Slamming a door really is the best punctuation at the end of an argument. There’s drama. There’s intrigue. There’s a somewhat satisfying sound. That is, when used in moderation and when used at appropriate times of day. One teenager, “Maggie,” made a habit out of slamming, so one mom took to the Reddit AITA subreddit to find out if she was an a—hole for removing Maggie’s bedroom door.
“Maggie is a great kid,” the mom wrote in her original post. “She does her homework, helps with chores without too much complaint, doesn’t bug her little brothers (too) much. The issue is that she will not stop slamming her bedroom door. When she gets up to use the bathroom at night she slams her bedroom door on her way out and back in. When she gets up in the morning or goes to bed at night she slams it. Pretty much any time she enters or exits her room the door gets slammed. And it’s only her door, none of the other doors in the house. It shakes the walls and frequently wakes up everyone else in the house. Her brothers room shares a wall with hers and our bedroom is directly above theirs.”
The Original Poster (OP) and her husband have talked to Maggie about being more mindful when opening and closing the door, but it’s “in one ear and out the other.” They told her that if the slamming continues, there will be consequences.
“It all came to a head the other night when she got up to use the bathroom and all four of us were woken up by the slamming,” the mom said. “I have to be up at 5 a.m. for work and I’ve had enough of the broken sleep and came downstairs and knocked on her door. She opened it and said,‘WHAT?!‘with such attitude it took a lot of self control not to start yelling.”
“I told her as calmly as I could that if she slammed that door one more time she was going to come home and find it gone,” she continued. “She proceeded to yell at me to leave her alone and then slammed it five times as hard as she could.”
One commenter’s jaw dropped upon reading this.
“If I had done that to my Mom, her first thought would have been how much she was going to miss me after she had yeeted me directly into the stratosphere,” they wrote.
Unfortunately, as one commenter said, Maggie “effed around and found out.” The following day, the woman and her husband took the door off the frame, installed a curtain rod, and placed a light- and sound-blocking curtain in its place. They then put velcro on the walls and curtain so it would stay in place and decided they would knock on her wall before entering (since knocking on a piece of fabric isn’t exactly effective).
“She came home and freaked the f*ck out. She said we’re being emotionally abusive and taking away her right to privacy,” reported the OP. “We’ve told her we’ll happily put her door back on once she agrees to respect the no slamming rule.”
Reddit can’t support one stepfather’s decision on dividing the bedroom space with his children. https://t.co/31JkbSc3WM
— SheKnows (@SheKnows) February 23, 2023
So many people on Reddit went into this thinking the mother would be the nosy, privacy-invading a-hole, but they quickly changed their tune. And honestly, we can’t find it in ourselves to think this mom is wrong. The top comment (which had more than 44 thousand likes!) said, “NTA. Interrupting everyone’s sleep is unacceptable. You gave her plenty of opportunities to change her door slamming behavior and she didn’t do it. Let her sulk it out … then return the door conditionally for a trial. If she can refrain from slamming it, she can keep it. If not, the door gets taken off again for even more time. Rinse and repeat until she no longer slams.”
If mom and dad get tired of taking the door on and off, commenters encouraged them to get soft-close hinges (or they could DIY a silencer!) and “let technology win.” We can’t help laughing at the image of an angry teen trying to defiantly slam a door that then closes at an “annoyingly slow” pace.
Maggie and her parents are far from the only people in this situation. Many users shared stories of having their own door taken off or watching a sibling or friend lose theirs. And while some of these situations (and perhaps Maggie’s too) can be chalked up to regular ol’ teenage angst, commenters reminded OP that something larger could be going on. And so while Maggie is loudly closing the door, this act of rebellion could be considered an invitation inside.
“I think there’s a potentially awesome parenting/bonding opportunity to dig deeper into what’s bothering her so much that she’s taking it out on a door in her teenage fury. I’d return her door to her really quickly and wrap it into a conversation about what is really going on.”
“Before you go, check out some of Reddit‘s most ridiculous grown children.“
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