Cousin feud ignites after one destroys the other's book collection, parents demand reimbursement for the books but mom says ‘she’s just a kid,' Internet disagrees: ‘A 13 year old? Wow.’

Author image for Elna McHilderson
Elna McHilderson • Managing Editor
Feb 7, 2025 6:00 PM EST

Parenthood is not easy. That's just a fact. It's a lot of pressure—you don't want to raise a kid to be an entitled adult. So how do you do that? Well, there are many different ways. You can find countless articles, books, and videos about it, even courses! But one thing that is constantly repeated is making sure your child knows there are consequences to their actions. Now, the techniques in showing your child that fact is highly debated, but it's a fact that if you don't teach them this, they will think everything they do, whether it's right or wrong, is fine. That's means they can grow up, borrow a friends car, then completely wreck it and think they don't owe the owner anything. You know what happens then? Straight to court. You're not a kid anymore, you will face consequences no matter how hard your family tries to shield you from them. 

 

In this case, it includes two teenagers. One is 13 and the other 16. The 16-year-old is a bookworm and uses her allowance to buy limited editions and first copies to the books she likes to read. She lent some books out to her 13-year-old cousin once, and got them returned destroyed. 

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  • Hamb ENZINAONY THE PHOTOE FRIYAY
    via Unsplash+ (and Jonathan Borba)

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

    So, obviously, she never leant them out to her again. That is a consequence to those actions. But the 13-year-old did not take that lightly, and eventually went to the 16-your-old's room and completely destroyed some the books she just spend her money on. The mom of the bookworm was furious, but the mom of the 13-year-old said she was "just a kid." Do you really think adolescence is "just a kid?" We think not and the Internet agrees. 
     

  • "AITHA for making my sister pay back my daughter?"

