I Sacrificed Everything for Him, but He Humiliated Me in Front of Everyone

My name is Marissa. I’m forty-nine. And last month, I accepted a janitorial job at my son Logan’s university. I’m a single mother who has spent years holding together our lives by working two and sometimes even three jobs at a time. Every tuition payment, every textbook, every late-night dinner he scarfed down between study sessions… I earned all of it with exhausted hands and sleepless nights. So when a steady, reliable campus position opened up with good benefits and decent hours, it felt like the first real blessing to come my way in a long time.

But Logan didn’t see it that way at all.

When I told him, honestly expecting at least a small smile or a “that’s great, Mom,” he actually pulled back like I’d said something shameful.

“You got a job here? As a janitor? Mom, that’s embarrassing. What if my friends see you?”

I felt something inside me crack. I tried to brush it off. I even forced out a weak attempt at a joke. “If it bothers you that much, you can pretend you don’t know me.”

He didn’t laugh. He didn’t hesitate. He didn’t even look torn. He just shook his head and left the room like he couldn’t stand to look at me.

The next day, I went to work with a knot in my stomach. They assigned me to one of the busy academic buildings full of professors and students. While I was wiping fingerprints off a row of glass doors, I heard familiar footsteps and voices drifting down the hall. Logan and his friends.

I braced for him to ignore me. That would have hurt, but I could have swallowed it.

What he did instead cut straight through me.

He stared right at me, then turned to his friends and said loudly, “The cleaning crew always leaves streaks on these doors. Don’t touch anything. You never know what they bring in.”

He kept his eyes fixed on me the entire time. Like I was dirt. Like I was someone beneath his notice. Like I wasn’t the mother who had given up everything for him.

His friends laughed. One even made a face like he smelled something awful.

My hands shook around the cloth. I felt myself curling inward, trying to become smaller. But I kept wiping that same patch of glass because if I stopped, I knew I would fall apart right there in front of them.

That night, I couldn’t hold it in. I confronted him.

“Why would you say something like that? Why would you treat me that way?”

He shrugged, unfazed.

“I told you I didn’t want you working here. You chose not to listen. So don’t blame me.”

Not an ounce of remorse. Not a flicker of guilt. Just dismissal, like my feelings were an inconvenience.

I’m shattered. I have poured everything I have into that boy, and he threw me away to score a moment of cool points with his friends. Now I’m stuck wondering what I should do. Do I quit a job I really need? Do I sit him down and make him understand how deeply he hurt me? Or do I step back and let him face the consequences of his own behavior?

I keep circling around the same question.

Am I reacting too strongly, or did he truly break something inside me?