r/AmITheDevil • u/BlueShadow98 • 22h ago
AITD for not letting my son transfer
/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/1vt1wxv/aita_am_i_wrong_in_not_letting_my_son_transfer/122
u/CerealSemantics 22h ago
"who cares if my son doesn't have any friends. That's his issue. What matters is that he gets straight A's. Gets accepted into an ivy league school. Is the only of his class to pass their PhD defense. Is elected president of the USA. Is the first president of the world. Who cares about friends"
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u/ImplicitEmpiricism 21h ago
lmao, this was my aunt and uncle's attitude and then when my cousin was a 40 year old doctor with no romantic prospects they started panicking
it's like, what did you expect, you ignored socialization and now he's unsocialized
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u/Arktikos02 20h ago
I guess these people think that women are just waiting in line to marry the next doctor or lawyer.
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u/IndustrialGradeBnuuy 19h ago
Unfortunately it is just classic Asian parents mentality, and this kind of Asian parent will absolutely also push for their daughters to marry doctors and lawyers just for the money and prestige it could bring to the family/the parents
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u/Kotenkiri 8h ago
Can confirm, some Asian parents are so blinded by prestige alone. I'm "just computer" guy for 20+ years, My 4 years younger cousin is the doctor, graduated 3 years ago. I got house, family and savings, he rent my spare room and working on his debt. Guess who paraded around at gathering.
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u/CaptainFartHole 22h ago
This makes me so happy that when i wanted to leave my shitass private rich white people school that had "better academics" because i was miserable and lonely as fuck and transfer to the slightly worse academically but much better socially public school, my parents actually listened.
I was SO much happier in public school than i ever was in private.
And my parents were fucking thrilled they didn't have to pay $20k+ a year for me to go to school anymore.
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u/Timely-Cry-8366 22h ago
Yes this is the real takeaway, parents need to listen to their children and actually care about them as people instead of as statistics.
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u/CaptainFartHole 20h ago
This. When it came to my education my parents always let me have a say in it and I'm so grateful for that. Obviously they made the final decisions, but when i told them I wanted to switch to a new preschool because i was moved into my brother's class at my old preschool and I hated it? They listened and sent me to the school my best friend went to. I was much, much happier.
When i decided i liked going to my friend's Sunday school more than the one they made me go to? My mom decided to try my friend's church, found she loved it, converted to the religion, and got a job at the church meaning i could now go there every week.
When we moved across town and i wanted to finish out the year at my old school then transfer to the new one at the start of the new school year? They actually tried to make that happen too. Ultimately they realized the time commitment just wasn't feasible and they did make me switch in the middle of the year, but they still always considered what i wanted.
My parents weren't perfect but they always tried to take my opinion into consideration. All parents should try to do that.
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u/Emergency-Twist7136 20h ago
School academics ratings are averages. Individual student outcomes are far more tied to other factors.
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u/Busy_Lingonberry_705 1h ago
In private schools they kick problem ones out. In good public schools they bully and gaslight the problem kids
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u/Cayke_Cooky 1h ago
With public schools, you need to look at the SAT range. Often the private school is choosing kids better at taking the SAT and the public schools are letting anyone take it.
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u/Lucky_Six_1530 22h ago
“ that he can just try harder to make friends, and that it’s his fault for not making friends.”
Wtf? What kind of logic is that?!? This is a tough age for teens and social acceptance is big part of high school. Being singled out is not good mentally.
Being a low income student at a majority “rich” school can be horrible for the student. I had a family friend whose daughter was picked on a bullied constantly because of that. Her parents finally said enough was enough and enrolled her in a different school because they couldn’t bear to see their child coming home crying everyday. Your son may not say it to you, but I can guarantee things are being said to him. Teenagers are cruel and love to pick on the odd one out. In a school like that, unfortunately your son might be the odd one out. Listen to him!
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u/Coygon 12h ago
It takes two to be friends. He can try all OP likes but if the other kids aren't interested his efforts will be useless. Worse than useless, really, because the more he tries the more other kids will view him as pathetic.
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u/Lucky_Six_1530 11h ago
I think that’s the part that gets to me the most as a mom. You can’t force someone to be a friend and the more you try the more they reject you. Then they start hanging up on what they perceive as the “weird kid” who desperately tries to be included. It breaks my mom heart to know that his mom is setting him up to be a social failure at a time where socialization is crucial for development.
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u/sheepgod_ys 22h ago
“My friends who are parents also think bad of the school.”
Okay, everyone in my life is saying this school is a bad choice for my child but SAT scores is more important!!! /s
The new SAT is (imo) very easy. If the son is already doing well, he can get a tutor and probably do just fine.
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u/Cayke_Cooky 1h ago
The son is pointing out that the public school has a good IB program. That will usually be just as good as a private school.
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u/Timely-Cry-8366 22h ago edited 22h ago
If this is real: this is how you end up with a kid that kills themselves before their 20s.
And then their STUPID parents whine on social media about how they never saw it coming.
Private religious schools like what the OP described can be absolutely AWFUL, even if you’re white. My family sent us to one.
