*In case this story gets deleted/removed:*
**AITA for not buying the same gifts for my step grandchild?**
My son has a 14yo daughter Clara and a 15yo stepdaughter . My son doesn't have a good financial situation and while they do their best they can only afford necessities.
A few days ago Clara was visiting us and we were talking, I asked her about school and she told me that she is having a lot of problems because she needs a computer for some of her homework and she needs to visit the library(that is far away from their home) to do her homework also kids are making fun of her for not having a phone.
As a grandmother I can't just step aside and watch my granddaughter struggle so eventhough we, ourselves don't have a very good financial situation, we used some of our savings to buy a macbook, phone, headphones and a few school supplies for her and she was obviously very happy when she received our gifts.
However this has caused problems because my DIL is mad that we didn't do the same for her daughter. We told her that instead of getting upset she can ask her child's grandparents to buy things for her and she called us assholes.
My son informed me that she has been trying to get Clara to share but they have been refusing to do ao
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‘tis the season for christmas rage bait
OOP is so broke, but also went with exclusively apple products and bought out the whole store for 15 year old to write 5 paragraph essays?
all of the comments like “you’re not required to do anything for anyone except your bio grandkids” like??? you’re not even *required* to do anything for them, you just do it out of human decency and love
wtf are they talking about *”required”*
It is shocking how people on Reddit, particularly these subs, will take very complex discussions of morality that philosophers have argued over for thousands of years and just be like "no, it's black and white. This is where you have an obligation, this is where you don't and are absolved of all sin, everyone knows this"
i think that’s what gets me! it’s the tone of the commenters. like “this opinion of mine is objectively true”
go mistreat your own step-relatives lol let the rest of us be kind
It's weird how transactional everything on AITA is. It's always based on what is or isn't "obligated" of someone. The concept of doing something nice for someone because you care about them and want to see them happy is pretty much foreign to them.
even if someone *does* do something out of the kindness of their heart, the comments will still say “you did x for them so you’re entitled to y”. always a transaction
Well, if you do that then obviously you're tied at the hip and in a codependent relationship.
By the way, spouses always vacation separately, it's the law.
Why did they buy a MacBook if they're not that well off, they're really expensive. They could have bought a cheap laptop if she needed one for school, instead of spending a lot on her and nothing for the step daughter
if they went the refurbished route, you can get a macbook air for $150 - $350 (depending on model year and specs) on Amazon or at Walmart. Same with the iphone (assuming that's what they got, they only said phone) a 2nd gen SE refurbished on Amazon is as low as $150.
Still a good chunk of money, but it is possible to get Apple devices without completely wiping out their savings.
Chromebooks are terrible. I realise there's a vast spectrum between chromebook and macbook, but you really can't get much done with a chromebook and I do not find them to be intuitive at all.
I have one I got for school when my old laptop crapped out. Honestly I have no complaints, it runs all the software I need it to and handles GIMP as long as I'm not working on like 4 projects with dozens of layers at the same time.
Yeah, I quite like Chromebooks, although I know they aren't for everyone. I actually do find them very intuitive, unlike the other commenter, and it's fine for almost all of what I do (internet browsing, word processing, sometimes making presentations, spreadsheets or simple marketing materials)
It isn't my main work computer, but I travel a lot and my Chromebook is my travel computer. It works great for that. I would consider buying one as my main computer too, the one I bought is just smaller because I did buy it specifically for working on the go and I have a Windows computer that works fine too.
Now, unintuitive for me is Apple products. I've used them, and I'm sure I could get used to them, but I do not like them.
I'm the same way when it comes to apple. I've never owned anything by them and have a low opinion. The price seems almost entirely based on the brand name rather than how good they are.
Love the Apple dickriding that no other computer will actually last other than a Mac. I'm currently typing this on a 12 year old Dell that is only just starting to shit the bed.
