Parenting Tips

<p>Parenting teenagers is rough, especially when you have a blended family. Co-parenting with 2 different households and sets of rules can be quite confusing. Sometimes step-siblings don&#39;t end up with everything always being equal. Is that a problem or just something everyone has to live with to keep the peace?</p><p>That&#39;s the dilemma Reddit user <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/daughterlunch/">u/daughterlunch</a> found herself in recently with her daughter Emily and her step-daughter Laura. Emily works a part-time job and gets $25 a week in lunch money from her Dad. While Laura (having a different dad) does not get this extra money provided. Laura&#39;s jealous and mom&#39;s left asking:</p><h1><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/s8nqkc/aita_for_telling_my_ex_to_stop_giving_my_daughter/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=ios_app&amp;utm_name=iossmf">AITA</a> (Am I the As*hole) for telling my ex to stop giving my daughter lunch money?</h1><p>She writes:</p><blockquote> <p>I have a daughter, Emily (16f) with my ex. She chose to live with my ex and his wife and kids the majority of the time because she has to share her room with her step-sister Laura (15) at my house.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>My ex gives Emily $25 a week to buy lunch. Emily&#39;s and Laura&#39;s school is down the street from a lot of restaurants so, instead of buying school lunches, she leaves campus to buy herself and her friends&#39; lunch.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>The problem is she sees Laura at school and won&#39;t get her anything even though she gets her friends&#39; lunch all the time. I talked to Emily about it and she said it&#39;s because her friends pay her back and Laura can&#39;t.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>Emily knows we can&#39;t afford to give Laura that kind of money and I know she works part-time and gets an extra allowance from her dad so I asked her to occasionally buy Laura lunch to make her feel better. She refused.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>I called her dad and hoped that as a parent, he&#39;s understand what I was trying to do but he said Laura&#39;s feelings are not his or Emily&#39;s responsibility and that if she wants to buy lunch off-campus, she should get a part-time job like Emily.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>I tried to explain that Laura is in sports and she has ADHD and depression so it would be hard for her to work but he said that&#39;s my and my husband&#39;s problem and hung up.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>Laura came home crying the other day because Emily came back with food from her favorite restaurant and didn&#39;t give her anything or offer to share so I called my ex and told him that he needs to stop giving Emily lunch money and have her make her own lunches because she was hurting Laura.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>He refused to listen to me and told Emily that I&#39;m telling him to not let her go out at lunch because of Laura. Emily hasn&#39;t spoken to me except to say that she&#39;s going to stay at her dad&#39;s full time for a while.</p> </blockquote><p>Kind of hard to blame Emily for wanting to stay at her dad&#39;s full time after this exchange. The replies on Reddit overwhelmingly agreed. They declared this mother/step-mother &quot;The As*hole&quot; for wanting Emily&#39;s dad to stop giving her that $5 a day for lunch.</p><div className="ad-splitter"></div><p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/SparkMMX/">SparkMMX</a> writes:</p><blockquote> <p>YTA. Are you even listening to yourself right now? I see why she&#39;s living with your ex...</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>Your childs&#39; happiness is YOUR Responsibility. Why should someone else need to stop giving a child lunch money because your spawn is unhappy? That is not how the world works.</p> </blockquote><p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Gummy_yumyum/">Gummy_yumyum</a> adds:</p><blockquote> <p>YTA. $25 is not a lot of money for a week&rsquo;s worth of food. I highly doubt she&rsquo;s making it rain at the club with that.</p> </blockquote><p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/empresslilandra/">empresslilandra</a> writes:</p><blockquote> <p>She says that they can&rsquo;t afford to give Laura money so Emily should buy her lunch occasionally. And I keep thinking that&hellip;yes they can&rsquo;t afford to give that much money, but couldn&rsquo;t they give Laura some money occasionally so she could buy lunch occasionally. Once a month. Every other month. 