17-year-old brother refuses to drive his sister's friend to school after she rejected his advances: 'Continuing to be around Melissa was making it harder for him to move on.'

He was given a level of responsibility that far exceeded his age.

Teenagers should not be wholly responsible for getting their peers to school. It's very noble for a teen to take on driving their friends without cars or their younger siblings, but if that teen gets grounded and loses driving privileges, it shouldn't mean that the kids that they drive have no way to get to school. Heck, in some states, it's not even legal for a kid under 18 to drive with more than one passenger under 21. Teens do it anyway, but that's all the more reason that they shouldn't be responsible for driving their younger siblings to elementary and middle school.

There's a reason why we have school buses in the first place! Teens who are 16+ might not have cars of their own or friends/parents who can chauffeur them to and from school. It's a shame that there isn't better public transportation outside major cities in the United States, so teens can get to extracurricular activities without their parents' help. On paper, there's no reason a teenager shouldn't be able to get themselves to and from school in a timely manner without relying on their parents' or friends' favors, but the majority of the country lives a car-centric lifestyle. If you don't have a car, you might as well be a hermit who never gets to go anywhere! I've never felt more pressured to do anything in my life than to get my driver's license when I was 16, and it's no mystery why! The majority of kids in my town got their own cars when they turned 16, and getting their license was their ticket to having a modicum of independence from their parents. Without a driver's license, their every move would be at the whim of others.

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The teenager in this story can't simply use the school bus to get around. She attends special classes and has relied on rides from her friend's brother. After he asked her out and she rejected him, he decided he would no longer give her rides, not because he was angry or bitter, but because being around her only made the feelings worse. He never should've been given such a big responsibility in the first place, because now she has nowhere else to turn for transportation, and her education is in jeopardy.
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Am I the bad guy for not forcing my son to keep helping my daughter’s friend after she rejected him?

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