The post, written by u/One_Product_982, received more than 12,900 votes and 800 comments since it was posted on Friday.
In the post, the Redditor, who identified as a 16-year-old female, explained that for the past two years she’s had a stepbrother who is also 16.
“My stepbrother of two years is a little person (term he personally said was ok to use) who nearly everyone at my school likes because he is an extremely funny person,” the post explained. “Everyone expect for a girl I will call Maryann she goes out of her to make his life hell due to him being a little person.”
u/One_Product_982 said in the post that her stepbrother is normally good at making Maryann’s insults into jokes. But recently, Maryann has been making meaner comments than normal and even her friends noticed the comments weren’t funny.
In the post, the Redditor explained that Maryann made a comment to her stepbrother about his sister who passed away and she also used ableist slurs about both of them. She also told her stepbrother to “save my stepdad the embarrassment” of having him as a son and called him the “m” slur.
According to Little People of America, the “m” slur was never coined as an official term by people with Dwarfism. Currently, LPA is working to abolish the word due to derogatory meaning.
“The word ‘midget’ in use today has a negative, degrading, and mean-spirited feel and identity,” the LPA website states.
According to the site, the community prefers being referred to as little people, people of short stature or having dwarfism, or dwarfs.
“Whether the intention of the user of the word is used to bully and to demean, or just as a synonym for small, our collective experience shows us that language has the power to cause permanent damage to one’s self-esteem and identity,” the LPA website states.
In response to the derogatory comments, u/One_Product_982 said that her stepbrother called Maryann multiple names including the “school sl*t.”
According to the post, Maryann ended up crying because “everyone was laughing at her” and Maryann’s mother ended up going to u/One_Product_982’s house and “screamed” at her parents over the situation.
u/One_Product_982 said no one would let her stepbrother explain his side of the story even when she and her other two brothers tried to stand up for him. But she said the parents told them to stop and “painted Maryann” as an “innocent victim.”
In the post, the Redditor said that her stepdad said “some really disgusting stuff” to her step brother and made him apologize to Maryann.
“Maryann gave him a ‘f*ck you smirk’ on her way out,” the post read. “My stepdad scream out my stepbrother extremely ablest stuff then broke his phone and told him he doesn’t want to see him till next Sunday when his mom was due to pick him up.”
According to the post, the Redditor’s stepdad called his ex to tell her about the situation, but allegedly told her a different story and claimed their son was harassing Maryann because she “rejected him.”
“So here’s where I might be the a**hole,” she wrote. “I looked up his ex on Facebook and told her the truth and how my stepbrother was suffering at the hands of Maryann but was too ashamed to tell anyone because of his dad because he knew what would happen. Well long story short his mom ended up at our house with her cop brother and my stepbrother took his stuff.”
In the post, she also explained that her stepbrother’s mom said she is suing her ex for damages to her son’s stuff and that “he will never see” his son again. The ex also showed u/One_Product_982’s parents the messages and she was grounded and got her phone taken.
“My mom came into my room crying saying I ruined Christmas because we will have to use all our money for lawyers to get out of the mess I created and it wasn’t any of my business what happened,” the post read.
Many users showed support for u/One_Product_982 and said that she did the right thing by standing up for her stepbrother.
“NTA!!! You mom & step dad are though,” one user wrote. “You, on the other hand, are a kick a$$ sibling!! Good for you for sticking up for your brother. Any chance you can go live with him & his mom? You’d be better off!”
In a comment, u/One_Product_982 said her older brother plans on calling their dad in hopes of celebrating at his house for Christmas. She also said in an update that her dad is trying to get full custody over her and that she blocked her mom because she didn’t want to hear the “guilt tripping.”
Others mentioned that u/One_Product_982 should report Maryann’s behavior to the school. But some mentioned that it wasn’t Maryann who broke up the family but rather the Redditor’s mom and stepdad.
