"AITA for not giving my son his raffle money?"
My dad asked me to write this for him, so if it seems like my account isn't matching to the speaker that's why. I (57M) am a single father to three kids: Fred (23M), Percy (20Enby), and Henry (18M).
Every year my company does a family picnic thing, and there are a bunch of raffles you can enter. One of the raffles gets you a chance to win $4,500, and in the 35+ years working here, I've never won.
This year, without their knowledge, I paid the $50 for each ticket and entered one ticket for me, and one for each of my kids. I could have put down the same amount of tickets under my own name, but I thought it would be cute for it to feel like it was for all of us.
Lo and behold, Fred's ticket was pulled, and we won the money! I announced it to the kids by telling them exactly that, that Fred's name was pulled and we won. My intention with this money was to give $500 to each of them, and keep the rest for myself.
I thought this was clear, especially considering none of them were able to come with me to the picnic this year and had no idea I was even entering their names. When I talked to Fred however, he told me he expected to receive all the money and was disappointed.
I pay for his college, he has no job (which I encourage so he can focus on his studies), and he said he thought this would give him some extra money to keep himself afloat without asking me for money.
Ultimately though, whether I give him the money or split it, the money would function exactly the same, but I understand his point of view. I talked to Henry, he said he would have expected the money...
...but he said it in a joking way so I'm not sure. I spoke to Percy, they said they would be surprised if they saw any of the money since they didn't even know it was happening. AITA?
Here's what top commenters had to say about this one:
Info. You say none of them knew you were entering anything let alone under their names but also state that they knew the intention that each would get a cut and you the balance. Which is it?
Sorry for the confusing phrasing. They didn't know I was entering the raffle tickets, but once I announced our win to them and told them about me entering all of our names, I thought they understood that it didn't matter who's name was pulled and that the money was for us. I see now that it wasn't a clear communication.
forgeris said:
Kinda soft YTA for how you handled it, not sure why you did what you did, but a sane person would just say - Hey, I won $4500, you all get $500 each and everyone would be jumping and happy, but what you did was say - fred!
You won $4500, but because it was all my money and my doing and you didn't even know that I will give you $500 and others too. See the problem? In first case everyone would have +$500 and be grateful, but what you did is made fred to feel like he lost $4.000 instead of winning 500.
You need to be very careful when dealing with money and family members, this is a huge problem and I hope that you learnt that. There really was no need to tell who won, you should've said that you won and you feel generous and give everyone $500 and everyone would be happy, but now...
Crochet-panther said:
YTA. If you’d just bought four tickets and announced one won and you’d be giving them $500 each that would have been fine, but you announced Fred had won. I appreciate you paid for the ticket but if someone told me they’d bought a ticket in my name and it won I’d expect to get the prize.
Kami_Sang said:
YTA - your kids are grown. Stop using their names to be cute and taking a family oriented approach to money. It's his money - he won the raffle. You did not win, whether or not you paid for it.
Next time just put it all in your name. However, as a rukleof thumb please stop using your adult children's names in things as if they are kids and you can control them and the outcome of using their names.
CatteNappe said:
YTA. If you wanted to have control of the winnings, and how (if at all) they were divvied up, you should have put it all in your name. Once you assigned specific tickets to specific people the winnings became the property of the assigned holder of that ticket to control.
No-Names-Left-Here said:
"Fred won $4,500! Everyone gets $500 and I'm keeping the rest." Yeah YTA. Why put their names on the tickets if they weren't going to get it? Why tell them you put the ticket in their name if they weren't going to get it?
904Magic said:
YTA. That's like if someone gave you a lottery ticket as a quick bday gift in an envelope, but promptly takes it back when it turns out it won...You thought you were being cute, turns out your just jealous and greedy.