As parents, do we need to hold our kids to the same standards no matter how old they are? Should they all be expected to do their homework, chores, and respect and care for their things to the same degree? It may seem like a stretch to have your younger children do things the same as the older ones, but some parents expect everyone to be equal.
A father of two posted in Reddit's AITA forum asking if he was being unreasonable because he didn't punish his older daughter for committing the same offense as her younger brother. He believes it's all about learning a lesson, but his wife thinks he was too harsh. He wanted opinions, and he got them.
The kids come from different relationships, and he sees one more than the other.
The original poster has a 17-year-old daughter, Cass, and an 8-year-old son, Mark. OP is divorced from Cass' mom, and they don't see one another as much, maybe once every other month. He lives with Mark, who he admits he is harder on because Cass is sensitive and Mark is strong-willed.
Cass recently broke her brand-new iPhone and called OP asking for money to repair it. "Since I rarely get the chance to do stuff for Cass, I said yes, sent her the money and reassured her that I'm not mad, it was an accident, but please be more careful with her devices," he explained.
A week later, Mark broke his iPad and got into trouble.
"I told Mark it's his fault for not paying more attention and its going to be a while until his iPad is going to be fixed and the money is going to come out of his allowance and I hope it teaches him to be more responsible," he wrote. "Mark started arguing with me and I ended up grounding him for 2 weeks, but really only followed through on the first week."
OP's wife thinks he is being unfair.
The whole thing seems pretty off balance to OP's wife. She thinks Cass is getting off easy and that Mark is being punished for being a kid. OP argued that he is helping Cass because he doesn't see her often and that he does things for Mark all the time because they live together.
"My wife still insists I dropped the ball on the way I dealt with Mark and said I should have treated him the same way I did Cass and brought up the fact Cass broke her brand new iPhone only a month after getting it, while Mark had his iPad over 2 years before anything went wrong," he explained.
He edited his post to add that Cass asked a friend to "toss" her the phone, and she dropped it. Mark broke his iPad because he was probably being too hard on the charging port. He then added that his son has motor skill delays.
Can you guess what Redditors had to say about that last one?
OP, you seem to have some feelings of guilt.
Reddit quickly pointed out that OP seems to be suffering from some guilt.
"YTA. As a dad myself I'm disappointed. You feel guilty about daughter moving and not seeing her much, how are you going to feel I'm a few years when Son goes no contract because of the blatant favoritism?" someone wrote. "Would you not feel guilt since you spent more time with him? Again to drive it home. You. Are. The. A–hole."
Another person agreed that the dad is being a jerk and listed the reasons why.
"1. You grounded an EIGHT YEAR OLD? How does that even work? 2. He took good care of it for two years before having an accident. 3. You are setting him up to resent his half sister just because you feel guilty. Nice. 4. If Mark has motor skill problems, you are punishing him over something he doesn't have much control. 5. Did I mention YTA?"
Yikes.
OP, calling out your kid with motor skill challenges really turned people off.
They didn't think that you were that great of a dad to begin with, but when Redditors saw that your son struggles with motor skills, they really turned against you.
"Editing to add that now that I've read the edit this is SO, SO much worse. You are a complete and utter asshole," one person wrote. "Your daughter asked someone to THROW her a brand new expensive iPhone and you just cough up money to replace, while your son with MOTOR DELAYS wore out the charger on his iPad?! I can't even with you. Just stop. Go away. You win the bad parent award."
"This on top of the fact that he added that Mark has motorskill delays … so this kid literally has motor skill issues, kept his iPad going for 2 years, and you grounded him when it broke based on the assumption that he did it out of some kind of clumsiness while you literally know your daughter broke her phone out of not giving the device proper care and you're just buying her a new one?" another person questioned.
Kids need to be treated fairly and equally, period.
Sorry, OP, but this was not a win for you. Your kids will not only grow up to dislike each other, but if you don't watch it, your son might resent you big-time someday.
"YTA. So much YTA. You treat your elder daughter reasonably, but you treat your younger son like that? Yuck. He's going to end up resenting you and his sister," someone warned. "You're not teaching him anything except that you'll treat him like s— because of some misplaced guilt."
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