🤷&zwj;♀️</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>This post made me so mad. YTA</p> </blockquote><p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/ShimmerBreadwinner/">ShimmerBreadwinner</a> writes:</p><blockquote> <p>YTA. Why is your ex responsible for your new husband&#39;s child?</p> </blockquote><p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/ChazzLamborghini/">ChazzLamborghini</a> agrees:</p><blockquote> <p>In addition, if he&rsquo;s giving her $25 a week, there&rsquo;s no way she isn&rsquo;t using work money to help buy restaurant food which is why it&rsquo;s important that her friends pay her back.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>Dad&rsquo;s lunch money is supplementing her spending, not covering it. So you&rsquo;re exactly right, OP is expecting her daughter who works to support her stepdaughter that doesn&rsquo;t. It&rsquo;s bullshit. OP YTA for sure</p> </blockquote><p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Nicky_Sixpence/">Nicky_Sixpence</a> says:</p><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>Right! Like Emily is buying multiple lunches for $5 a day. She&#39;s using her own earnings &amp; her friends are paying her back.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>OP seems to think her ex should be buying lunch for his ex-wife&#39;s new husband&#39;s daughter.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>25 dollars a week is 5 dollars per school day. Emily isn&#39;t swimming in money, and she works for what she has, she doesn&#39;t have to be funding your stepdaughter&#39;s wants.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>Laura doesn&#39;t work because she is in sports, that is her choice and not Emily&#39;s nor her dad&#39;s responsibility. Laura is old enough to understand that, and the main reason she is getting hurt right now is that you are leading her to think she is entitled to somebody else&#39;s money.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>Every time that Laura comes crying due to this, look at yourself and at your husband because your parenting is the reason she is getting heartbroken at not getting what you lead her to think she is entitled to have.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Aunty_Fascist/">Aunty_Fascist</a> writes:</p><blockquote> <p>YTA Your ex is right. Laura&#39;s feelings about your not being able to provide lunch money isn&#39;t Emily&#39;s or your ex&#39;s problem.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>Your ex can parent the way he wants to in his house. You don&#39;t have a right to tell him how to parent on his own time.</p> </blockquote><p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Existing_Peach957/">Existing_Peach957</a> writes:</p><blockquote> <p>YTA. Seriously wtf. If you are so concerned about it give Laura the money yourself.</p> </blockquote><p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/gissycat/">gissycat</a> says:</p><blockquote> <p>What if the neighbor&#39;s kid has a car and Laura doesn&#39;t? The neighbor should really get Laura a car too or tell the kid to share his car with Laura!</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>Is that ridiculous? Yes? Not that different. OP YTA</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><figure class="image"><div class="image-container"><img alt="" onload="(__markFirstPostVisible || function(){})();" src="https://www.redditstatic.com/desktop2x/img/renderTimingPixel.png" /></div></figure><div className="ad-splitter"></div>

Mom asks if she's wrong for telling ex to stop giving their kid lunch money.

Parenting teenagers is rough, especially when you have a blended family. Co-parenting with 2 different households and sets of rules can be quite confusing. Sometimes step-siblings don&#39;t end up with everything always being equal. Is that a problem or just something everyone has to live with to keep the peace?That&#39;s the dilemma Reddit user u/daughterlunch found herself in recently with her daughter Emily and her step-daughter Laura. Emily works a part-time job and gets $25 a week in lunch money from her Dad. While Laura (having a different dad) does not get this extra money provided. Laura&#39;s jealous and mom&#39;s left asking:AITA (Am I the As*hole) for telling my ex to stop giving my daughter lunch money?She writes: I have a daughter, Emily (16f) with my ex. She chose to live with my ex and his wife and kids the majority of the time because she has to share her room with her step-sister Laura (15) at my house.  My ex gives Emily $25 a week to buy lunch. Emily&#39;s and Laura&#39;s school is down the street from a lot of restaurants so, instead of buying school lunches, she leaves campus to buy herself and her friends&#39; lunch.  