Single parents have to do the best they can, especially when the other parent is out of the picture. Teenagers can be hard to deal with in a situation like a divorce, especially when it comes to getting them gifts.
AITA for returning my daughter's christmas present?
A woman made a post on Reddit about how she had to get Christmas presents for her 3 daughters. She has 11 year old twins and then a 16 year old daughter. The twins wanted a gaming console and the teenager wanted an expensive tablet.
The gaming console wasn't too hard for the poster to afford but the tablet the teenager wanted was 800 dollars or so. The poster had 500 dollars to work with for all 3 of her kids because she's a single mother that works as a nurse.
Because the poster couldn't afford the expensive tablet, she got her daughter one that was quite a bit cheaper but still fairly nice. It's also important to know that the father is out of the picture and is currently hiding so he doesn't have to pay child support.
When the teenager got the cheaper tablet, she threw a fit and said that she misses her father because he would've gotten her the fancy tablet. The poster got upset about this because she was trying her best so she told her daughter to call her dad.
The phone number they have for their father is disconnected so the teenager basically was being told that he's not there and won't be helping them out. When it comes to a divorce, sometimes one parent will try to hide money so they don't have to send the other parent child support.
After the blowup the poster brought the tablet back to the store and got online to ask whether she was in the wrong with how she handled the situation. After all, teenagers are known for having blowups so the poster thinks she may not have done the right thing.
The top comment on this post says that the poster is in the wrong since the teenager is doing what teenagers do when it comes to not being grateful. Some of the comments also say the mother was not in the right for telling her daughter to call her father when she knew the father was in hiding.
Other comments are saying that the child is spoiled and that the poster did the right thing by taking the tablet back to the store. Everyone seems to agree that the father is the real villain of the story, but people are split on whether or not the poster handled the situation properly.
Do you think the poster is in the right for taking the tablet back and was it her right to tell her teenager her father isn't going to be there? Did the mom not have to get frustrated and should she have just let it go?
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