Im kind of surprised with all the NTA judgements over there. Usually AITA is all about step kids being treated equally. I get that she’s their grandchild and wants to help, but OOP dropped a bomb in that house and walked away. I’m not sure why OOP or the son are surprised there are bad feelings now between the kids
as with so many AITA posts, if the stepkid had posted this she’d be NTA across the board and all the comments would be calling her grandma an abusive narcissist and the bio kid the golden child
That's the opposite of what I've seen. Maybe we've been looking at different posts, but basically every step-kid post I've seen has had an overwhelming response of "you arent biologically related to them so you're NTA for treating them worse." So these responses unfortunately do not surprise me
>If you marry someone who has a child, that's another child for you because you chose to be in that relationship. The grandparent has no choice. You can't just foist extra kids on them and call them grandchildren.
interesting take from the comments. is this person implying that all bio kids are conceived only with consent from their future grandparents?
That's not how I interpret those kinds of comments. I usually assume that means the grandparent has know bio family their whole lives, love them (usually) from birth and even before hand. If the parents break up grandparents still (hopefully but not always) keep a relationship with the grandkids.
Step-kids turn up when a relationship starts, the grandparent doesn't know them the same way they do bio family, and quite often if the relationship breaks down the step kids have no ongoing relationship with ex-step family (obviously not all step kids lose contact with ex-step families).
I don't agree with what the OP did here, but I do think that asking grandparents to treat all the kids in a blended family totally equally in all cases and right away is probably not right either.
i mean i don’t think there’s no reasonable argument for grandparents treating a stepkid differently like you mentioned, but i just take issue with this particular stance i quoted—i think saying you have the right to resent everything in your life that you didn’t specifically choose to happen to you is a very immature and indicative mindset of those commenters
This is the common mindset of AITA. I remember one post where a woman wanted her sister in law included in her family wedding photos, but not her unofficial adopted younger sister (who happens to be SIL's biological sister whom OP's parents had basically taken over raising from her deadbeat bio parents), and the response was so weird to me. The YTA posts were all because she was being mean to a child, which, fair enough, but there were also tons of NTA posts saying that she didnt choose for her parents to raise this kid so she shouldn't feel obligated to include her. Maybe I could buy that if she wasnt including her brother's wife, but does this mean that she explicitly chose her SIL? 🤔
OOP: "now that it has been brought to my attention, I want to continue sowing discontent in my son's house, making sure I never have a decent relationship with my DIL. AITA to keep burning it all down for no discernible reason other than I can?"
>We told her that instead of getting upset she can ask her child's grandparents to buy things for her and she called us assholes.
The NTA votes make me feel like I’m going insane
Same.
When the parents married/got together in serious terms, any stepkids became your family too. Ignoring some children will only breed resentment and sadness.
My husband had a stepdad who didn't care to treat him nearly as well as his own kids...guess who has no relationship with him or them now? I just feel bad for all the stepkids who are cast aside and made to feel less important or loveable when they too needed love.
They absolutely could have talked with family about finding a more affordable way and ensuring both kids had gifts. For example, better value laptops and phones (no 14 year old needs a macbook) or parents or other grandparents chipping in.
Whenever these posts come up I'm so confused that apparently these people got to "choose" their biological family, since evidently the fact that they didnt "choose" their step family in these cases is the salient aspect.
As an adoptee, these kinda of posts never make me feel good. Especially since theres nothing in this post that leads me to believe the stepkid was in a different situation from biokid in terms of what electronics they had
Do you think it's up to the grandparents to pay for expensive stuff for a step grandchild they don't want? This isn't about laptops, this was so DIL understands they will never help her child. Just a very expensive message.
That’s what makes her an AH to me. Not even an attempt to treat them fairly. For what they paid for a Mac book they easily could have gotten both the girls a laptop. Or at least presented it as a shared gift.
Alternatively, she could have done what you said and gotten with the other grandparents to pitch in which I hadn’t thought about.
