I (14m) recently got my twin sister (14f) expelled from school after reporting her for the bullying she did. I don’t think I did anything wrong and my grandpa (72m) is on my side but parents (40m and 40f) think I betrayed sister.
My sister has never been the nicest person, she got in trouble for bullying in elementary school and earlier in middle school, has gotten detention and ISS(In School Suspension) before, but this is the worst punishment she’s gotten so far.
She can be mean to our siblings and cousins too, if she wants to. We are in 8th grade now.
A few weeks ago, I was playing basketball outside during lunch (which we’re allowed to do),my friends and I were having a good time when we saw a boy crying on the grass. My friends and I went to see what was wrong.
This boy was telling us about how he was being bullied by a group of kids for being “preppy” (posts skincare routines on TikTok, Starbucks iced coffee, generally seen as a more feminine male aesthetic), kids were calling him gay and the f slur when he’s not gay.
We told him we thought he was cool, he started discussing skincare and fashion with us, we don’t know much about it so me and my friends were trying to talk about...
Nike and stuff about fashion we did know (mostly sports stuff), and he actually knew quite a bit about it, said he’s started taking courses at a local college about fashion history, he’s also in 8th grade like us.
After we calmed him down, we asked him if he wanted to play ball with us and we were amazed at how good he was, he said he’s not really into sports but he was so naturally good...
had us playing our hardest and scored against a few of us when playing in teams, we encouraged him to potentially try out for the team in high school and he said he’d consider it.
Over the few weeks, we’ve started to hang out with him more and more, we were at the park playing with him and he dropped his phone, one of my friends picked it up and unintentionally opened up the messages on Instagram since he got a notification for it...
he saw someone text him homophobic stuff, the boy noticed my sister was one of the kids sending him the messages, we told him it wasn’t ok and that we’d go to AP with him.
My sister and her friends was called into the office and they all got in a bunch of trouble, it was her, 3 other girls and 2 other boys, one of which is her boyfriend. My sister was the ringleader and the cruelest, so she got the harshest punishment and was expelled.
My mother and father said I shouldn’t have gone to AP and instead talked to them, my grandfather has a different perspective since he was involved in progressive activist groups in his teen years and college years, and while he’s straight...
he saw his gay friends get bullied and was horrified about what she was doing, even though it was to a straight boy.
My sister is calling me an asshole, a snitch and says she hates me, my friends are reassuring me we did the right thing. No, even after my parents gave her a talk about homophobia she said she was showing the boy “the real world” and insisting she did nothing wrong.
They did give her a talk on homophobia being bad and looked at her YouTube watch history, but my sister is defending her actions saying she was showing the boy “the real world” If he’s gay, that’s cool with us too.
They think they could’ve handled it better without her getting expelled, they gave her a standard homophobia is bad talk and looked at her YouTube watch history to see if there was anything homophobic but haven’t done anything since.
I think part of the reason we have compassion is the sense of community me and my friends have, if one of us is hurting, everyone is. We do everything together and getting constant love and validation feels good, my basketball coach also encourages the love among us and is such a cool dude and role model.
I don’t think they’re bad people, I just think they value loyalty to the family way too much. They aren’t homophobic like my sister. I wish they valued loyalty less, I love my sister but she was bullying a boy who’s so kind and sweet. I’ll definitely try to talk more to them later. AITA?
palindrome writes:
There's something wrong W your sister. Like, emotionally/psychologically. You say she's been a bully since elementary school? It doesn't seem there are any external or environmental reasons for her behaviour.
Also, your parents, on some level, are not good people. Your sister's behaviour is not new - it is ongoing and chronic. A good parent would recognise that the behaviour wasn't changing, found this alarming, and once realising their tactics were ineffective, gotten her professional help.
Telling someone 'homophobia is bad' and 'be nice' isn't going to do shit. It's not addressing any of the root causes of her behaviour.
They wanted you to come to them so they could rug sweep the issue. It's clear they don't take her behaviour seriously - they seem to care more about the inconvenience her expulsion caused rather than the fact their daughter GOT suspended for being a bad human being.
I encourage you to challenge your parents. Challenge if they think her behaviour is ok, if they don't, why aren't they accepting of her punishment?
