'Was I wrong to cancel my daughter's b-day for calling her stepdad a homophobic slur?'

Parenting is never easy. You want to raise a good little human capable of taking care of themselves and not being an a**hole to other people. A tall order to be honest, but parents persist.

On a popular Reddit thread in the Am I the A**hole Subreddit, a woman is trying her best to teach her daughter not to be a little sh*t.

She writes:

I (48F) share two children, Pam (15F) and Liam (13M), with my ex-husband Marco (50M). I share a daughter Annie (9F), with my current husband, Bruce (46M).

Marco and Bruce are night and day different. Marco works in construction, plays softball on the weekends, and coaches my daughter's soccer team. Bruce teaches at a university, plays the piano, likes going to the theater, and is a fantastic baker and cook.

It's not uncommon that we will go to one of Pam's soccer games, and afterward, the whole team returns to the house to enjoy cookies or cupcakes made by Bruce. At the end of the season, we do a big dinner for the team and their parents that Bruce cooks.

Bruce and I have been married for 11 years, and he makes the most incredible cakes every year for the kids' birthdays. We've had Pokémon, Doc McStuffins, and Paw Patrol, among others. Whatever they like that year, he does.

February is Pam's 16th birthday. Her sweet sixteen. Bruce has been planning this gorgeous cake that encompasses all of Pam's interests and the different stages of her life.

The other day another mom sent me a link to a TikTok that Pam and several of her teammates did. It uses audio from an episode of Family Guy. It's a video of Bruce taking a cake out of the oven with 'Chocolate cake, a la Blake' playing in the background, followed by a cut to my daughter and her teammates with Pam holding up her hand and mouthing along, 'Hundred bucks, Blake is gay,' out of the side of her mouth.

When I confronted Pam, she said it was just a joke. I told her it wasn't funny; Bruce saw her and treated her like his daughter, which was disrespectful to us. She told me that I was overreacting.

I told her that if she didn't take it down and apologize to Bruce, I'd tell him not to make her a birthday cake. She rolled her eyes and said that she'd take it down.

Shortly after, I walked by her room and heard her on the phone. It was muffled, but I heard her talk about me being dramatic over my f-word (homophobic slur) husband.

I ordered her to hang up the phone. She hung up and said she was blowing off steam. I called her a spoiled, ungrateful brat, and how dare she use that word. She started crying and said she didn't mean it. I told her that her birthday party was canceled, there would be no sweet sixteen, I would ask Bruce to stop baking for the team, and we would never make a team dinner again.

I am still so angry. Marco told me that I needed to let it go, that I was expecting too much from a teenager, and that he would have a party for her if I didn't. Bruce was hurt when he found out but thinks we should still let her have her party. My sister tells me not to doubt myself and that I made the right call, but I wonder if I'm acting with too much hot blood.

The internet has no sympathy for this Gen Z kid.

Amiedeslivres says:

NTA (Not the A**hole). Homophobic slurs are not funny. Homophobic stereotyping is not cute. Shaming the guy who makes her birthday cakes and feeds her team—for baking and cooking!—is really nasty and inappropriate. It’s reasonable that if your daughter doesn’t value Bruce’s efforts, and thinks his contributions are somehow shameful, that she should not receive them.

lexisplays says:

NTA. I feel like using slurs is pretty severe and a cancelled party is proportionate. I'd maybe do a small family party or something, but good parenting on cancelling the more elaborate friends one. Cancelling team dinners is a little extreme, but all the girls involved should apologize to your husband.

apearlmae says:

NTA your daughter's core group of friends has some major toxicity going on. Cancelling the party is 100% warranted and honestly some parents would take their kid off the team. Also, 'jokes' like that can seriously impact your child's future. Imagine her being in college or out working in the world and a video of her saying that word surfaces. Yikes.

That child needs to learn the difference between blowing off steam and straight-up hatred.