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Student Asked Her Parents To Keep Her Uni Work Safe, But They Lost It Right Before Her Deadline, Is It Their Fault?

by Layla Bui
November 20, 2025
in Social Issues

Deadlines are stressful enough, but when you’ve been counting on something being in place and it’s gone missing, chaos is inevitable. For one university student, this nightmare became a reality just days before their application deadline.

Having stored all their important work with their parents for safekeeping, they thought it was a simple request to pick up their sketchbooks and models before the deadline. But what was supposed to be a routine pickup turned into a disaster. Scroll down to read the whole story!

A student’s parents lose their university work just before a crucial deadline, causing frustration

Student Asked Her Parents To Keep Her Uni Work Safe, But They Lost It Right Before Her Deadline, Is It Their Fault?
not the actual photo

'AITA - parents lost all my uni work two days before my deadline?'

This is literally happening right now and I'm not sure how I feel or if I'm being an arsehole here.

I'm feeling many emotions right now.... For some context, I had a university deadline last Friday,

and another university application deadline this Friday.

When I moved out a few years ago my parents insisted on keeping all my college and university

so they could keep it safe, I thought fair enough, they have a much bigger house

and the space available to keep everything in one place and safe.

Since then, extensive clearing out has occurred at my parents house.

Fast forward to last month and I let my mum know that I would be needing my sketchbooks from my uni work

in order to apply onto master programmes.

I keep mentioning it and she keeps saying she'll get dad to look in the attic for them.

This Sunday comes round, i go over to pick them up and no one has looked for them yet.

Last night they let me know that they can't find anything.

They've found my brothers stuff and a lot of scrappy stuff but nothing that resembles three years of university work...

Long story short, my parents have basically lost my uni work,

my application to these other universities is now compromised,

mum is saying I need to sort this out myself now as she thinks I've given them a hard time. Am I the a__hole?

Edit 1: Thankyou to everyone who had commented, I will include a bit more info below

as I've seen a few re-occuring comments.

I don't live at home, and I contacted my parents a month prior to the deadline,

and kept reminding until I could get home.

When at home I had searched the house with no luck, my parents said they had put everything in the attic for safe keeping

- the attic doesn't have a drop down ladder and unless you're over 6ft like my dad,

it's impossible to get inside. My work was apparently somewhere i could not physically get to.

I'm an architecture student, and whilst i do have digital presentation sheets,

the emphasis of the interview is sketchbooks, hand drawn sheets and models

- which I found trashed in the attic (the models).

My parents have not apologised or spoken to me since Wednesday and my deadline is today.

My portfolio was planned out way before the deadline.

I had the sheets on photoshop set up with all the titles and annotations.

All I needed was my sketchbooks, models and larger drawings to take to a plotter

(I had an appointment booked) to scan and import.

The OP is dealing with a really tough situation; her parents lost years of her university work just two days before a major application deadline. That’s a huge deal, and it’s understandable that she’s feeling frustrated and upset.

After all, all her hard work and planning seem to have vanished, and now she’s scrambling to make it all work again in a very short amount of time. But it’s not just about the lost work, it’s also about the way her parents are handling the situation, and how that’s affecting her emotionally.

At the emotional core, the OP’s frustration is completely justified. She took steps to ensure her work was safe by entrusting it to her parents, and she repeatedly reminded them of its importance. However, despite these repeated requests, her parents failed to act with urgency, and their eventual failure to locate the work feels like a betrayal of trust.

The OP feels torn between staying calm enough to salvage her future and the anger that comes with her parents’ negligence. This is where the emotional fallout comes from. According to Brené Brown, “When we fail to set boundaries and hold people accountable, we feel used and mistreated.”

The OP’s emotions are entirely understandable. When you rely on someone, especially those close to you, for something important, and they fail you, it creates a deep sense of helplessness and frustration.

Trust is a foundational part of any relationship, and when it’s broken, particularly in situations that carry significant consequences, feelings of betrayal, frustration, and emotional exhaustion naturally arise.

In this case, the pressure of the impending deadline and the future impact of the lost work only amplify these emotions. The OP has every right to feel overwhelmed by the situation, given how much is riding on it.

So, whether the OP is overreacting or if her feelings are valid. It’s clear that the OP is under immense stress, and the lack of emotional support from her parents only deepens her sense of abandonment. The OP took every reasonable step to ensure her work was secure, and her frustration is a direct response to the circumstances.

While the parents might have had good intentions in keeping the work safe, they ultimately failed in their responsibility. Their lack of accountability and emotional support adds insult to injury.

As relationship expert Rachael Pace says, “Trust is the glue that holds hearts together and helps you grow closer.” This is a poignant reminder that trust is foundational in relationships; when it’s broken, it strains not only the immediate connection but also the emotional health of the individuals involved.

See what others had to share with OP:

This group agreed that the parents are at fault for losing the items

iconoclast63 − NTA They insisted on safeguarding your stuff and failed and now refuse to admit they did wrong.

Barrel-Of-Tigers − NTA I’m guessing you’re in an art-Art discipline (as in drawing, not history),

so your work is important as part of a portfolio? That’s a big thing to lose.

I can completely understand being mad. Can you contact your university/college and get a copy of your submissions?

