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She wanted to support her daughter's baking hobby.
By Taylor Haynes — Written on Nov 03, 2022
Enraged at her husband, a woman described quickly returning his birthday gift. She had her reasons, but he couldn't understand why.
She took to Reddit to figure out whether she is right or wrong in the situation.
The subreddit, “Am I the A–Hole?”, is a place for users to figure out if they were indeed “the a–hole” in non-violent conflicts. A lot of folks on the site post about situations similar to this one, with their own spice and flavors of course.
Families are complicated and many users that come to this subreddit discuss the juicy details of their family drama.
The stepfather wanted her daughter to bake a cake free of charge.
The woman's daughter has a thing for baking and often sells her sweets to family and friends to make money.
So, given her skills and capabilities, her stepdad asked her to make him a cake for his birthday. She agreed, but her mom wanted her to be paid for her time and effort.
When the woman brought up payment to her husband, his response was, “pfff pay her? Get outta here, I'm her dad!”
She knew that her daughter was a people pleaser and wouldn't demand money from her stepdad.
He agreed to pay her, but time went by and there was no money given.
In reaction to her husband not paying, she decided to return the wristwatch she had bought for his birthday.
Needless to was not happy about this arrangement, and she revealed in the post that, “He [found] out and went off on me.”
“I told him he had [enough] time and [should have] paid her before he [received] the cake.”
She continued, “He said that I was teaching her to treat familial relationship[s] as 'transactional' and raiding her to be ‘materialistic.’”
A mother stood up for her daughter, and users were not impressed.
Her husband even went as far as to get other family members involved, “He [was] furious and told almost the whole family about how I took back his birthday gift and returned it.”
She was shamed into believing that she was the problem in this situation.
But most in the comment section were confused by the post itself. One user said, “This is one of the most bizarre posts I've ever seen.”
Another commenter said, “since it was HIS birthday it kind of seems like YOU should have paid for the cake. Nobody else buys their own birthday cake, why should he??”
Many others had questions and wanted to know more information about the situation.
“Did your husband or your daughter ever discuss this being a business deal where she gets paid?” asked one user.
This just goes to show that the dynamics of family can never be generalized. What one person thinks is normal in their family, could seem so bizarre, and even dysfunctional to another.
Taylor Haynes is a writer based in Chicago. She writes for Entertainment & News at YourTango. You can find her on Instagram here.