Son wants to tell 'estranged' parents to take back their 'pointless' Christmas gift.
When this son is fed up with his relationship with his parents, he asks Reddit:
'AITA for informing my parents that they can return the gift they got me for x-mas?'
The Christmas after I turned 18 my parents informed me that since I was no longer a child, Christmas wouldn’t be the same anymore. In fact they pretty much stopped celebrating Christmas that next year and we stopped giving presents.
Didn’t even put lights or tree up. I fully moved out after college at age 21 and after this point I had very lite contact with my parents (my choice). They were pretty much estranged.
I moved halfway across the county where I bought a house. When I turned 26 I found out my grandfather wasn’t doing well and needed constant care but he didn’t want to go into a retirement home. So I found a job around him and moved.
Before I moved him in with me I made my place as “smart” as I could so I could check in on him even if I wasn’t at home and so he could contact me if he fell. I had Alexa enabled cameras in every room he had access to, as well as at least one echo show. His tv I hooked up an amazon fire.
Now I needed to teach him how to use Alexa. I made flash cards and put them everywhere. Honestly the hardest part was getting him to say “Alexa” and not what he preferred “Lexa”
After a couple weeks he was able to call me, watch whatever he wanted and ever learned how to listen to his favorite radio shows. I set up routines that he could say to make things easier.
I am now 28 and in the time since my grandfather moved in my parents have started to try to be apart of my life again. They probably only did this since I, their son took the mantel of responsibility over their father/father-in-law.
In the weeks and months leading up to Christmas my parents had been over a couple of times. Each time they were over they kept asking about the echos and asking if I needed more, in which I would always reply that we didn’t since every room that my grandfather could possibly access was already covered.
Last night, Christmas Eve, I had my parents over for dinner, and to my surprise they had got me a present, I accepted it and thanked them but i didn’t get them anything, since that had been the trend for 10 years.
So I wait until this morning to open it and low and behold it was a echo dot. Now I wasn’t upset from this, I typically buy myself something on Black Friday to make up for a lack of Christmas.
Like i said earlier I have zero need for this. So I call my parents up and tell them I don’t need it and that they should either use it or return it.
Then they start saying that I was asking for an echo dot... I’m assuming that they made this up in their heads. It's a little pointless, not to be rude.
Now neither of us are hard off for money, my father is an engineer and I am head of a larger local business, so by no means am I offended by the cost of the present. I just don’t need it, I can tell my parents are upset for me not wanting it, Am I the Asshole???
Let's find out.
wenaje writes:
YTA. What's the harm in just keeping it and not using it? You could give it away as a present to someone else. Don't create conflict when you don't need to.
beeblop21 writes:
NTA. Hmmm but he told them he didn’t need it and they bought it anyways. That’s what’s bothering me, I am not saying they are assholes because we don’t know if it was m intentional or not.
However, I would def tell them we spoke about this and told you I didn’t need it.
absitnomen writes:
SH, but only very lightly.
You could have figured out a way to regift the echo dot without creating unnecessary conflict (though it seems like they're very matter of fact people, so I can see why you wouldn't think it was a problem).
They're AHs for not paying attention. I can see why OP wouldn't think it was a problem.