Grandma threatens to not get grandkids Christmas gifts after bullying incident. AITA?
When this grandmother is deeply disappointed in her grandkid's behavior, she asks Reddit:
"AITA for threatening to not get my son and granddaughter Christmas gifts?"
My (67F) husband (67M) have 3 kids and 7 grandkids. Our youngest son, Merlin (34M) has two kids with his wife. They’re twins, 13 years old, one boy (Townes) and one girl (Emaline).
We see all of our kids and grandkids often, and love them very much. Townes is our sporty one, he plays baseball and loves it. He’s also the sensitive grandchild, he’s not afraid to cry if he’s sad. Emaline is our artist, she’s always painting or drawing or knitting. As you may be able to tell, we love to support are grandkids passions and interests in any way possible.
Every year, Christmas breakfast is done at our house. My husband and I love having everyone come over. The grandkids all get gifts at their houses and then come over here. We eat and then they open gifts from us. We also get gifts for our kids and their spouses.
On Sunday, we had all of our kids and grandkids over to help decorate for Christmas. After some decorating, we took a break to make dinner.
When dinner was ready, Merlin and his wife were joking about how their kids may “be on the naughty list”, after they got in trouble at school.
We asked what happened. Townes got in trouble for selling snacks. Townes has a friend who he met on vacation a few months ago, a boy from Panama. They both love baseball and will send each other gifts or souvenirs and snacks from each kid’s country.
Townes said that he sold some of the snacks this boy sent him with the boy’s permission, which was against school rules. He got 2 days of detention and said what was worse was his coach telling him he’s disappointed in him, since he’s normally a good kid.
Then we asked Emaline what she did, she didn’t answer because she said she was being “unfairly bullied” for it. Townes then started to look like he was going to hold back tears, we asked him if he needed to talk to someone and he asked to talk to me.
He said that Emaline had said some racist things to a Hispanic boy, making jokes about his culture and heritage and how she got suspended for 3 days and that she was getting some pushback, but he thought it was justified pushback.
I then asked my husband to speak to me, after talking, we asked Merlin to talk to us. We told Merlin we were concerned about Emaline’s behavior and he said that both kids got in trouble, so we should also be concerned about Townes then.
We told him it wasn’t the same and also told him he needed to address Townes’s feeling about this. He dismissed us. We then told him if he didn’t take these actions that him and Emaline wouldn’t be getting Christmas gifts.
He then talked to his wife and I could see her get uncomfortable. When they got home, he called me to say I was acting immature and overstepping my bounds. He said that he’s the parent and that him and his wife get to call the shots in his house and said we were being petty. AITA?
Let's see what readers thought.
aggressivebed7 writes:
NTA -Your son is correct. He is the parent and he and his wife get to call the shots in THEIR house. That doesn't include whether or not his children get gifts from their grandparents, does it? Withholding gifts from 13 year old teenagers for being a racist bully and/or getting suspended for selling things against school rules isn't being petty. It is consequences for actions.
tempking writes:
I think it's totally appropriate to be disappointed in your granddaughter for saying racist things, and as a grandparent you should talk to her about it. But YTA for using Christmas as the tool for punishment. Christmas and birthdays should stand alone. P.S. I'm curious how a kid gets two days of detention for selling snacks. That's crazy.
heloismorris writes:
Yes YTA. My goodness you are nosy, invasive and pushy. You have raised your family. It's not your place to parent your grandchildren or issue ultimatums regarding parenting to your son. I hope he and his wife decide it's in the best interests of their family to put some distance between you and their family and skip Christmas at your home altogether. I certainly would.
KP writes:
NTA. This is hugely problematic (the racism issue). If it were a matter of breaking curfew or not doing hw, everyone who is calling you an AH would be right - but you are merely showing consequences for a VERY serious issue that your son does not seem to be taking seriously.
Xmas gifts aren't owed, and if she wants to be a little racist turd and your son and wife want to be ok with that, F them all. Townes sounds like the only one who has done nothing wrong here, get him xmas gifts and the rest f-ing coal.