My parents left me in a parking lot during the trip to cheer up my sister, who failed school, but I wrote a paper about it, and my parents are in trouble with social services. My family is a little, how do I put it, crazy? I think that’s the right word, because here I am sitting in a quiet corner of the library with Wi-Fi and a laptop trying to figure out just how crazy my parents are.
For context, I’m 17 and a senior in high school. I’ve always been a good student. I like doing homework, reading, studying, and all that stuff. My parents love to joke that I was born with a calculator in one hand and a pencil in the other. My sister, who’s 15, is the opposite. She’s not doing badly academically, but she’s more interested in sports, her friends, and TikTok than school, and she usually gets by with C grades.
This semester, things changed. I worked harder than ever and finished at the top of my class with perfect grades. My sister failed two core classes, so she had to attend summer school. Naturally, I thought my parents would finally acknowledge my work. Maybe they’d treat me to a nice dinner or pat me on the back, but that’s not what happened at all.
Instead, they decided my sister needed a mood boost. Their solution was a week-long vacation at a lakeside cabin three hours away. That would have been fine, except they didn’t invite me. To be clear, they left me behind on purpose. And here’s the best part. They drove me to a halfway point, stopped in a random parking lot near a hiking trail, and told me to get out.
My mom’s exact words were that it builds character. She said she’d help me with one of my college essays. My dad chimed in with a smile, saying, “Sleeping under the stars would be an adventure.” My sister just sat in the backseat, scrolling on her phone. I thought they were joking. I laughed and said, “Okay, good joke, now let’s go.”
But my mom just shoved my backpack at me—the one I’d packed thinking I was going with them—and said I’d thank her later. Then they left. I stood there in SOC, in a parking lot by the woods, watching them leave. I had no food beyond a couple of granola bars, and no cash except for $100 I’d stashed in my wallet. I had no idea what to do.
So I did what I always do. I solved the problem. I walked along the trail for a while until I found a clearing by the river. I unrolled my sweatshirt and used it as a pillow. I lay there, staring up at the sky, the stars drawing sharp lines in the black, and I thought, “Maybe this is the character building they were talking about. Maybe this is the rehearsal.”
Here’s the thing. I’ve been stressing over my college application essay draft for months. Each draft seems to lack anything interesting to say. And now here I am, abandoned in the woods with nothing by my own parents. I wrote about resilience. I wrote about seeing the car, driving away, and realizing I was alone.
I wrote about how education has always been my anchor in a family that rewards stupidity, not hard work. I poured every ounce of frustration into that draft. I didn’t even think about polishing it, I just let it flow. There would be time to improve it later. When I finished, I walked back to the parking lot and walked the 3 km to town.
I bought a bus ticket home with those dollars. I arrived before they even wrote to me. They didn’t write to me anyway, not once. There wasn’t one. Hey, are you okay? Didn’t a werewolf eat you? Nothing. They came back from their vacation, sunburned and relaxed, complaining about traffic. Meanwhile, I was at the kitchen table editing my essay.
My mom took one look at me and said, “You survived, didn’t you?” “That’s the spirit.” My dad laughed and said, “That’s our little nerd.” I just thought of more material for my essay. A week later, one of my teachers encouraged me to submit my essay to a local youth writing contest. I didn’t think much of it, but I submitted it. And then everything went crazy.
The essay won. Not just a contest, it was picked up by the local newspaper. They published it as a report. Suddenly, the townspeople were talking. Teachers congratulated me, and neighbors called my parents asking if the story was true. My parents went crazy. They cornered me in the kitchen, furious.
My mom said I’d made them look like monsters, which, in truth, is exactly what they were. But it was too late. The newspaper published it. My name is in it. And the final straw: someone called child protective services after reading it. Not that that was my plan anyway, but I also didn’t think anything good would come of it if people found out what my parents did.
So, in part, yes, my essay was revenge. Now there’s an investigation. My parents are pacing around the house, terrified, waiting for the FBI to break down their door. They won’t because the FBI doesn’t do these things. I looked it up. But they have that terror in their eyes, as if it could happen. At least I won’t be the one to tell them. In the end, they were right.
It built character. If it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t have written such a great essay, and now they wouldn’t be receiving the karma of the services and the town. Look who’s building character now, parents. You’re welcome. Update one. When I wrote the first post, my parents were pacing around like caged animals, waiting for child protective services to arrive. I feared for my safety.
No one told me if they were vaccinated against rabies, but even with rabid animals, I wasn’t going to move until I saw the consequences of their trip. It was everything I expected and more. It happened on a Thursday afternoon. My mom was in the kitchen obsessively cleaning the countertops because that’s what she does when she’s nervous and doesn’t know what to do.
