Raising boys is a huge responsibility. You want to raise kind and respectful humans who treat women as equals. But sometimes middle school boys fall down a toxic internet rabbit hole and start parroting completely awful garbage. When that happens it is the parent’s job to step in immediately and correct the behavior. One aunt on Reddit recently shared a jaw dropping story about her nephew acting like a total misogynist in public and her sister’s refusal to actually parent him is wild.
The Original Poster is a twenty six year old woman who attended a local library basket raffle with her entire family. The group included her husband, her thirty three year old sister, the brother in law, and her two nephews. The oldest nephew Bracken is thirteen and brought his teenage girlfriend along. The youngest nephew Neville is eleven years old.
The library raffle is a big annual event with tons of baskets donated by local businesses to raise funds. Bracken plays baseball and spent his time hunting down all the sports related baskets with his girlfriend. Meanwhile the rest of the family stuck together and browsed the remaining tables. Everything was totally fine until they stumbled into the science and STEM section.
Neville is apparently a big fan of science and projects. But when he noticed a few specific baskets designed to encourage girls in STEM, he completely lost his mind. The eleven year old boy called the baskets stupid and started loudly making awful comments. He actually said that girls are too dumb for science and claimed that is why they needed special baskets in the first place. He even proudly stated that this is exactly why the robotics club is all boys.
Hearing an eleven year old spout toxic misogyny in the middle of a public library is definitely a choice. The Original Poster and her husband completely dropped the ball here and just dismissed the comments. Several strangers around them started glaring at the family in shock. Thankfully the thirteen year old brother stepped up where the adults failed. Bracken looked right at his little brother and told him to shut his mouth.
The family went home and the Original Poster and her husband spent the car ride wondering exactly where an eleven year old picks up that kind of language. They were completely stumped. But the mystery unraveled the very next night when the sister called the Original Poster in an absolute panic. She was crying hysterically on the phone and claiming that Neville was having a horrible first month of middle school because he was being targeted and bullied.
The aunt asked her sister to hand the phone to someone who could actually explain what was going on. Bracken took the phone and immediately spilled the tea. He completely exposed his mother and said she was not telling the truth at all. Neville was not being randomly bullied for no reason. He was facing the social consequences of his own terrible actions.
Bracken admitted that he told his own friends about Neville’s sexist rant at the library. Word quickly spread around the middle school straight to the sixth graders. The kids in Neville’s grade started rightfully calling him creepy and weird. They also targeted Neville’s friends because those friends actually tried to defend the gross comments. As soon as Bracken exposed the truth, the panicked mother snatched the phone right out of his hands.
After the sister finally calmed down, she asked the Original Poster what she should do to fix the situation. The aunt did not hold back. She bluntly told her sister that this entire mess was her own fault for never correcting Neville’s toxic behavior. The aunt suggested that the boy was learning this garbage from his phone or his friends and offered them up as obvious sources to investigate.
Instead of accepting reality, the mother doubled down on her bad parenting. She claimed she could not just take away his phone or his friends. In a stunning twist of logic, she declared that the real solution was to teach Bracken and his friends not to gossip. The aunt told her sister she was being completely ridiculous and hung up the phone.
The internet is totally siding with the aunt on this one. You cannot let your kid act like a bigot and then cry when his peers refuse to hang out with him. Accountability is a tough pill to swallow, but covering up bad behavior will only make it worse.