Sign up for your FREE personalized newsletter featuring insights, trends, and news for America's Active Baby Boomers

Newsletter
New

My Daughter (15f) Went On Vacation With "friends" And They Left Her There After A Fight (oh And Sc)

Card image cap

My 15 year old was asked to go on a vacation with a friend of hers. The friend (Jane) doesn't have many friends, and my daughter has always made an effort to include her, so she is often invited by the family to go to events and has been invited on trips before. My daughter (call her Mary) does a lot of activities, and has never been able to go before (and didn't really want to go, but didn't want to hurt Jane's feelings), but this time the parents scheduled the trip around when my daughter would be available. Jane is an only child and extremely doted upon by her parents, and they have shielded her from consequences and disappointments in the past- For example, Jane was caught on camera stealing another kid's Nintendo DS from his locker. The parents swore that it was hers, then when shown the video, insisted she was stealing it back from someone who had stolen it from her. They put up such a fight that the school turned it over to the police, but the father is a state trooper and the incident just went away. They have also made big ordeals when Jane didn't make cheerleading, and when she wasn't invited to a private party. This context is just to say, I don't blame the kid in this situation.

Apparently, the trip was fine for the first 3 days of the 5 day trip. They drove to a beach about 9 hours away, stayed in a timeshare, and everything was fine. On the 3rd day, a family that Jane knew from vacationing there before came, and the boy of the family showed an interest in my daughter. My daughter had no interest in him, he is 2 years younger and she prefers girls generally. She was nice, but firmly told him that she was not interested. Apparently, Jane was interested and was absolutely distraught that the boy liked Mary. When they returned to the condo, Jane screamed and threw a cup at Mary, and Mary locked the door to the room and facetimed me. We discussed options, but the nearest airport to them was over an hour away, and the parents were also angry at her for (??????). I called the parents to discuss the situation, they told me my daughter was throwing herself at the boy and trying to steal him from their daughter, although they hadn't been there at the time, and only had Jane's word. I spoke to the mother for over an hour and she finally calmed down and we agreed to just have the girls sleep in separate rooms and take a break from each other, since they were coming home soon anyway. I checked in with my daughter the next day, she said things were tense but she was just staying in her room and watching her phone all day other than to make herself something to eat. They were supposed to leave the next morning at 5am, and my daughter set her alarm and was up and ready to go. When she went out to find the family, they were gone. They must have left earlier or even the night before. She panicked, of course, and called me crying, and I attempted to reach the parents because I couldn't believe they would actually leave her there. It's insane. They didn't answer and after 3 calls it began going straight to voicemail. My daughter had them on findmy for the trip, and could see that they were already out of the state. I arranged a plane ticket and uber for her, and she is home safe now, but she is incredibly upset and stressed out about this situation. Can I do anything legally here? I'm so sick of these people facing no consequences and treating people this way. I can't imagine it's legal to abandon a minor that you are supposed to be caring for, but I'm not sure where to start.

submitted by /u/legalthrowaway908130
[link] [comments]