SlobBarker − What even is the question here? Are you the a__hole for what?

Your parents lost your things and they're being defensive. Why is this a post?

JackNotName − NTA Your parents need to own up to their b__lshit,

otherwise, you'll never really be able to trust them with anything important again.

These commenters acknowledged that while the parent’s failure to safeguard the items was wrong

Goaliedude3919 − NTA. It may have been a bit foolish in hindsight to leave such important stuff

in a location that you had no control over, but your parents were incredibly irresponsible

by getting rid of your stuff without consulting you.

And based on your description, your brother's stuff is mostly intact, meaning they either didn't care to look closely

at your stuff that they threw away (best case scenario) or they respect your brother,

and therefore his stuff, more (worst case scenario).

RNGGOD69 − Clearly you are NTA here. You will now need to take a valuable life lesson

from this but to come back to the point, if your parents force you

to hand something over for safe keeping and then proceed to f__k up and lose it, it's their fault.

It's worth noting that your parents aren't assholes for losing your work,

they are assholes for their blasé response and lack of responsibility for f__king up

Skyninjataco − NTA. They INSISTED that you leave it there and you rightfully assumed

that they wouldn't throw away or lose anything since they told you to leave it.

Financial_Story − NTA They lied about it being a safe place to store your stuff

and now are trying to flip their failure to follow through as you being the bad guy. A**holes.

El_Clutch − NTA. I remember as a university student, there were some of my possessions

my parents wouldn't let me take because they thought (probably correctly) that

it would get lost among all the moves and stuff. I understood their point and agreed...

with the unspoken assumption that they would safeguard these things.

So by convincing you to leave it with them, and they end up losing it, sorta makes them the a__hole of custodians.

If the house had burned or flooded or something and your stuff was lost it would be a different story,

but lost to spring cleaning is b__lshit.

Binky390 − NTA I moved out of my mom's house 12 years ago and last year

when she thought she was going to move and was throwing stuff out, she called me,

my brother and my sister to confirm old stuff she going want important anymore before trashing it.

Everyone saying handle your own responsibility is full of it.

I generally agree with that sentiment but your parents were careless. Their response is the worst part.

mum is saying i need to sort this out myself now... Not even an apology? I would never be able to trust my parents again.

Greedence − NTA but you are a Dumbass. You knew you were going to be applying to a master's program.

You knew those items were important to you. You should have been responsible enough to care for them yourself.

I am not in the art field. A sketch book to me is an unfinished or idea area. Where you try something and test it out.

I wouldn't think those need to be kept. Are your parents artists? Are they artists who went to school for art?

If not they would not know the importance of what to them look like doodle books.

Now you actual books that you needed for classes they may keep.

This group harshly criticized the OP for negligence

_sabbicat − YTA. Hello, recently graduated architect here.

I cannot imagine this ever happening under any circumstances during my 7 years of study.

You were negligent, you didn’t make digital copies of your work after every year,

and I don’t even know what the f__k university would even want hand drafted submissions at all.

Some random drawings you threw in an attic no less.

Everything is so not true to life in this that I question whether you’re incompetent or lying.

People have websites today, not sketchbooks. What even are you doing in school?

Edited to add: It took me a month to put together all of my work into a coherent portfolio,

which I had to submit DIGITALLY to all of my grad applications.

And I worked fast, much faster than my peers who often take the whole summer to do it.

I just, there is no way any of this is real or makes any sense whatsoever.

Edit #2: OP’s edits also do not make sense and do not reflect how the field of architecture

or how architecture academia works in any way.

No one admitting grad students cares about sketchbook drawings.

No one wants to see your bad models from first year. A plotter is for printing, not scanning.

You should never make your portfolio by exporting individual jpegs from photoshop.

This person claims to have a mental inventory of work they haven’t seen in years

that they can organize into a portfolio and then caption.

Truly amazing. This person is beyond full of s__t.

These commenters added that the OP should have taken responsibility for their possessions

[Reddit User] − ESH - I don't know what kind of living arrangements you have,

but you shouldn't depend on your parents to keep track of your s__t for you.

Being responsible for your own things is part of being an adult.

If you want to store stuff in their attic because you don't have the room,

then you put it there yourself so you know exactly where it is.

You are getting to that age that you shouldn't have to depend on your parents in these kinds of ways.

I say that all of you suck just because there is a chance that your parents actually did lose the stuff,

but you still shouldn't depend on them for things like this.

If you want to call yourself an adult you have to get your s__t together

so you don't have to hold anyone else accountable except yourself.

mykarma − You're an adult, you're responsible for your own stuff. "No one has looked for them yet"?

You're the one who should look for them. You admit you agreed to keep your stuff at your parents' house.

They are assholes for losing your sketchbooks but you knew you'd need them a month ago.

Waiting until 2 days before the deadline to do anything about it is in you. ESH.

What do you think? Are the parents solely to blame, or could the Redditor have done more to prevent this? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!

Layla Bui

Layla Bui

Hi, I’m Layla Bui. I’m a lifestyle and culture writer for Daily Highlight. Living in Los Angeles gives me endless energy and stories to share. I believe words have the power to question the world around us. Through my writing, I explore themes of wellness, belonging, and social pressure, the quiet struggles that shape so many of our lives.

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