Mother confiscates teen daughter's fanfiction; 'This can't be healthy.' AITA? UPDATED 3X

"AITA for confiscating my daughter's fanfiction?"

My daughter is thirteen, and very introverted. I love her, and she's the funniest, smartest person I know, but she doesn't have very good social skills. She has severe anxiety and has struggled with clinical depression since she was nine. She's my only child, FYI.

Our family's moving between states at the moment and currently staying at a friends' house for a month. This whole summer, she's been very distracted by her phone. She's always been an avid reader, and when we asked what she was doing all the time she said she was just reading stories online. We assumed it was e-books or something.

We noticed she went over the data limit for the month, so her father asked for her phone and the password. She said no to giving us the password, but agreed to turn the phone off for the rest of the month to avoid going over more. We were understandably concerned, she's normally very complacent, respectful, and not at all defensive about her phone.

So we threatened to take it away entirely unless she told us. She did, after a screaming, sobbing fit, the likes of which I haven't seen since she was a toddler. When we opened it, we found tons of extremely explicit fanfiction.

She's never shown any interest in se% before, and all of this was between two male characters from a TV show we knew she loved (though we didn't know how much). There was fanart too. Not all of it was explicit, some of it just seemed like plain old creative writing, but I went through all of it in front of her.

She said she's not using it to g$t 0f, she was just curious and found it interesting. I said I was going to start getting into the community too so that I could understand it and she could talk about it with me, but she seemed very opposed to the idea.

She begged me not to talk about it more with her father (they have a weird, cold relationship, unfortunately) and I didn't in front of her. But we find this very concerning.

Given what I know about her lack of social skills, I couldn't help but feel this wasn't helping. So I deleted all of what she had saved as well as the pictures. I don't care that it was gay in nature, I've been pretty sure since she was six that she's lesbian. But this can't be normal or healthy.

I took her phone for a week, removed the password, and when we see her reading things now we always ask her specifically to tell us what it is. She seems to have stopped, I'm not going to check her browsing history.

I told some of my girlfriends about it and they said I was being controlling and insensitive, and that telling them about it was humiliating for her. She doesn't know I told them, so it can't be humiliating, and I just want what's best for her. I can't imagine this is. Am I the asshole?

Edit: I do want to say that none of what I saw was disturbing, per se. Very vanilla (very explicit, don't get me wrong, but vanilla).

I just think it's all kinda gross and distracting for an awkward thirteen-year-old that needs to focus on herself.

Before we give you OP's updates, let's take a look at some top responses:

fangro writes:

I was mortified reading this. I can still feel it. Reminds me of my parents. And had to be hospitalized in a mental institution for 3 weeks and ended up diagnosed with BPD. Had different mood swings that were a rollercoaster.

I could feel the most terrible pain of grief, and then 10 minutes later I could be as happy as child at disney. it’s awful and mentally exhausting to have moods that change so quickly.

Had a major self-identity crises because I never really explored my interests. Parents controlled me so much, I just became afraid to do anything. I also have bad anxiety. And a cortisol (the stress hormone) imbalance.

I had to take time off of everything and go no contact with my parents. I had saved enough money to live 5 months without a job to avoid as much stress in my life as possible and learn about myself. And it was only then did I start feeling much better. I’m much more clear headed now than before.

OP, for your daughter’s mental health please take it from me, don’t be this controlling it can really affect her. There’s studies that prove a strict and controlling parent can cause a child to have personality disorders and mental health problems.

speag writes:

YTA in that it's controlling and will ruin your relationship with her. Reading doesn't harm anything , she's probably just exploring thoughts or feelings.

Good luck hoping she comes to you when she has a crush or wants to start having se%: I'm sure she won't now. You've already shown her you can't be trusted to react calmly and within reason. She's not watching violent porn videos during family dinner.

yyarg312 writes:

YTA. Any normal person would take what you have done as a lesson to hide things better from you. That is the primary lesson of your actions, whether or not you intended it.

