Mom Grounds Daughter For Ruining The Family Vacation By Not Letting Her Stepdad Win At The Games They Were Playing
Was it really her daughter's fault that her stepfather kept losing?
fizkes / Canva Pro A mother accused her teenage daughter of “ruining” their family vacation by challenging her stepfather to various bets and games.
Before participating in the bets, the teenager would ask her stepfather to give her something in return as a prize, such as a souvenir from the hotel gift shop. However, after the stepfather continued to lose the bets, the girl’s mother insisted that she stop, which prompted her to call her stepfather out as a sore loser.
The woman’s teenage daughter beat her stepfather at all of the games and bets she proposed while on vacation.
Taking to the subreddit r/AITA, the woman revealed that she recently took a two-week family vacation with her husband, 15-year-old daughter from a previous relationship, and her 16 and 13-year-old stepchildren.
She claimed that her 15-year-old and her husband are both very competitive, and her daughter kicked off their trip by challenging him to a game of Sudoku.
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“She made a bet with him that if she finished the hardest level first, he’d buy her wifi for the flight, and if he finished first, she’d share a bed with his younger daughter on the trip (his younger daughter was complaining about sharing with his oldest because she kicks and sleeps in the middle of the bed),” the woman wrote.
“She beat him and pestered him until he bought the WiFi.”
The bets and challenges did not end there. “When we got there, she’d challenge him to races on land and in the pool (she’s won medals at state track meets and has been swimming since she was 2),” the woman shared.
“Every day, she’d challenge him to something, win, and he’d have to buy her something from the resort or local shops.”
Eventually, the woman’s husband grew sick of constantly losing, and their other children began to resent him and their stepsister since he was always buying her gifts.
To diffuse some of the tension, the mother warned her teenager to stop challenging her stepfather to bets and games or let him win. The woman’s request did not sit well with her daughter.
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“She decided to tell her stepdad that she wasn’t allowed to compete with him anymore because he couldn’t handle losing,” the woman wrote. “This made them start to argue, so I told her that if she didn’t [stop], she’d be grounded to the resort for the rest of the trip (a little over a week at this point).”
The mother said that the teen girl decided to “test” her, leaving her with no choice but to follow through with her word.
The woman grounded her daughter for the remainder of the trip after she continued beating her stepfather at games.
The teenage girl was forced to stay in the hotel room while the rest of the family went out and enjoyed the resort and went into town.
“The vacation was much more enjoyable without her turning everything into a competition,” the mother admitted.
However, when they returned home, the girl told her father that she was grounded for the second half of the trip.
“He’s mad at me now for leaving her there and excluding her from the vacation because my husband couldn’t ‘act like an adult,’” the woman shared.
Now, her daughter’s father is demanding more custody, even threatening to go to court, and she cannot help but wonder if she ruined her daughter’s vacation by preventing her from ruining it for the rest of the family.
Most people believed that as an adult, the girl’s stepfather should have stopped agreeing to participate in bets if he knew there was a chance he would lose.
“You tell your husband to be an adult and stop taking the bait. It's not your daughter's responsibility to manage a grown adult's immaturity,” one Redditor commented.
“I cannot stop laughing at the scenario of an adult being challenged by a teenager and constantly losing but still accepting every bet… Your husband is a fool, but thanks for the laughs,” another user shared.
“The easiest fix was to tell your husband to stop competing with his stepdaughter. Issue resolved,” another user noted.
Others pointed out that even if the stepfather was not acting like a sore loser, he should stop accepting bets where he would have to give his stepdaughter something in exchange for her winning. That way, he wouldn’t upset his other children by constantly buying her souvenirs and nothing for them.
While the mother may have presumed that her daughter was “ruining” the trip by constantly beating her stepfather at bets, he ruined it for himself by acting like a sore loser and continuing to accept bets with a 15-year-old.
For the next family vacation, he needs to either be an adult and stop accepting challenges or up his game to increase his odds of winning.
Megan Quinn is a writer at YourTango who covers entertainment and news, self, love, and relationships.