Others were eating. My mother was cleaning. My father was sitting in his recliner, silently watching TV. My sister was scrolling through TikTok, and then the doorbell rang. I got up and opened the door. A woman was standing there with a clipboard and a badge. She introduced herself calmly but seriously, saying she was here to follow up on a report about my safety.
You could almost hear my mother’s blood pressure rising as she launched into the frayed, high-pitched, honeyed voice, insisting it was all a misunderstanding, that I was fine, that everything was fine. The child protective services worker said she still needed to speak with me privately. This made my parents even more nervous. My dad tried to argue, saying there was no need, but she cut him off with, “If you refuse, I can call the police and discuss this with them.”
“So they fell silent. We sat at the dining room table, just the child protective services worker and me. My father was moving a chair to sit down, but the worker said this would be between her and me, so I could go do something else. Meanwhile, she asked me to explain what happened the day my parents left me.
I didn’t have to exaggerate it to make it sound worse, because it already sounded pretty bad. Just the facts: they dropped me off in the parking lot, told me to sleep under the stars, left me with almost no food or money, and then walked to the next town to buy a bus ticket back.
She asked me if I felt unsafe at home. I told her the truth: my parents don’t hit me, but they don’t protect me either. They undermine me, dismiss me, and believe neglect is a twisted lesson in resilience. She wrote it all down, nodding slowly, and asked if I had anyone outside the home to support me.
It was the first time I felt the knot in my chest loosen. Because yes, teachers, my school counselor, even my boss at the tutoring center where I work on weekends. I named names and seemed relieved that I had a network. She left me a card and told me to call, feeling insecure again. Then she went to talk to my parents.
I don’t know exactly what they said to her, but judging by the shouting and frantic gestures, it wasn’t gentle. My mom insisted it was just a creative parenting technique. My dad tried to argue that I was never in danger and that I’m smart enough to handle myself. At one point, I heard my mom say that I was exaggerating to get attention, which only made the worker’s tone firmer.
He remained professional, but I caught a few lines. Negligence isn’t a teaching tool. No matter how smart he is, you’re still responsible for his safety. When the worker finally left, my parents looked as if I’d slept under the stars. My parents told me I should have kept quiet, but not much more.
In the end, they didn’t want me to continue talking to the worker either, but I replied that technically I hadn’t spoken, I had written, and pointed to my head to tell them I had thought about it. The next day, my English teacher asked me to speak. She had read the article in the newspaper and told me she was proud of me.
She then told me she’d sent my essay to a friend of hers who works as an admissions counselor at a local college. They seemed impressed. She said I might receive interest beyond the ones I’d already applied to. It wasn’t an option in my head, but it couldn’t hurt to have more options if the others didn’t accept.
Later, at the cafeteria, a couple of classmates I barely spoke to approached me and said they’d also read the piece. One said it resonated with him because his parents are similar to mine. Meanwhile, my parents started to panic even more. My mom ranted about the neighbors’ whispers.
My dad grumbled about coworkers playing pranks. One night, my mom cornered me and said I had to write a follow-up essay, clarifying that it was all dramatized. She wanted me to submit it as creative writing. I told her no. She snapped her fingers and told me to do it because she was my mother and I had to listen to her.
I asked if the worker needed to hear this too, because if so, I should call right away. That was the end of my mother’s threats. My dad took a softer approach, sat me down, and said he knew I didn’t want this to go that far, but if child protective services kept investigating, it could ruin us all.
He suggested I just stay quiet and not bother the bear. I replied that none of this was ruining me, so there was no need for him to speak for everyone. My boss at the tutoring center pulled me aside during my shift. She told me she’d also read the article. Apparently, it was circulating.
He said if I ever needed a place to stay, I could use the guest room in his house. And he also offered to write me a great letter of recommendation. My mom tried to ground me, but I ignored her. I’m 17. I’m applying to colleges and jobs. She can’t ground me like I’m 10. My dad has retreated into silence, nursing his pride with beers in the recliner.
Yesterday, Child Protective Services called me directly. They wanted to check on me and said they’d make another visit soon. When I told my parents, my mom’s face twisted as if she’d bitten something sour, perhaps her own lip. I still don’t understand why no one in this family, except for me, is building character.
It’s even a similar exercise to the one they tried on me. I don’t understand why my parents don’t appreciate it. It might not be a forest, but the services look just as terrifying, if not more so. Update two. Child Protective Services returned this time with two workers instead of one. Double karma, I guess. They separated us again.
