Furious mom tells daughter to 'get out of my house' over social media post.

'AITA for telling my daughter to leave for embarrassing me on social media?'

My husband and I have 6 children and live in a 4 bedroom home. As you can imagine, space is tight. My husband and I have one room, the two eldest share, the middle two share, and the youngest two share. This question pertains to my eldest (18F).

She recently started university and moved to live-in student accommodation there. Her university is just under an hour from us, so she kept her weekend job here and planned to travel in and stay here on Friday night and leave to go back to university on Sunday after work.

She is looking for a job closer to her university, but hasn't found one that pays as well as her current one.

When she left I told our second eldest (16F) that the room was now hers alone. We sold my eldest's bed and wardrobe and drawers to make more space, and instructed my second eldest to leave one drawer free for eldest to put her belongings when she returned for her weekends.

When eldest returned on her first weekend back, she asked what happened to her bed and wardrobe and I explained the above and that as she doesn't live here anymore she doesn't need it all. We provided her with a camp bed to sleep on in the room that she could fold up and store when she left. She was unhappy and went to bed.

Later that night I checked her Twitter and she had tweeted 'I feel like I don't have a home anymore.' I was furious that she had brought our family business onto social media and woke her up to tell her so.

We argued, and I ultimately told her that if she doesn't feel like this is her home anymore then she needs to leave and get out of my house. She did. My husband was able to find out that she made the last train back to her university town that evening.

The following Friday she messaged me to say, very bluntly, 'I'm sorry for tweeting about how I felt. I won't do it again.' She has also either deleted her Twitter account or changed her account name and blocked me, so I can't verify if she'll stick to this. However, I told her that I forgave her and that she is welcome to return again.

She has not returned home since that weekend. Throughout the entirety of October she didn't come home once, and has been instead traveling to and from work on both Saturday and Sunday instead of coming to our home.

I messaged to ask her when her Christmas break begins, to find out when she was returning, and she said her flatmates parents have told her she can spend Christmas with them, so that's what she'll be doing.

Was I really so wrong in how I dealt with this, that I've pushed my daughter away? My husband thinks so, and so does my second eldest, but I believe I handled it well. Perhaps I shouldn't have told her to leave, but does that warrant her abandoning her family?

Comments:

Toofly100 says:

Are you out of your mind? You made her homeless. YTA.

DragonsBond says:

YTA. Where were you intending for your daughter to stay/sleep during winter/summer breaks? Dorms are usually closed during those times as students are expected to go home to their families.

So during those times (which are around 4-5 months a year total) you really expected her to have no wardrobe or her old bed? No wonder she felt she no longer welcome at home. Her response is justified when you totally ignored the validity of her feelings and instead responded with anger.

RubyRogue13 says:

YTA. Straight up, your daughter isn't coming back because you've shown her your true colors. You should be ashamed of how you treated her.

B-Girl-Ca says:

YTA majorly, you unilaterally decided to remove her home accommodations when you knew she would be coming back every week end, way to go ! She’s not coming back , and it’s deserved you showed her … wow

sunfloweries asks:

INFO: why didn't you tell her you were doing these things? you knew she would be coming back over the weekends, but you sold her things without telling her anyway? why?

Remarkable_Can_396 response from OP:

It genuinely didn't cross my mind. She moved out to university and I felt like I was doing something nice for my second eldest.

Clearly I was wrong and I wish I had told her in advance now, but is this not standard for parents with children who go to university? Are we expected to hold onto everything for all eternity?

Remarkable_Can_396 response OP:

I have six kids, OF COURSE I'm excited for the day they leave the nest, that doesn't mean I don't love them.

I left home at 17 with no support from my parents whatsoever. I can see now from the unanimous responses that I handled this wrong with my daughter but I truly can't believe how you have all interpreted this. You're all acting like I threw her out and changed the locks. She had a space to sleep in a warm house for free.

Remarkable_Can_396 final update from OP:

It's unanimous, you all believe I handled this poorly and was an asshole. You can stop telling me now. I had hoped for a more mixed response with people seeing my side of this, but I know Reddit skews young so this response isn't surprising. I will not be logging into this account again, so your rude messages will not be seen.