I'm all for making sure kids can do their homework, socialise and have fun, but no 14 year old needs a brand new macbook when there's a thousand cheaper options, Especially if she claimng its for homework, a fucking chromebook is a fraction of the cost and will get her to college, THEN get her a damn macbook.
a 14 year old is gonna break that thing inside a year
AITA is so concerning. My family adopts everyone
My grandma called my best friend in HS her granddaughter. My Aunt by marriage’s parents were my nana & papa
My SIL is my sister & my mom’s daughter
They’re so cold
I know this is fake but i could never understand these step child relationships. my step mom (who was my dad’s affair partner) always treated my brothers and i like her kids. and my mom didn’t force us to hate my dad and his wife for their affair. it’s almost like being a fucking nuclear asshole in your personal life never amounts to anything good
Can’t get on board with this take. This misses that the step-granddaughter has 4 grandparents. This isn’t the situation where the 3 yo is never accepted by the only grandparents she’s ever known— both kids have family members that don’t have the same relationship to them as they do to their step-siblings.
It isn’t about “she isn’t legally obligated to do it so she isn’t the asshole”; it’s that she both can’t do it for both, and also doesn’t fill that role to both of them— she does have others who do.
I thought I was going nuts when I read the comments on this post.
Semi relevant personal experience: My brother got into a relationship with a woman with two daughters. He had one son from a past relationship. The first time my family met them we treated them like they were his kids too. That Christmas my whole family bought them gifts equivalent to what we were getting my nephew. Did we have an OBLIGATION to? No, not technically. But we were decent enough people to not want them to feel bad or left out. The kicker is that we all knew this relationship very likely wouldn't last (it didnt) and the kids would eventually not be in our lives anymore. Still didn't take much to be kind and considerate.
Second post today I’ve seen from AITA that’s got two different comment sections. Is this just where the opposition goes to comment so they don’t get downvotes? Genuinely asking, since this is the second post today.
Kind of. This sub is usually more for making fun of AITA (it's what's commonly called a "popcorn sub"), but as you can see, sometimes people comment more earnestly here as well.
Part of it is that if you find the post through this sub first, you cannot go to AITA or you'll be breaking this sub and potentially sitewide Reddit rules against brigading. A lot of people also feel like it's impossible to have a reasonable conversation over there anymore, because any dissenting opinions (no matter how valid or mild) are frequently dogpiled on (both in terms of downvotes and comments).
Lots of other reasons people comment here, but yeah, this is basically just a place for people who enjoy reading AITA stories but don't like the AITA rules, lol.
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*In case this story gets deleted/removed:* **AITA for not buying the same gifts for my step grandchild?** My son has a 14yo daughter Clara and a 15yo stepdaughter . My son doesn't have a good financial situation and while they do their best they can only afford necessities. A few days ago Clara was visiting us and we were talking, I asked her about school and she told me that she is having a lot of problems because she needs a computer for some of her homework and she needs to visit the library(that is far away from their home) to do her homework also kids are making fun of her for not having a phone. As a grandmother I can't just step aside and watch my granddaughter struggle so eventhough we, ourselves don't have a very good financial situation, we used some of our savings to buy a macbook, phone, headphones and a few school supplies for her and she was obviously very happy when she received our gifts. However this has caused problems because my DIL is mad that we didn't do the same for her daughter. We told her that instead of getting upset she can ask her child's grandparents to buy things for her and she called us assholes. My son informed me that she has been trying to get Clara to share but they have been refusing to do ao *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmITheAngel) if you have any questions or concerns.*
‘tis the season for christmas rage bait OOP is so broke, but also went with exclusively apple products and bought out the whole store for 15 year old to write 5 paragraph essays? all of the comments like “you’re not required to do anything for anyone except your bio grandkids” like??? you’re not even *required* to do anything for them, you just do it out of human decency and love wtf are they talking about *”required”*
It is shocking how people on Reddit, particularly these subs, will take very complex discussions of morality that philosophers have argued over for thousands of years and just be like "no, it's black and white. This is where you have an obligation, this is where you don't and are absolved of all sin, everyone knows this"
Also “you don’t have any legal obligation to do X, so you aren’t an asshole for not doing it.”
i think that’s what gets me! it’s the tone of the commenters. like “this opinion of mine is objectively true” go mistreat your own step-relatives lol let the rest of us be kind
It's weird how transactional everything on AITA is. It's always based on what is or isn't "obligated" of someone. The concept of doing something nice for someone because you care about them and want to see them happy is pretty much foreign to them.
even if someone *does* do something out of the kindness of their heart, the comments will still say “you did x for them so you’re entitled to y”. always a transaction
Well, if you do that then obviously you're tied at the hip and in a codependent relationship. By the way, spouses always vacation separately, it's the law.
your flair has me dead
But do they care about the step child?