The summation of your parenting in this instance is worse communication from your daughter, and likely a heap of trauma she will never forget nor forgive you for.

What really sucks is that your concern is valid. Being there to help your child understand these types of things is a cornerstone of parenting, and the depths of the Internet is a hell of a place to for a child to explore their burgeoning se%uality without any kind of guidance.

And here you are ensuring that she's going to get really good at hiding everything from you.

Update 1:

After reading the comments, it's clear that I've fd this up horrendously. I'm not going to blame anyone else but me for this. I have always tried to make an environment for my daughter where she's aware of se% and safety and comfortable talking to me, but I've just shot myself in the foot.

I never meant for her to run in the other direction, and that's what I've done. I should have respected her right to privacy more than I did. Some of you pointed out that this is similar to Harlequin romance novels, which I hadn't considered and which makes this much clearer to me.

To clarify, if she came out to me I would, of course, be supportive. If she ends up being straight I'll obviously respect that. It's just always been my motherly instinct that she might like girls, which I never meant in a creepy way.

I also didn't realize there's a community there that she may have become attached to, and I don't want to ruin whatever social interactions she has. I feel awful. She's my entire world and I didn't mean to handle this so, so wrong. I'll talk to her tomorrow face-to-face and try to repair whatever I can.

I never should have told her father, I'll own that, I just thought he should know as her other parent. I definitely never should have told my friends, oh my god, I only thought they may have had similar experiences. I'm realizing how much I completely messed this up. Thank you for giving me the slap in the face I needed.

Update 2:

FYI. I didn't tell her she was gross or strange, just that she'd been spending too much time on it and I was concerned that she wasn't focusing on other things (upcoming school year, talking to our hosts, etc.)

I expressed concern that it was stopping her from trying to make friends in real life, and that some of the things she was reading might not be the healthiest in terms of relationship dynamics (consent, etc.) and se%ual health (using c@nd@ms, etc.). I absolutely concede that I was in the wrong, and that my deletions and helicoptering would make her feel ashamed, but for context, that's what happened there.

2) The two friends I told are my best friends and live in Australia. They've never met my daughter and she is only peripherally aware of their existence at best. I never should have told them, I know that now, but the likelihood of this coming back and humiliating my daughter further is minimal, FYI.

Her father took a backseat during this whole thing and hasn't altered his behavior in the slightest. He and my daughter are getting on better right now than she's getting along with me, which makes PERFECT sense because I'm an idiot who massively violated her privacy.

3) If I could go back and not mention my suspicions about her se%uality, I would. They don't affect the outcome, and I would never, ever in a thousand years try to pry into that part of her life (weird line for me, of all people, to draw, I get it, but there it is).

My sister was outed by my ultra-religious parents when we were teenagers and it left her with lifelong scars. I never want that to be the case here. I haven't told anybody my thoughts on it, save this sub. It doesn't matter to me how she identifies, she's my daughter and I love her more than anything.

The nature of the fanfiction didn't concern me aside from how explicit it was and how much time she was reading. If it was a straight couple I'd have been just as concerned. Would I have been justified? No, but that was the logic at play, as flawed as it was.

Update 3:

Update: Today I sat her down and we talked this over. I explained why I reacted the way I did (my concerns about safety, education, isolation, etc.) , why that was wrong of me, and why nothing she'd done was wrong.

I apologized profusely (her father will do the same later) and promised to respect her privacy more going forward. She was very emotional and explained part of why she had been so into the fanfiction community.

She has liked seeing more representation of LGBTQ relationships and talking to other LGBTQ youth. She came out to me (she asked me not to tell her father until she's ready, and of course I won't, lesson learned), and though some trust has been lost I think we are going to be okay with some hard work on my part.

She's going to join our local support group for queer youth and I'm fully on board. We've discussed implementing some of the suggestions commenters have given, and we're excited about them! Thank you to everyone who commented and called me on my bullshit, because I desperately needed it. Thank you, thank you, thank you! - An Idiotic, but Grateful Mother