I was in the dining room, my parents in the living room. The new worker, a man this time, asked more pointed questions. What’s a typical day like in your house? Who makes sure you eat? You feel like you can talk to your parents when something’s wrong. I told him the truth. I won’t tell you everything we talked about, but you can imagine what my life is like with my parents if they did what they did.
Then they asked the big question: Do you want to stay here? My answer was that I wanted stability until I could go to college, whether I came from this house or somewhere else. I didn’t tell them directly that I wanted them to move me out of here because I was almost there anyway, but I also wasn’t sure that foster care was the best option at this point.
While my parents were in the other room putting on their best concerned-parent act, I could hear bits and pieces, things like, “OP’s birthday is coming up soon, we have to prepare something big because it will be his last one at home and all that stuff to look good, like concerned parents.
“At one point, my mom said quite loudly, as if she were on a construction site talking to her coworker, that they loved my writing creativity, which caused the worker to stop mid-write. After Child Protective Services left, my parents announced we would be having a family meeting.
There wouldn’t be a birthday party, and they didn’t love my writing. They wanted to talk some sense into me, so to speak. They sat me down at the table and began damage control. My mom said she’d been thinking and that maybe they miscalculated how their actions were perceived. My dad added that people outside the family don’t understand our dynamic and want to twist things.
I sat listening with my arms crossed. My mom asked me to call child protective services to tell them I knew they loved me and that I’d never doubted it. My dad finished with the classic: We’re all just trying to do the best we can. I asked them if they wanted me to call now or later to tell them my parents were extorting me.
That was the end of the meeting. To give you an idea of the scope of my essay, since it’s a small town, even the supermarket cashier asked me how I was. Parents of children from my school gave me sympathetic smiles as they dropped off or picked up their children from school. It was surreal. For me, it was pretty good, for my parents, it was humiliating.
They began avoiding neighbors, social events, even skipping church because people were staring. One night, my mom burst into my room and accused me of ruining her social life. She said her friends didn’t want to be with her because I had portrayed her as a bad mother. My sister finally broke her silence.
She cornered me in the hallway one night and said she didn’t ask for any of this. She hated that I wrote the essay and said everyone now saw her as the spoiled child. I had no answer for that. She’s my parents’ spoiled child, and in the worst way. This isn’t a bigger birthday party or whatever. It’s literally abandoning your other child to save costs on the cabin.
Apparently, my parents had discovered that if they brought two children instead of one, it would cost $50 more per night. So they sent me there so I could arrange to return. My guidance counselor called me after school for a meeting and told me that if things at home got worse, she could reconnect me with resources.
Last weekend, child protective services showed up again, but this time while my parents were arguing. The worker walked in just as my mom was screaming about something or other. I wasn’t going to wait for them to finish before opening the door. That would take the word “surprise” out of surprise follow-up visits.
My dad told her to calm down when he saw her walk in. It was chaos. The worker didn’t even blink when she asked me to pack a bag and leave with her that night. It was just a temporary placement to give everyone space. I grabbed my backpack and left. And that night I stayed with a host family two towns away.
Luckily, they were kind, normal, and quiet. I sat at their table eating spaghetti and realized this is what home is supposed to feel like. The next day, my parents called me. They accused me of playing the victim to get sympathy. My mom was angry at child protective services because they didn’t have the right to take me, and my dad muttered about government abuse of authority because, according to him, the government likes to steal children.
I had another meeting with my parents and child protective services. This time there were two workers again, a case manager and a uniformed officer. The meeting was to sit everyone down and clear the air. We were all in the room. The case manager began by explaining what they had seen so far.
Neglect, emotional abuse, unstable environment. She openly stated that the night in the parking lot was unacceptable. Leaving a child like that wasn’t teaching resilience, it was abandonment. My mom jumped in with a loud voice, insisting that the whole thing was overblown. She called my essay a creative exaggeration. The officer cut that off quickly, saying it wasn’t an exaggeration when they had my own testimony, receipts for the bus ticket I bought, and corroboration from people who saw me there when they dropped me off.
That’s when my dad tried to smooth things over by talking about cultural misunderstandings and parenting differences. The manager leaned forward and said, “I’ve heard too many neglectful parents for you to come to me with a story like that. If my father had been a cartoon, he would have deflated like a balloon on the spot.”
The manager turned to me and asked if I wanted to stay here or if I’d rather they find me an alternative placement until I turned 18. I replied, “I’d rather be somewhere else.” My mom lost it. She stood up, started pacing, ranting that I’d embarrassed her, ruined her reputation, ruined her life, everything. She called me ungrateful, selfish, and dramatic, all in front of protective services.