Tell them you didn't come to them as you have witnessed their 'discipline' is ineffective, so you went to the appropriate authorities to help protect an innocent person from your sister's malicious actions.
Tell them what they are asking is immoral - for you to leave the consequences of her actions solely to them denies her any real world accountability.
kettlewise writes:
NTA. I would snitch every day. Saying nothing only protects them and allows them to continue their harrassment unencumbered. In this case it’s not even snitching - it’s called standing up for what’s right, and supporting someone targeted for harrassment.
Your sister being expelled makes things harder for your parents but this is their responsibility, and the blame lies squarely with your sister - not you.
Your friend deserves to be safe from his harrassers. As for your sister trying to shame you and tell you she hates you - sounds like more of the same bullying. I also wouldn’t worry too much about someone so nasty hating me. She can certainly change - but that’s on her to do the work.
frggg writes:
NTA. Your parents and you sister are reaping the rewards of their own actions. Though I guess in your parents case it is their inaction. You sister is a bully and whatever your parents did to try and put a stop to it was so ineffective that she never stopped bullying.
So now they either have to home school her or pay for her to go to private school. This is inconvenient for them and so they’re mad. They’re incorrectly taking it out on you when they should be taking it out on her because she is a bully.
Here’s what you did: You saved that kid’s life. Bullying can and has driven kids to suicide. Obviously we can’t know for sure that’s what would have happened if you hadn’t stepped in but obviously she abs her friends were making his life miserable and you stopped them. You’re NTA.
rikkiii writes:
NTA. I sort of understand why your parent's might've wanted to to talk to them first about it butttt I have a feeling that they're not going to really punish and educate your sister correctly, since you stated that she's been mean to you and your cousins before.
The parents might be planning on basically giving her a "slap on the wrist" before moving on. Good for you to stand up for your friend and defending him despite the uncomfortable situation you were put in since this is your sister.
Your friends are right. Hope she learns from this behavior is never okay and I'm glad that you have good friends to surround yourself with :)
I want to update everyone on what happened recently, I didn’t expect my post to blow up In the comments of the last post, I mentioned how my sister had her phone taken away, well a few days ago...
my parents were cleaning her room and found a burner phone, on there she had Discord, when my parents opened it up they found a slew of extremely racist and homophobic content that my sister was both consuming and writing, the other male friend (the one that is not her boyfriend) was also involved, he has gotten in trouble at school for past homophobic behavior.
He’s one of the kids who tries to be edgy, his parents also really didn’t do anything to curtail his behavior in the past, besides just saying he shouldn’t say that and he’s being an ass.
He’s on the football team and his teammates/friends have never liked his edgy views, but when they heard about what he was sending, they talked with him and are trying to connect to him on why what he’s doing is messed up. My sister and him have expressed no remorse so far.
Once they saw those messages, my parents were horrified and grounded her for a few weeks from hiding this from them, and are looking for a therapist to try to do deradicalize her views.
My new friend is doing better then ever, my sister’s boyfriend has shown genuine remorse, despite his parents defending him (they see their kids as doing no wrong, if their child bullies someone, it’s always the bullied kids fault), but he has an older brother who’s 15 and is an amazing guy.
The brother talked to his younger brother about his behavior and made him realize it was messed up. The other 3 girls involved have not spoken to him since, but one of them was seen bullying some random kid in a TikTok comment section, so I doubt much has changed with them.
Our new friend is going to join us at an overnight basketball camp, we met his parents and they thanked us for helping their son, they found a guy for private basketball lessons after me and my friends were pushing him to try out next year, the trainer said he was really good naturally and he’s developed an increasing like of the sport.
His dad is a vendor at a local antique store, and bought me and my friends some signed basketball memorabilia as a gift, his parents said they haven’t seen him this happy in a long time, their son never opened up about the bullying to them.
They told us he’s much less angry now and went on about how we “brought back the little boy who was always happy”. Me and my friends are counting down the days to camp.
As for the advice, I just encouraged my grandpa to stand up more, but they didn’t care until the burner phone, for those complementing my writing and grammar, you can credit my coach, who’s also my English teacher.