Mom lets toddler pick 'football gift' for dad's birthday, he's mad 'it's the wrong team.'
Few things bring out passion and intensity quite like sports fandom. And this is for better or for worse.
In a popular post on the AITA subreddit, a woman asked if she was wrong for letting her daughter pick out a gift from the wrong team for her dad. She wrote:
"AITA for letting my daughter buy her dad a gift from the wrong football team?"
Can't actually believe I'm writing this post. My ex and I have a three-year-old. She's amazing and loves her daddy. It was his birthday on Monday so I let my daughter grab some bits for him. There's a football stall in our local shopping centre. They had squeezy balls for each team. My daughter knows that her dad loves football and also the colour blue, so she picked out a blue one for him.
I knew it wasn't his team but there's nothing on the actual ball, it just said the team on the wrapper. She bought it, we left, everything got wrapped up. We were with him when he opened them. His face fell and he dropped the ball like it burned him when he opened it. His mum gave him the evil eyes so he did the clearly fake "thank you" and then our daughter was disinterested.
He was off with me the whole day and last night called me a b#$ch for "doing that" to him. I asked what he meant, he said I knew he hates that team (I didn't - I used to ignore his football rants) and that he thinks its sh#$ty that I used our daughter as an excuse to upset him. I explained that she picked it out and he claimed I should have corrected her because he hates the gift.
I called him a child. His mum has since text me apologising but in a "even though it's your fault" way. She's usually on my side so now I'm half thinking it's my fault in some sorta way. I did know he doesn't support that team and my daughter would have been corrected easily, so I probably should have done it anyway. So, AITA?
The internet did not hold back on this.
KronkLaSworda wrote:
NTA.
3 year old just wanted a football and a color that she knew daddy liked. Daddy has anger management problems if he can't grin and bear it for a 3-year-old.
theworldisonfire8377 wrote:
ESH. He's immature for the way he reacted, but...how hard would it have been to say "honey that's a great idea for daddy, but let's pick the ball that is for his favorite team!"
AncastaOfTheRiver wrote:
NTA. Who says they 'hate' a gift, let alone one picked out by a three-year-old? Sure, some football fans can be pretty intense in their hatred for rival football teams, so it doesn't hugely surprise me that he saw this as an attempt to upset him.
But he's not your partner – he's her dad, so letting your daughter choose the gifts was reasonably a higher priority to you than anticipating a grown man would be upset by the wrapper on a toy.
kurokomainu wrote:
"He picked out a blue one for him. I knew it wasn't his team"
"I let my daughter get her dad a gift I knew he'd dislike."
YTA I almost said E S H but as much as I think it's pathetic to care about whether a ball that is a present from your daughter represents the team you like or not, I think this is really about you knowingly letting your daughter choose that ball.
I don't believe for a second that you didn't realize how this would play out -- with him realizing this was your dig at him as you knew his team and how rabid a supporter he is.
You knew it would get under his skin. You had an opportunity to direct her to his team's ball, but chose to allow your daughter to get a poisoned gift for him, knowing that he had to accept it with a s#$t-eating grin for his daughter's sake even knowing you'd messed with him, or let your daughter down and look like a jerk.
You risked ruining the moment that was your innocent daughter wanting to make her father happy and that was wrong even just for the fact that it could have gone far worse and ended up with your daughter being really upset thinking that her father was rejecting *her.*
Wide-Heron-1015 wrote:
NTA. Your daughter put a lot of thought into the gift that she chose and telling her different would have been detrimental. People who are expecting gifts they actually like from a flipping toddler are clearly not ready to parent. Hate that for the both of you.
Clearly, the internet is as passionate and divided on this post as football fans are over their favorite team.