The problem is she sees Laura at school and won&#39;t get her anything even though she gets her friends&#39; lunch all the time. I talked to Emily about it and she said it&#39;s because her friends pay her back and Laura can&#39;t.  Emily knows we can&#39;t afford to give Laura that kind of money and I know she works part-time and gets an extra allowance from her dad so I asked her to occasionally buy Laura lunch to make her feel better. She refused.  I called her dad and hoped that as a parent, he&#39;s understand what I was trying to do but he said Laura&#39;s feelings are not his or Emily&#39;s responsibility and that if she wants to buy lunch off-campus, she should get a part-time job like Emily.  I tried to explain that Laura is in sports and she has ADHD and depression so it would be hard for her to work but he said that&#39;s my and my husband&#39;s problem and hung up.  Laura came home crying the other day because Emily came back with food from her favorite restaurant and didn&#39;t give her anything or offer to share so I called my ex and told him that he needs to stop giving Emily lunch money and have her make her own lunches because she was hurting Laura.  He refused to listen to me and told Emily that I&#39;m telling him to not let her go out at lunch because of Laura. Emily hasn&#39;t spoken to me except to say that she&#39;s going to stay at her dad&#39;s full time for a while. Kind of hard to blame Emily for wanting to stay at her dad&#39;s full time after this exchange. The replies on Reddit overwhelmingly agreed. They declared this mother/step-mother &quot;The As*hole&quot; for wanting Emily&#39;s dad to stop giving her that $5 a day for lunch.SparkMMX writes: YTA. Are you even listening to yourself right now? I see why she&#39;s living with your ex...  Your childs&#39; happiness is YOUR Responsibility. Why should someone else need to stop giving a child lunch money because your spawn is unhappy? That is not how the world works. Gummy_yumyum adds: YTA. $25 is not a lot of money for a week&rsquo;s worth of food. I highly doubt she&rsquo;s making it rain at the club with that. empresslilandra writes: She says that they can&rsquo;t afford to give Laura money so Emily should buy her lunch occasionally. And I keep thinking that&hellip;yes they can&rsquo;t afford to give that much money, but couldn&rsquo;t they give Laura some money occasionally so she could buy lunch occasionally. Once a month. Every other month. 🤷&zwj;♀️  This post made me so mad. YTA ShimmerBreadwinner writes: YTA. Why is your ex responsible for your new husband&#39;s child? ChazzLamborghini agrees: In addition, if he&rsquo;s giving her $25 a week, there&rsquo;s no way she isn&rsquo;t using work money to help buy restaurant food which is why it&rsquo;s important that her friends pay her back.  Dad&rsquo;s lunch money is supplementing her spending, not covering it. So you&rsquo;re exactly right, OP is expecting her daughter who works to support her stepdaughter that doesn&rsquo;t. It&rsquo;s bullshit. OP YTA for sure Nicky_Sixpence says: Right! Like Emily is buying multiple lunches for $5 a day. She&#39;s using her own earnings &amp; her friends are paying her back.  OP seems to think her ex should be buying lunch for his ex-wife&#39;s new husband&#39;s daughter.  25 dollars a week is 5 dollars per school day. Emily isn&#39;t swimming in money, and she works for what she has, she doesn&#39;t have to be funding your stepdaughter&#39;s wants.  Laura doesn&#39;t work because she is in sports, that is her choice and not Emily&#39;s nor her dad&#39;s responsibility. Laura is old enough to understand that, and the main reason she is getting hurt right now is that you are leading her to think she is entitled to somebody else&#39;s money.  Every time that Laura comes crying due to this, look at yourself and at your husband because your parenting is the reason she is getting heartbroken at not getting what you lead her to think she is entitled to have. Aunty_Fascist writes: YTA Your ex is right. Laura&#39;s feelings about your not being able to provide lunch money isn&#39;t Emily&#39;s or your ex&#39;s problem.  Your ex can parent the way he wants to in his house. You don&#39;t have a right to tell him how to parent on his own time. Existing_Peach957 writes: YTA. Seriously wtf. If you are so concerned about it give Laura the money yourself. gissycat says: What if the neighbor&#39;s kid has a car and Laura doesn&#39;t? The neighbor should really get Laura a car too or tell the kid to share his car with Laura!  Is that ridiculous? Yes? Not that different. OP YTA 

Parenting teenagers is rough, especially when you have a blended family. Co-parenting with 2 different households and sets of rules can be quite confusing. Sometimes step-siblings don&#39;t end up with everything always being equal. Is...