Me [24m] with my entire family, who now hate my guts for being a whistleblower

A Reddit user shared the painful consequences of his decision to call CPS on his family due to the educational neglect of his younger siblings. Despite his best intentions to help, especially after seeing his siblings struggle with their homeschooling, his actions have caused his family to shun him. Now, he’s left questioning if he did the right thing and whether reconciliation is even possible. Read the full story below to understand the emotional conflict he’s facing.

‘ Me [24m] with my entire family, who now hate my guts for being a whistleblower’

I hope you’ll bear with me here, because I have a lot of family members. I come from a religious community that doesn’t believe in the public school system and tends to have a ton of kids. I have an older sister “Julia” 27f, a step brother “Ron” 22m, a step sister “Molly” 17f, a half-brother “Joe” 13m, and a half-sister “Lucy” 11f.

Growing up, all of us were “homeschooled.” This involved a lot of n**lect, lack of textbooks or seasonally appropriate clothes/shoes, unheated house, and sometimes physical abuse. I lived mostly with my mom, but spent weekends with my step family. Both houses were dysfunctional. My step mom used to have a severe problem with a**oholism, although she’s been better in the last few years.

Ron is my best friend and I would be lost without him. We’ve supported each other through years of hard times, and we discuss a lot how our lives could have been different if we’d been sent to school or generally had a more healthy home life. Obviously, we don’t want the same thing for our younger siblings, and don’t want to see them struggling in minimum wage jobs while trying to study for a GED the way we’re doing.

When I went to visit him recently I found that my step mom had gone out of the country for an ENTIRE WEEK and left the youngest two at the house. Ron and Molly both work (Molly hasn’t been doing any “homeschooling” for about 2 years) and are out of the house for most of the day and night.

I tried to help Lucy with her math homework, but she was extremely behind grade level and kept getting distracted because she had to make lunch or do chores. Joe spends all day in his room playing video games and gets no guidance from anyone. I tried to (as gently as possible) get him to do some reading, but he doesn’t understand how serious the situation is, and obviously is having too much fun to care. So I called CPS and reported educational n**lect. And obviously everyone knew it was me.

And Ron told me that Stepmom said I wasn’t welcome at the house anymore and to never contact any of them again. Molly is extremely mad at me. She blocked me on Facebook and doesn’t have a cellphone where I can reach her. Julia, who somehow heard about all this despite living across the country, also blocked me on Facebook, and reported my Facebook as impersonating a celebrity, (Facebook deleted it, generally making everything harder).

This stings even more because I’m already estranged from my biomom over my religious beliefs. I now have no family members left (besides Ron, thank bejeebus) who want anything to do with me. I feel like I make enemies everywhere I go. Did I do the right thing? Ron has been saying for years that he “can’t” call CPS, and I guess this is why, but at least he doesn’t blame me. He suggested that I try to talk to Stepmom once some time has passed, but I would have no idea where to begin.

Tl;dr: I called CPS because my youngest two siblings are being educationally neglected. My whole family is now shunning me and I don’t know if it’s appropriate, reasonable, or even possible to try to reconcile with them either now or when we’ve all cooled off.

Take a look at the comments from fellow users:

Storytella2016 −  Expect the next few years to be tough, and expect your mother and stepmother to never come around. Your siblings will shun you until they get older and into the real world, and then they’ll realize you were the one person who cared enough to put yourself out. Petition Facebook to get your profile reinstated (I’m assuming you weren’t really impersonating someone else). Keep that profile up so the others can reach you when they’re ready.

Also, there are great ex-homeschooled support groups online. You aren’t the only one who’s been through this. Get connected with them and form a new logical family since your biological family is such as failure. Edit: Of course there’s a subreddit! Try /r/homeschoolrecovery as a starting point

BrokenPaw −  Yes, you did the right thing. A surgeon has to damage the body in order to do something that is needful that will help the body more than it was hurt…but that doesn’t mean that the body isn’t injured and doesn’t feel pain from the surgery. What you did was surgery of another kind: you did something that was needful, despite the hurt that it would cause in the near term, in order to hopefully make things better in the long run.

There’s no way to tell, now, whether you can reconcile with them. That will depend entirely upon time, and upon whether they come to realize that you did what you did out of love for the kids, and not out of malice. For now, all you can do is hope that what you did will benefit the children, and wait. You did the right thing. Never forget that.

Derptron5K −  You absolutely did the right thing. This is why CPS exists. Those poor kids. The best you can hope for is they are relocated, and they understand what you did later in life. I’m sorry you have to go through this.

jsamwg −  Although you did the right thing, the most important point is to get out of this “religious community/cult” that you are in and distance yourself from them as much as possible. They are doing you a favor by cutting you off. You don’t reveal much, but please step out into the world as much as you can. Go to college if you haven’t already. Once you are self-sustaining and on your own, you can begin to look towards helping some of your siblings.

spenardagain −  You did the right thing. They kids are being neglected. The family is all in the happy place of denial to keep the dysfunctional parents happy. You showed them reality, so they either have to (a) admit you’re right, take a hard look at themselves and make changes, or (b) act like you’re the anti-Christ. So obviously they picked option b. In a way, it has nothing to do with you. They would demonize anyone who challenged their denial.

What that means is, you won’t be able to reconcile until either you are willing to say you were wrong and all the terrible things they said about you were correct (don’t do this) or until enough time has passed that they can go into denial that it ever happened. In the meantime, it’s sounds like you’re not flush with cash, but if there’s any avenue to get counseling, you should look into it. If you’re in the US and have health insurance, it may be covered.

[Reddit User] −  and is claiming she’s gonna report me to the police for slander. Being that slander is a civil matter, they won’t give a rats ass. I suppose this threat only serves to illustrate the failings in her “education”.

MrCapitalismWildRide −  Give it time. Possibly a lot of time. Eventually your younger siblings will hopefully realize that what you did was in their best interest. You reported an abuser and it revealed that she’d already done plenty to brainwash and poison your family against you. You did the right thing, but you probably won’t be able to reconcile with your step mom.

ulalumial −  Please check out Libby Anne’s blog Love, Joy, Feminism as well as the associated network of former homeschool and quiverfull blogs. There is a lot that will seem familiar to you and show you how to draw boundaries with your relationships to your family.
Good luck. You’ve done the right thing.

acox1701 −  You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life. – Winston Churchill. Seriously, look at the quality of the person who hates you, and see what it says about you. I would relish the hate of people who do things like this to their children.

PM_TITS_OR_DONT −  Did I do the right thing? I think you calling CPS was appropriate. I think you saw serious n**lect going on and wanted to do something about it. I think you knew the consequences but you also knew that talking to your step-mom about your concerns would have been unproductive.

I’m not surprised a lot of your family reacted this way. You need to remember, CPS has no magic wand to wave that will make your younger half-siblings suddenly get a better education while remaining at home with the family that loves them. They are outsiders, and they can take kids away from families. Also, there’s a huge stigma associated with getting the attention of CPS.

When you feel sad about feeling cut off from your family, remember that you chose to accept that consequence in order to help Lucy and Joe. If they get a better education, if they grow up better because of you, it’ll be worth it.