Millions of parents have taken to social media over the years, sharing stories of raising their kids and navigating common parenting struggles in hopes of going viral. But the next time you see a mom or dad influencer on your feed, remember that you can’t always trust everything posted online.
This 17-year-old man’s recent discovery about his stepmother is a prime example of how people sometimes lie on social media to get views.
It turns out that she’d been completely fabricating tales about her experience as a “custodial stepmother,” acting as if she’d been raising him and his siblings since they were babies and getting mistreated along the way.
Her whole facade only came to light a few months ago, when he stumbled upon his stepmother’s public social media account. There, she talked about having custody of her stepchildren, who supposedly treated her like garbage and ran to their “birth giver” during their teen years.
His stepmom also claimed to have been their parent from the time they were toddlers because his dad was the “custodial parent” when they met. So, according to her social media profile, she became a stay-at-home mom with a mission of treating all her kids, both biological and step, equally. Moreover, his stepmom told her followers that he and his siblings never even knew what their mom looked like until he found her online at 13 years old.
“She posted about how much that hurt her when she found out I looked up the woman who gave birth to us and abandoned us, which are her words, for your information,” he revealed.
“And she’d post all these Q and A’s where she would help other stepparents be the best custodial parents they could be.”
While combing through his stepmom’s profile, he even realized she’d shared certain details about him and his siblings, as well as posted a photo of his 14-year-old brother without blurring his face.
Yet, one of the most shocking lies his stepmom told involved a made-up runaway situation. She stated that one day, he and his siblings ran away to their birth mother’s house and had to be brought back home.
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Next, she alleged it happened three additional times before the court got involved and decided it’d be simpler to let him and his siblings live with their birth mom.
According to him, though, all of these stories are completely false. In fact, both of his birth parents had always shared custody throughout their entire lives. On top of that, he and his siblings actually stayed at his mom’s house more because his dad was forced to work out of town for about five days each month.
“My dad’s wife has never, ever been the primary parent for us. Even when dad was at work, and she was at home, we didn’t spend a lot of time with her, and she was never responsible for doing everything like she claimed,” he revealed.
He and his siblings never had a solid relationship with their stepmom, either. That made uncovering her social media account even more infuriating.
Apparently, his stepmom always despised his birth mom and enjoyed sparking drama over little things.
“Like the fact my mom didn’t just let us stay with dad’s wife when dad was out of town for five days. Or the fact she expected mom to stop talking to ‘her man,’ even through their co-parenting app,” he noted.
So, after he came across his stepmom’s social profile, he saved a ton of her videos and showed them to his birth mom. Then, when his stepmom went “live” online one day, he started commenting and exposing her for lying about literally everything on her page. He also decided to make his own profile public so people could see that he and his birth mom had spent time together throughout his whole childhood.
As you can probably imagine, this made his stepmom livid. She actually got so angry that she threatened to hurt his birth mom, and the police were called.
That’s when his dad finally got involved, but after seeing the videos, his dad still defended his stepmom by arguing that she didn’t harm anyone. In his eyes, his wife had just talked about “loving” their kids, so his dad didn’t think it was a big deal.
Regardless, he and his siblings have been living with his mom ever since the truth came out. Meanwhile, his stepmom believes he had no right to “intrude” on her public account and accused him of being abusive by publicly humiliating her out of spite.
“I didn’t even waste my time trying to explain why she was a hypocrite,” he vented.
“But my dad’s sister and brother-in-law are taking dad and his wife’s side. They said I did it to hurt and humiliate her, and I was childish in how I handled it. They said a private talk would have been wiser.”
Quite frankly, he thinks what his stepmom did was crazy, and she deserved to get exposed for lying about their family. Still, with multiple relatives against him on this, he’s begun questioning whether calling her out was really so unreasonable.
Do you agree that his stepmom’s a hypocrite for publicly slandering his birth mom and spreading lies about his childhood? Have you ever questioned the validity of the parenting stories you see online?
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By Katharina Buczek
Katharina Buczek graduated from Stony Brook University with a degree in Journalism and a minor in Digital Arts. Specializing in... More about Katharina Buczek
