A woman is second-guessing herself after insisting that her 12-year-old stepdaughter be homeschooled — a decision that ultimately led to major changes in custody.
The original poster (OP) shared on Reddit that she and her husband have three girls, ages 3, 5 and 12. The eldest is her husband’s child from a previous relationship.
According to OP, her stepdaughter has an ongoing, undiagnosed stomach condition. She said she and her husband have been working closely with a gastroenterologist and have run what feels like every test possible: blood work, stool tests, colonoscopies, endoscopies, biopsies, ultrasounds and more. While doctors have a few theories, they still have not identified the exact cause of the girl’s symptoms.
OP also described her husband’s ex as “difficult,” saying the girl’s mother prefers natural medicine and resisted more conventional treatment. She allegedly fought putting their daughter on prescribed medications, gave her supplements that worsened the problem, withheld meds and missed medical appointments. Until recently, the parents shared 50/50 custody.
OP said she began to notice that her stepdaughter was missing three to four days of school each week and was falling behind. Because of that, she and her husband thought it would be best to homeschool the 12-year-old. Their 6-year-old was already being homeschooled for unrelated reasons, and OP noted that she has been teaching for 20 years.
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However, her stepdaughter’s mother refused.
“Her mom refused to allow us to homeschool her because it would be unfair for us to see her on her mom’s weeks,” OP wrote, adding that the mother also rejected their alternative suggestion of online school through the district, insisting it “doesn’t count as real school.”
At the same time, they were already in court over the mother’s resistance to medications and missed appointments. OP and her husband added another concern: that the mother was preventing the 12-year-old from “getting an appropriate education.”
The judge ultimately sided with OP and her husband, granting them authority over all medical and educational decisions. As a result, the girl is now homeschooled and only sees her mother for two supervised hours every Saturday.
OP said both her own family and her husband’s family think the outcome is “cruel” to both her stepdaughter and the girl’s mother. In the mother’s view, OP wrote, her daughter was effectively taken away from her because she did not want homeschooling.
Now, OP isn’t sure whether pushing so hard for homeschooling was the right move — especially since, as she added in the comments, her stepdaughter has said she does not want to be homeschooled.
In the comment section, many people agreed that OP and her husband should be in charge of medical and educational decisions, but still felt uneasy about how drastically custody changed.
“You went from 50/50 split custody, to your stepdaughter only seeing her mom for two supervised hours a week,” one commenter wrote. “I agree that it’s probably good that she’s no longer making the medical and educational decisions for her daughter, but [you did take her away].”
They went on to say they didn’t understand why visitation had to be so limited, given that decision-making power had already been removed from the mother:
“She’s no longer in charge of medical or education decisions, so I guess I’m confused why she is being kept away from her daughter so much? She can’t keep you from homeschooling or taking her to the doctor or giving her medication, so why is she now limited to two supervised hours a week? That’s an extreme change from 50/50.”
Another commenter felt that all the adults had mishandled parts of the situation.
“[Everybody sucks]. The mom for withholding meds, but also you for forcing homeschool when your stepdaughter specifically doesn’t want to be homeschooled,” they wrote. “It makes sense that she is falling behind, but why is she missing 3–4 days a week? Twelve is a key time socially and honestly homeschool will further isolate her from her peers.”
A third person argued that OP was not giving enough weight to the girl’s own wishes.
“[Everybody sucks]. The mother absolutely should not be in charge of the child’s medical decisions. That said, what your stepdaughter wanted — to live primarily with you, go to the same school with her friends, spend every other weekend with her mom — sounds like a more ideal scenario,” they said.
“It is a shame her wishes were not taken into consideration,” the commenter added.