The officer stood between us, telling her to sit down because he was authorized to use force. My dad tugged on her arm, whispering to her to stop, which only made her turn around and slap him, because she said he hadn’t done anything to help. Chaos. Then my sister started crying, not for me, but for her.
She blurted out that she was tired of being compared to me, that she hated being a failure, and that she never asked to be involved in this. My mom tried to comfort her by saying we had to stick together as a family, but my sister shook her off, yelling that sticking together was what got us here.
It was the first time I saw my sister say anything about all this, and I think she chose the worst possible time for my parents because she did it in front of these people. Child protective services took me back to the foster home. After we left, things at home exploded. I know this because my sister told me.
My mom turned on my dad, yelling at him for not standing up for her. She also turned on my sister because she had betrayed the family and didn’t expect that from her. Meanwhile, my parents’ social circle began to shrink even further. My mom’s best friend told her she couldn’t be her friend anymore.
My dad and his classmates were mocked by child protective services, and he came home angrier than usual. My sister tells me they’re going crazy, even aggressive, but at least they’re not doing it to her. Child protective services is following his case, so it’s not like they can lay a hand on him now.
But they bang on doors and walls and argue loudly with each other a lot. I’ve told him to record everything he can on video or audio and that if he ever gets scared, he can call 911 or call me. Update 3. I never thought I’d write so much about a night in a parking lot, but here we are.
But the dust has settled, and I need to start looking forward instead of back. Two weeks after my last post, Child Protective Services returned to my parents’ house with those important papers. The caseworker explained that after reviewing everything, they decided the home wasn’t a safe or stable environment.
The papers were for temporary guardianship. I would live with a foster family until I turned 18, unless I preferred to go with a family friend. With that, my move became permanent rather than just a short-term arrangement. I think my parents thought Child Protective Services was bluffing the whole time.
They thought they’d scold him, write a report, and then return me to them. When they realized it was real, that I was legally leaving the house, all hell broke loose. My mom claimed they couldn’t do that, that it was kidnapping, that I was using this to harm them. My dad stood up as if he was going to argue, but the officer reminded him that the court had already approved it, and wasting his breath on this wasn’t going to help them at all.
If he resisted, he’d be arrested, which would only add insult to injury to his already buried case. So my mom screamed, and my dad sat back as usual. I actually like living with this foster family. They’re an older couple a few towns away, but they’re so kind and good to me. They take more interest in my things than my own parents. Their house smells like cinnamon.
They have two lazy dogs and a plate of cookies on the counter, which is where the cinnamon smell comes from. It’s not the best thing for my belly. I don’t want to go to college with a beer belly before I’ve even tried one, but at least I feel more content and loved than I did with my parents.
People, like my tutoring center boss, have helped out in every way they can. They’ve given me extra help here and there so this new transition doesn’t affect my applications as much. I don’t think I’ll ever stop being grateful for that. The local newspaper published a follow-up article, and to clarify, please stop asking me for the link because I don’t want people to find out who I really am.
This time it wasn’t just my essay; it was a report on parental neglect, featuring photos of my parents that didn’t come out very well in the pictures. They’re the talk of the town with all this. My dad started missing work, getting sick more often than usual. My mom hardly ever leaves the house, unless it’s for essentials.
My sister kept telling me about them. I guess it was her way of trying to talk to me. My sister even started spending more nights at friends’ houses than at her own. I learned from others that Child Protective Services permanently flagged their files. They’ll be monitoring them for years, especially since my sister is still a minor.
My mom blames me for bringing the government into our lives. I blame her for leaving me in a parking lot. I think it’s a fair tie. Surprisingly, my sister and I started talking more after I left. We’ve exchanged messages since then, and she admitted she hated the pressure put on her. We’re not suddenly best friends, but for the first time, it feels like we’re allies instead of rivals.
The last time I saw my mom was brutal. She came to a meeting with child protective services and tried to plead her case. She said I’d twisted everything, that I was a manipulative narrator, and that nothing I said was true. I was just a spoiled brat lying to make myself look good. Well, if I’m a spoiled brat, who should we blame for that? None of it has done any good.
My sister’s investigation is still ongoing, although there’s nothing concrete about it, like abandoning me in the middle of nowhere so they can get her out. For my part, I’ve received a few university acceptances and am already starting the process of deciding where I’ll study next year. I have partial scholarships, so I’ll have to take out student loans and work to pay them off, but believe me, that’s like a vacation for me compared to living with my parents.
Update 4. I’m back after a while, having settled into the university I finally chose. It wasn’t my first choice, but it was the one that gave me the largest partial scholarship of all, and therefore will allow me to study without going into so much debt. It’s not bad, but it’s not the one I would have chosen if money hadn’t been an issue.
