray will regularly make mean comments and it embarrasses Rayce but the parents do nothing.

My husband asked Rayce if he needed help.

He said he didn’t care either way.

My husband and I went to the parents and told them we were concerned for Rayce.

Unsolicited parenting advice often isn’t well received.

They told us to mind our own business and said that the boys “already hate each other and don’t need more division”, she said that “you Gen Zers are so judgy when you’re not a parent yourself and told us to back off.

After the fair ended, the mom went on Facebook and posted about me in the HOA group.

I explained my side of the story online to.

Never Miss a Story

Sign up to get our BEST stories of the week straight to your inbox.

Since then, my husband and I have gotten dirty looks from some people in the community. However, on the upside, Rayce told me that hes thankful for us because other members of the community have called out his parents for their parenting and now his parents feel pressured to punish Murray. AITA?

I’m sure the parents didn’t like having their parenting judged, especially by a childless couple, but Murray deserves to be punished.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a man who got creative with his parking after his neighbors started using his extra spot without asking.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

This person thinks they did the right thing.

Another person offers some advice.

Here’s the perspective of a parent.

This is a good way of thinking about it.

It can be hard to know if you did the right thing when your good intentions are met with hostility, but this boy’s brother was being cruel. The parents shouldn’t have let him get away with that. Hopefully now they’ll realize they need to do better.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a homeowner who responded to an HOA violation letter by investigating the bylaws and having the whole board removed.