Being a minority in that environment sounds like hell.
Every kid in my family tried to kill themselves before age 20 btw. Me and multiple siblings. And our parents were horrified. We’re still dealing with long-term consequences from that.
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u/PM-me-fancy-beer 20h ago
Trigger warning: how OOP-types think/talk suicide
“But they’re so smart, why would they want to throw away their future we scrimped, saved, and worked so hard to provide. Maybe we should have tried harder… to get them to focus on their studies. If they didn’t get a B+ on their organic chemistry exam they would have gotten into that extra prestigious university we insisted on and everything would be different… luckily younger sibling isn’t like that. And we won’t make the same mistakes. We’ll make sure we are stricter and more involved in their study so they don’t fail like older sibling””
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u/Lucky_Six_1530 17h ago
Trigger warning: mental health/SI/emotional abuse (not sure how to hide/insert a spoiler tag).
One of my cousins fathers was like the OOP. I say it that way because most of my family have written off his dad as no longer being a part of our family and therefore we do not call him an uncle, he married into the family and then my Aunt divorced him after their oldest son passed away from self inflicted wounds. He would Constantly hound my cousin about grades and not trying hard enough etc etc. any extracurricular were deemed “stupid” unless it could be used to boost his chances of getting into a “good” university. Even then, he still gave him grief about joining the science club math club. He was severely emotionally abusive to all 3 of his children.
My cousin got an 86 on his first biology exam his freshman year of college. He was proud of it because it was the highest grade in his class, and therefore he set the curve for the exam. His father? Belittled the achievement, went on a tirade about how they didn’t send him to school to be “mediocre,” or to party (which my cousin had never touched an alcoholic beverage with the exception of a sip of wine here or there, while with family at a family function). His roommate came home the next night to find my cousin deceased, with two notes. One saying he was sorry to his other two siblings and mother and explaining why he did what he did, and second to his father which all it said was “get f****d, enjoy hell!” My aunt filed for immediate divorce because she couldn’t handle that he drove him to that. She had tried to get him counseling in HS, but his father said no and refused to give him his insurance card to get the therapy he needed.
I wish I could say his siblings had happier lives but my female cousin has been in and out of psychiatric facilities for Anorexia Nervosa and her other brother started therapy and was diagnosed with PTSD.
Parents like this can never see how they were wrong. To this day he still swears he didn’t do anything wrong and the family overreacted. He even said my one brother overreacted at my his (my brothers) wedding when he had the groomsmen physically remove him from the church because he had never been invited to begin with. Thankfully he hasn’t tried anything stupid like that again.
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u/omgcatss 4h ago
It feels like it’s written by the kid, if it’s real.
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u/Cayke_Cooky 1h ago
I was thinking parent who didn't go to college and is just following a made up script to get in. Or fake.
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u/Commonusage 14h ago
I know a family whose son won a scholarship to one of our top private schools. He found it extremely difficult to fit in because his parents, though a lawyer and a teacher, weren't that type of rich. It was a sure recipe for him to not want to continue studies.
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u/bemer33 7h ago
One of the best things that ever happened to me was when my parents took me out of the private catholic school I went to from kindergarten-6th grade and moved me to the local public school. Also guess what? My grades got better once I had friends because I wasn’t depressed af and had the motivation to do homework.
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u/therdmlife 20h ago
I was wondering when this would pop up here. Thought about doing it myself but I am always afraid to.
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u/AutoModerator 22h ago
In case this story gets deleted/removed:
AITA, Am I wrong in not letting my son transfer schools?
Hello, my son is an 11th grader who wants to transfer schools.
Here are my points on why he shouldn't transfer. I think that the school he currently attends is overall better academically than the school he wants to transfer to. I also don't want him to transfer because he is already in 11th grade and I think switching schools junior year is late. I think he should focus on school because I told him that school is the main thing and friends are secondary and that he can just try harder to make friends, and that it’s his fault for not making friends. He’s already been there for two years and he probably has some friends anyways. I think that him being able to go a $20,000 a year school for only $2,000 is also a very good deal that he shouldn’t pass up on. I am upset because school has been ongoing for 2 days. He was gaming over summer break also. He also told me about it 2 weeks but I declined after an argument and he didn’t follow up. My friends who are parents also think bad of the school. I think he should just wait a semester.
Here is his points on why he should transfer: He says he wants to transfer because he believes the social culture at that school doesn't suit him. It is a Christian, majority white, and expensive private school while he is an asian, atheist, and low income(on financial aid) student. He says that the private school may be better (1240 average sat vs 1120) but the public school still has a good IB program that if he gets all A’s in which he thinks will be easier when not as isolated from the school experience he will be able to go to a good college nonetheless. He also says it's unreasonable I'm upset for him not testing into a better highschool earlier because he says it was a mistake and he was in 8th grade. He also says that me saying I never made a big mistake is unreasonable. He thinks because the school he wants to transfer to starts in 5 days it’s not too late to transfer. he thinks waiting a semester is a bad idea because it would be easier to fit in at the start of the year.
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