My daughter has the best of everything. Her clothes are from the finest boutiques in town, her wardrobe rivaling mine in size and quality. Her hair has been highlighted and cut by my own stylist from the time she was small. I’ve given her everything she’s ever wanted. Things she didn’t even know that she wanted. Private dance tutors, acting classes, beauty pageant wins, cosmetic enhancements. We want her to be happy. I thought she was happy.
When her teachers told me that Riley’s interactions with another girl in school could be considered bullying, I dismissed it, taking it with a grain of salt. Didn’t all teenage girls argue? But then I met the girl, Cassie, and her mother, in the principal’s office, and I saw something I recognized in her sad eyes. Riley laughed the whole thing off in the car on the way home, and I joined in, wanting to make her happy, to reassure her I was on her side, but my heart wasn’t in it.
Cassie is gone now. When I found out the news, I locked myself in my bedroom and cried the rest of the day. Visions of my own youth tortured me. Disdainful looks from the pretty girls with their perfect skin and shiny hair. My desperation to be accepted, only to have doors slammed in my face at every turn. I thought about the day I gave birth to Riley, when I promised her that she would never endure one moment of suffering.
Today, I dried my eyes and got on the phone to find my daughter a lawyer. They want to put her in jail, but I can’t let that happen. She’s my baby.
For Story A Day
Jennifer Terry 
Wow. What a conundrum for a mother to be in. She knows she has spoiled her daughter, and that as a result the daughter has this attitude problem and is bullying another girl. I think she needs to stop spoiling the child and giving her everything she’s ever wanted, stop being her friend with cash to share, and be a disciplined mother. Not a woman who laughs a long with her child because she only wants to seem agreeable to the child. Completely in favour, this mother needs to get her daughter a lawyer to defend her, but she is also going to have to prepare her daughter, tell her she has been being brat, being a bully and likely going to face punishment. It’s sad but better she learn now, then end up a horrible adult.
Very well written this one and pertinent to many kids who feel bullied or do bullying I’m sure.
Thanks for your insightful comments! Yes, I think it must be difficult as a parent to draw a line between being a friend and a disciplinarian. This mother has managed to create a monster by indulging her daughter from birth. My mom always told me that girls bully because they are jealous of their victims, or insecure, but I don’t think that’s true. In a lot of cases, I think they’re just spoiled.
I would say it’s a mixture of things. I agree some girls are just spoiled and want to do what they want. I think some girls don’t have a moral compass of right and wrong, or at least there compass is skewed. But growing up I also had girls who were simply jealous, saw me as a threat someway, were being mean, or for whatever reasons girls do thought something about me that wasn’t true. And there were times I realize, I was like this too.
So true. It’s very complicated.
I’m glad the mother gets that her daughter was at fault. She feels the need to defend her of course but she should also make sure her child realizes that she is to blame and has to make amends, at least by apologizing sincerely to the heartbroken family. Great story!
Thanks! I hope the mother tries to help her daughter become a better person, if it’s not too late.
Wow! Great story. The mother is still trying to find acceptance through her daughter and because of that, she has raised a monster.
Exactly! So sad to see parents trying to live vicariously through their kids. Not fair to either of them. Thanks for reading.
Yes, that is true and many parents do that!