Mom Forces Daughter To Share Birthday Gifts With Stepchild, Sparking Debate
The mother didn't want her stepdaughter to feel left out.
GaudiLab/Shutterstock A mother didn’t want to leave out her stepdaughter on her birthday so, she forced her daughter to share her expensive presents.
The woman later went to Reddit’s “r/AmITheA--hole?” thread to share her story and ask other people for their opinions and thoughts.
The woman has a daughter, Amy and a stepdaughter, Nora who have birthdays only two days apart. As Nora is not as outgoing and doesn’t have many friends, the woman decided to have a joint birthday party for both.
However, most of the woman’s family members live out of the country so they weren’t able to attend the party. To make up for that, they sent a big bag of presents for Amy and Nora.
When Amy opened the bag, around 20 gifts spilled out with most of them for her.
The woman then checked the bag to see her parents had sent only one gift for Nora.
“It was a $15 tumbler from Walmart. Not to sound ungrateful, but Amy's gifts were much more expensive (lots of gift cards over $100, a new phone, limited-edition Funkos, designer clothes and lots of cards wishing her a happy birthday),” the woman wrote.
Nora seemed to be a bit hurt but didn’t say anything. After seeing Nora’s reaction, the woman felt worse. That wasn’t the end of it as the woman later called out all of her relatives for not sending Nora as many gifts.
After that, the woman went to Amy in the hope to make things better for Nora. She asked Amy to give some of her birthday gifts to Nora.
The woman wrote, “Not all of them, just a couple of gift cards and some of the new clothes. Amy refused.”
It was surprising for the woman after Amy refused as she always thought the two got along quite well.
Amy then lashed out, saying how much she hated sharing her life with her stepsister. She didn’t even want a joint birthday party but her mother forced her to have one so that Nora wouldn’t feel left out.
The woman wrote, “They share a room for space and I make sure they're both invited to the same parties and sleepovers so that Nora won't be left out. If they don't invite both of them, then [neither] of them goes.”
As Amy has had to share many things with Nora, she didn’t want to share her presents as well. The mother then yelled at her for being this way.
“I scolded her for being selfish with her stepsister, grounded her and took a couple of the presents to give to Nora,” the woman wrote.
However, Nora refused to accept any presents as she didn’t want any problems with Amy. Since then, Amy hasn’t been talking much to anyone else so the mother thought that she may have been wrong.
Redditors criticized the mother.
While the mother had good intentions, internet users felt that she was in the wrong for forcing her daughter to share her gifts with her stepsister.
One user wrote, “I know you are trying your best, but your mistake was to have a joint party in the first place. Amy is a teenager and is developmentally looking to forge her own identity. This means not existing as a package deal with Nora.”
Another user wrote, “Everything you’re doing to build closeness (sharing a party, sharing gifts, only letting them go to parties both are invited to) are only going to push them apart.”
Sanika Nalgirkar is a News & Entertainment Writer based in India. She has a master's degree in Creative Writing. See more of her writing on her website.