Which I think with my parents, anyway, it would have been, with or without their son’s abandonment. I feel a little bad about leaving my foster parents. I think in these few months I’ve felt closer to them than I’ve felt to my parents my entire life. I think if I had encountered a werewolf that day when they abandoned me, I’d feel more attachment to him than to my own parents.
Anyway, I’m still in touch with my host parents. I’ve promised to return for the holidays and maybe visit some weekend when I can figure out what I’m doing here. Everything is new for now, and I’m getting used to this new life. Work, classes, study sessions—I’m figuring it out as I go.
My parents are also figuring out how to be single parents. They still think they’re parents, but they were bad at it even when they had kids in the house. My sister has been removed from their care and is living with my foster parents at my recommendation until I can find a way to bring her with me. She can’t live with me in the college dorms, and an apartment is a bit expensive, but I’ll find a way to make it work.
What exactly happened to my parents that caused Child Protective Services to take my sister away from them lives up to expectations. My parents wanted her to write an essay about what great parents they were, one that rivaled mine. I don’t want to sound like only my essays are good, but I’m the nerd and my sister isn’t, if you recall.
Besides, she refused to write that. They wanted me to talk about the good things they’d done over the years. They wanted me to lie, because they were better to her than to me, but not much. I don’t know what they wanted me to write, something like they rescued her from under the rubble of a collapsed building and also a little kitten or something like that.
They needed a strong case for a powerful facelift if they really wanted to fix their image. She refused and refused until they told her, “Either do it or you’ll find out.” And she preferred the “you’ll find out” approach, which involved locking her in her room for three days without allowing her to leave even to go to the bathroom. By then, the investigation by the services had stopped because they had basically found nothing that warranted it.
But my sister decided not to wait the three days, and after about six hours, she escaped. She didn’t want to call me when she was grounded because she didn’t want to worry me, which is stupid. For something like this, she should have. She could have called the services contact, anything. For the context you need from here on out, my sister has a room on the first floor of the house, just like I do.
My parents sleep in the downstairs room. So around 10 p.m., my sister was trying to get down through the roof that overlooks her window. In the dark, she stepped wrong, rolled, and fell in front of the house. My parents didn’t even notice because their room is in the back. But a neighbor saw what was happening and helped her.
She also called 911, and after treating her and taking her to the hospital, she was able to confirm that, apart from a few scratches and the shock of the fall, nothing had happened. However, she informed child protective services, where my parents already had a rather large case file on me. You already know the outcome.
My sister was taken to a foster family, and I’m trying to bring her with me. She still attends the same school because, just like me, they take her by car every morning and pick her up in the afternoon. Those are the advantages of being older, with free time and a big heart. If she moves in with me, we’ll have to change schools, but she doesn’t mind that idea.
My parents are now facing charges because apparently locking up a teenager without access to a bathroom, and maybe even food, is far worse than abandoning me near werewolves. Yes, those werewolves may be cool and might invite you to play a game of basketball on their makeshift court in the middle of the woods, but it’s still bad.
Still, I plan to return to the city to give my testimony when it goes to trial, because it will be taken into account. I didn’t plan on writing so much, but I needed to share so much, including the werewolf thing. Update five. Since I’ve been getting asked this a lot in comments and private messages, I’ll answer that one first.
No, my sister isn’t living with me. It’s not because I didn’t want to, as I was making arrangements to get my own apartment and bring her with me, but she preferred to stay with our foster parents. She ended up getting attached to them, which doesn’t surprise me, and leaving her friends and everyone else behind would have been very hard.
They agreed, even insisting that my sister live with them. It was another excuse to visit them and my sister. My parents faced consequences for the charges filed. For child neglect, they received a fine of around $2,000 and were required to attend parenting classes. Still, my sister had the option of deciding whether or not to return to live with them.
After having done these things, but you know what he said. Well, no, you don’t know what he said, but the decision he made. He said he wouldn’t go back to them even if they paid him. You know, cinnamon cookies have that charm on people and you don’t want to leave them. We know our parents have moved because the family home we all lived in was for sale for a while and then was taken over by other people.
No one knows where my parents have gone because they practically packed up everything at night and left. My mother doesn’t have a problem with this. She can find another job in any other city, but my father had a job associated with something in our town. I won’t say what it is, because it would be very easy to find out which town it is, but I wonder what he’s working on now.
Although I won’t lie, curiosity isn’t enough to make me want to know anything about them. Unless my parents were chosen as animals to be sent into space and it’s all over the news, I think this will be my last update. M.
