AITA for pressing charges against my son?

A Reddit user shared a challenging family conflict involving their 28-year-old son. While babysitting his 4-year-old niece, the son claimed she had accidentally shattered their TV, prompting her parents to cover the cost.

However, security footage and a confession from the son’s girlfriend later revealed that he had stolen the TV and taken it to his home. Feeling betrayed, the user decided to press charges against their son, sparking debate about whether this action was too harsh or justified.

‘ AITA for pressing charges against my son?’

My son (28) was visiting us for a couple days and was at my house alone babysitting my daughters kid. According to my son, the other day my 4-year-old granddaughter (his niece) pulled down the TV and broke it. My son told us that he took the TV to the d**p as it was shattered and useless.

My daughter and son-in-law (my 4yo granddaughters parents) felt very bad for what had happened and paid the cost of the TV that day. My husband was watching our security cameras and our son’s story doesn’t hold up. We never see our granddaughter breaking the TV.

All that we see is our son taking away the TV that is not shattered. We asked our son about this and he said that the security camera must have cut out the part that shows our granddaughter breaking the TV. Eventually I got a call from my son’s girlfriend that lives with him. She said that she knew what was going on and felt guilty.

She basically told us that our son had made up the story about the TV breaking and stole it and took it to their house to watch. I filed a police report and his girlfriend let the police into their house to get us our TV back. We do plan on pressing charges against him. He stole our TV and made my daughter pay for it. That is messed up on so many levels. AITA for pressing charges?

See what others had to share with OP:

3Fluffies −  NTA at all! If you don’t press charges, he’ll think he can get away with stuff like this! Not cool! Frankly, you’re not only not the a**hole, you absolutely did the right thing and should be praised for it! I’m glad his girlfriend had the integrity to come clean! If it’s his first offense,

he can plea down to a misdemeanor and get some community service, and hopefully learn his lesson before does something that gets him years behind bars!

educatedvegetable −  NTA I usually don’t agree with involving the police in family disputes but in this case, it was warranted. He blatantly lied about and to a child, forced the hand of your daughter to pay for the replacement cost of the TV, and stole the TV.

If confronted, the situation could have escalated, so filing the police report was the right thing to do. What I’m wondering is what his long game was? Like, you would come over to his place, see your old TV and not notice?

thisislikemy10thalt −  NTA. He stole from you.

WritPositWrit −  ESH just because I think calling the police and pressing charges against your child should be a LAST resort, not a FIRST choice. A lot of steps need to come before involving the police.

You clearly trusted him since he was alone in your home babysitting his niece. You don’t go from Trust to Charges without first hitting all the steps in between. (You know: talking … banning him from your home … insisting that he return your tv … that sort of thing)

[Reddit User] −  NTA he needs help. Edit:Why did I get so many upvotes I’m just saying what needed to be said, I don’t need upvotes.

excalibro_umbra −  Family or not, theft is theft. You have every right to press charges against your son for what he did. If you don’t do anything, he’ll have this mentality that he can get away with anything when it comes to you guys.. NTA.

schnapps267 −  YTA You’ve put charges on your son for something that could have been handled within the family. Sounds like your son is probably going through a tough time to get to the point of doing that. Why don’t you be a parent and figure it out between yourselves.

AGMum1691 −  So who was watching the grandchild whilst he stole the TV? I certainly wouldn’t let him watch a child again. I’m assuming the child wasn’t told off for breaking the TV in the beginning? Also, the must be trust issues in the first place if you felt the need to check the CCTV

[Reddit User] −  Yes YTA who the f**k reports their own son to the police?