Stepmom demands stepdaughter to be be nicer to her bio kids. AITA? Family says she is.
When this woman is annoyed with her stepdaughter, she asks Reddit:
'AITA For Asking My Step-kid to be nice to my own kids?'
So, I(34F) got married a year ago to who we’ll call Ryan(44M). Ryan and I were together for 2 years prior to getting married. We both knew about each other's children. I have a pair of twins, and an older child (5M/F, 8M) and he has two kids, one living with their mother (15M), and one living with us (14F) who we’ll call Anna.
Anna came to live with us because she no longer wanted to deal with her mother, I’m not entirely sure what happened there. I don’t expect her to tell me any more than that.
Her father and I discussed the situation, and I do not tell her what to do or treat her as my own child. But ever since her moving in a year ago, things haven’t been super fair to my children, nor has she been nice to them. If needed, I’ll provide a few examples, but I’m trying to stay under the word count.
Most recently, she absolutely refuses to let them play anything on the playstation and has been doing so since last year. Ryan bought her a ps5 for christmas, but when setting it up they decided that her PS4 was better and sold the ps5, so she decided to put that money aside and save up.
Now, my children can’t use the ps5 because it’s sold, but they can’t use the ps4 because she refuses to let them after one incident. I did confront Ryan about this, but he argued that I said he shouldn’t get them anything tech-wise, and that the ps5 wasn’t a gift for them anyway, he didn’t decide what to do with it. I accepted that argument.
Now, I’ve been asking her to be nice and let my kids have a turn on the ps4 when she’s not using it, (which she doesn’t do much, she only plays for an hour after school on wednesdays, weekends, and whenever she has a friend over.) She said no time and time again, a few of those times her reasoning changed from, ”What if it happens again?”, to “My playstations in my room, I don’t want them in there.”, to “If they really wanna play you should buy them their own.”.
And while that sounds like a great solution, I don’t see the point in buying a whole new one when there is already one they can use. So, I asked her father about it and he said that I need her permission, since it was a gift to her and her things aren’t his to have a say over.
So, after trying time and time again, I gave up. But then she and her girlfriend went out yesterday to get coffee and buy some books. She wasn’t here so I thought it’d be fine to let my kids play, since they couldn’t bother her since she wasn’t even in her room and my kid swore he wouldn’t do what he did last time.
It was going great until 4pm, and I heard my kids crying as well as screaming. I went upstairs to check, and sure enough Anna threw them out and was yelling at them. I told her to talk to them calmly then she screamed at me as well.
Nothing happened this time and nothing was broken, I personally think she overreacted, but Ryan still hasn’t talked to me and neither has Anna. My friends agree with me though, but now I’m not so sure. AITA?
Let's find out.
nouserleaf writes:
Yta. I speak as a former step parent and step child. You crossed major boundaries by letting them in her room without permission. It's her room and her game system, she doesn't have to share and especially not with small children. Buy them their own system and respect your step daughters space and possessions.
twised6 writes:
This right here and also agree with the YTA. From the sounds of it, your kids did break something last time so she doesn't want them breaking it again. Also, you let your underage kids into a teenage girls bedroom, her safe space and you're wondering why she freaked out at you.
All you are doing is demonstrating how little respect you have for this poor girl by constantly choosing your kids over her and making her feel like a second class citizen in her own home. It sounds like she already has a strained relationship with her mom, now you're turning yourself into the wicked stepmother as well, it's not too late to turn that around for the both of you.
omchianti writes:
OP also left them in Anna’s room unsupervised after knowing they damaged or destroyed something of Anna’s. OP, YTA. You don’t respect Anna, nor do you respect her space. You don’t respect your husband because he made his feelings on this known (that’s why he’s not speaking to you.) You don’t respect boundaries and you are hardheaded for no reason.
Anna gave you several options that would work. Buy a PlayStation for your kids and put it in a place where you can supervise them or hold to your “no electronics” rule and take them to the library or park for entertainment. YTA all the way.