    My (42f) daughter Brooke (16) has been reading since she was five. She has always loved books and she would spend her allowance that we gave her on the newest book in the latest series that she was reading. It's pretty safe to say that her book collection is huge and filled with all kinds of limited edition and special edition books. Recently she used her allowance to get a new special edition version of a book she already had because she has been saving up for it and
    via AnnualHappy2923
  • was very excited to get it when it came out. Well my sister Lindsey (36) came over on Saturday with her daughter Mariah (13) to spend time with us because it's been a while since we got to hang out and we were just catching up. Mariah started to head to Brooke's room but I stopped her and told her that Brooke was out and she would be home in twenty minutes so I suggested that she wait down here with us and tell me about how school was going.
    via AnnualHappy2923
  • She talked for about ten minutes before she said that she had to go to the bathroom. We have two bathrooms in our house, one upstairs and one downstairs (not including our en suite.). Unfortunately the downstairs one is having some issues so I told her that it was ok to use the one upstairs for now until the one downstairs is fixed. She said ok and went upstairs.
    via AnnualHappy2923
  • While I was talking to my sister Brooke came home, said hi and quickly went upstairs to change. She wasn't up there for five minutes when I heard a loud scream and quickly ran to check on my daughter. When I got to her room my jaw dropped when I saw several of her books (including the new special edition one) destroyed with ripped pages everywhere and Brooke in tears at the destruction. Brooke is very non controversial and hates arguing or fighting with people,
    via AnnualHappy2923
  • so I stepped in for her. I told Mariah that she needs to apologize to Brooke, clean up the mess she made and that she would no longer be welcomed in my house. I then turned to my sister and told her that she needed to reimburse Brooke for the books that her daughter destroyed. Lindsey argued with me that Mariah was just a kid and she didn't know what she was doing but I told her that Mariah is old enough to know right from wrong and what she did was wrong. Lindsey argued back that
    via AnnualHappy2923
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  • if my daughter didn't want her books touched that they shouldn't have been out. I lost my cool and told her that they weren't out. They were put away in her room where Mariah wasn't allowed to be without Brooke's permission. Lindsey refused to pay Brooke back and called me a greedy b before leaving with Mariah right behind her.
    via AnnualHappy2923
  • I told my husband about this and he was absolutely on our side, and he agreed that Lindsey needs to pay Brooke back for the books that she lost and can't replace as they were special/limited edition that she can't get back. This whole thing has really blown up and my side of the family is telling me that I'm being too hard on Mariah, that she's just a kid but I don't think I am. She destroyed my daughter's property and she needs to know that her actions have
    via AnnualHappy2923
  • consequences. So I'm asking here. Was I the ah for demanding that my sister pay me back? ETA: I have seen some people ask and I'm going to add a bit of information. Mariah has always had a fascination with Brooke's book collection and last year Brooke let her borrow two books because Mariah said that she wanted to start reading and since Brooke loves reading so much she thought it was a good idea to let Mariah borrow a couple. Well
    via AnnualHappy2923
  • two weeks passed and the books came back damaged (nothing like this but definitely not in good condition anymore) so Brooke told her that she was not allowed to borrow her books anymore. Mariah was angry at that and yelled at my daughter and since then Brooke has kept Mariah away from her books. My husband and I think this is what caused Mariah to do what she did to Brooke's books.
    via AnnualHappy2923
  • est
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    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • JDKoRnSlut NTA A 13 year old? Wow. Even 5 year olds know better than that. Your family can f ground. off, hold your anothergoddess I had to go back and check the kids age again. 5 gets a time out. 13? She should've been grounded. How dumb is that mom?
    via JDKoRnSlut
  • thaliagorgon NTA. A 13 year old is not a little kid who doesn't know that is wrong to destroy someone else's property. But even if she were a 3 year old who didn't understand what she was doing her mother would still be responsible for her and should reimburse any damage her child causes. Just a kid, I was babysitting at 12 and responsible for other kids, 13 is way too old for that kind of behavior.
    via thaliagorgon
  • dilligaf_84 Exactly!! My eldest accidentally broke a photo frame at my mother's house when he was 8. My son was beside himself with remorse and full of apologies. My mum knew it was an accident and told me not to worry about it but I knew that it was a special frame. I immediately had it replaced (special order - I had to have a replica made) and my son had to do chores for me to earn half the cost of the replacement. Even at 8 he understood that situation and why he had to take some of the resp
    via dilligaf_84
  • Gnd_flpd teenager is what she is. And she knew exactly what her actions meant. She tore pages out of books, who does that, an ill manner brat, that's who. NTA Someone should have caught some hands for that and not the "child" I'd give all it to the mother of that child.
    via Gnd_flpd
  • Tdluxon NTA Regardless of their age, if a kid breaks/damages/steals/whatever something, they are responsible for it. I don't care if the kid is 17 years or 17 weeks... their kid, their responsibility. Also, a 13 year old is plenty old enough to know that you can't just destroy other people's stuff. That excuse ends at about age 7. Also, you'd already told her not to go in your daughter's room, so it's not like she wasn't aware that she was doing something wrong.
    via Tdluxon
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  • RockabillyRabbit My kid is currently 7. I wanna say it was about 4 or 5 max that she knew better than to mess with other people's things. Pretty across the board for my friends kids too. What gets me is the 13yo knew exactly what she was doing. She tried to go there first thing and was told no. So she asked for the bathroom to get away and go do what she initially wanted. That was planned. I highly doubt she actually needed to use the bathroom.
    via RockabillyRabbit
  • NefariousnessFresh24 *sighs* Why are families always supposedly split about open and shut cases? Your niece is not a five year old, she is thirteen, and knows better. And if she doesn't, then your sister is mom, her husband is a a parents are dad, your grandparents, because apparently nobody seems to have ever made an effort to teach her.
    via NefariousnessFresh24
  • If this is real and not some ragebait, NTA for demanding reimbursement, but YTA for not telling all those people to go f themselves, and giving them the choice of either coughing up the cash (and then going NC with them), or you taking your sister to small claims court, and THEN going NC with them.
    via NefariousnessFresh24

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