Went To Truancy Court Because My Mom Was Taking All My Money And I Couldn’t Afford Gas To Get To School. Now She Wants More.

Location: PA

Hello, I’m looking for advice on my current situation. I (F17) had to go to truancy court with my mother(F53) last Friday after missing over ten days of school. The reason for this was that my mother has all to my money. I currently pay for my car, which is $187.50 every other week and I work 38 hours a week making $12 an hour. Instead of taking the amount needed to pay my car off every month, my mother will not only take more than what she needs, usually an extra $100-$150, but she will also put the money into my car account and then take from it to pay for God knows what and then take more money from me to replace it. She will also sometimes take out money in $10, $25, and $50 intervals if I let it sit in my account for multiple days. After being left with less than $70 every two weeks, I wasn’t able to get to school every day, which led to truancy.

I tried to explain my situation to the judge, who told my mother that if I did not graduate or had any unexcused absences at the end of the school year (May), she would be fined $300. I took this very seriously, but it seems she did not because now she is asking me for $347 every two weeks plus an extra $120 for “my portion of the bills.”

It’s important to add that my mother is a narcissist and there is no way for me to calmly explain to her that I cannot give her this much money because number one, it’s simply unreasonable, and number two, i would have no money left to get gas to go to school, work, and back.

If you’re wondering why I can’t take the bus, I’m enrolled in a hands on program (that I’m taking a culinary class in) that requires me to drive 30 minutes to the building. If I tell her I can’t give her that amount, she will threaten to take my car, call my job to stop me from working, kick me out, yell, scream, or follow me around the house while trying to pick a fight no matter how hard I try to get away or how calm I try to explain this to her.

I have been thinking of contacting my school to explain the situation because not only will this interfere with my attendance again, but not going to school will affect my graduation and I want to graduate more than anything.

My only fear is that there’s no stopping her. I’m well aware that because I’m 17, she is allowed to pull as much money from my account as she wants and there’s not much I can do, but I want to know if there is some barrier the court could put into place to stop this from happening. I can’t afford to give her that much money and I don’t want to have to deal with being berated because I don’t have the money to.

I’m not sure if this is important but I’m going to add it in anyway, she also has a credit card that I am on. I was not with her when she got this credit card and I’m honestly not sure how she obtained it considering that fact, but I was not aware that this account was opened until after she’d already done it. It doesn’t help that she doesn’t pay off her cards either, so I’m scared that this could be linked back to me in the future as well.

Is there anything the courts can do? Is there anything I can do?