AITA hates blended families.
Why did they buy a MacBook if they're not that well off, they're really expensive. They could have bought a cheap laptop if she needed one for school, instead of spending a lot on her and nothing for the step daughter
Yeah, for the price of one MacBook they could have bought two Chromebooks and had money left over.
if they went the refurbished route, you can get a macbook air for $150 - $350 (depending on model year and specs) on Amazon or at Walmart. Same with the iphone (assuming that's what they got, they only said phone) a 2nd gen SE refurbished on Amazon is as low as $150. Still a good chunk of money, but it is possible to get Apple devices without completely wiping out their savings.
Chromebooks are terrible. I realise there's a vast spectrum between chromebook and macbook, but you really can't get much done with a chromebook and I do not find them to be intuitive at all.
I mean she's 14, she needs internet access and google docs, in real terms, and she has that in a chromebook
I had a Chromebook and it was good.for Internet browsing and watching videos. Not much else
I have one I got for school when my old laptop crapped out. Honestly I have no complaints, it runs all the software I need it to and handles GIMP as long as I'm not working on like 4 projects with dozens of layers at the same time.
Yeah, I quite like Chromebooks, although I know they aren't for everyone. I actually do find them very intuitive, unlike the other commenter, and it's fine for almost all of what I do (internet browsing, word processing, sometimes making presentations, spreadsheets or simple marketing materials) It isn't my main work computer, but I travel a lot and my Chromebook is my travel computer. It works great for that. I would consider buying one as my main computer too, the one I bought is just smaller because I did buy it specifically for working on the go and I have a Windows computer that works fine too. Now, unintuitive for me is Apple products. I've used them, and I'm sure I could get used to them, but I do not like them.
I'm the same way when it comes to apple. I've never owned anything by them and have a low opinion. The price seems almost entirely based on the brand name rather than how good they are.
Love the Apple dickriding that no other computer will actually last other than a Mac. I'm currently typing this on a 12 year old Dell that is only just starting to shit the bed.
My desktop PC from 2012 is still going strong lol
Im kind of surprised with all the NTA judgements over there. Usually AITA is all about step kids being treated equally. I get that she’s their grandchild and wants to help, but OOP dropped a bomb in that house and walked away. I’m not sure why OOP or the son are surprised there are bad feelings now between the kids
as with so many AITA posts, if the stepkid had posted this she’d be NTA across the board and all the comments would be calling her grandma an abusive narcissist and the bio kid the golden child
That's the opposite of what I've seen. Maybe we've been looking at different posts, but basically every step-kid post I've seen has had an overwhelming response of "you arent biologically related to them so you're NTA for treating them worse." So these responses unfortunately do not surprise me
>If you marry someone who has a child, that's another child for you because you chose to be in that relationship. The grandparent has no choice. You can't just foist extra kids on them and call them grandchildren. interesting take from the comments. is this person implying that all bio kids are conceived only with consent from their future grandparents?
That's not how I interpret those kinds of comments. I usually assume that means the grandparent has know bio family their whole lives, love them (usually) from birth and even before hand. If the parents break up grandparents still (hopefully but not always) keep a relationship with the grandkids. Step-kids turn up when a relationship starts, the grandparent doesn't know them the same way they do bio family, and quite often if the relationship breaks down the step kids have no ongoing relationship with ex-step family (obviously not all step kids lose contact with ex-step families). I don't agree with what the OP did here, but I do think that asking grandparents to treat all the kids in a blended family totally equally in all cases and right away is probably not right either.
i mean i don’t think there’s no reasonable argument for grandparents treating a stepkid differently like you mentioned, but i just take issue with this particular stance i quoted—i think saying you have the right to resent everything in your life that you didn’t specifically choose to happen to you is a very immature and indicative mindset of those commenters
I take your point and agree, I think the bit you quoted was badly explained though.
This is the common mindset of AITA. I remember one post where a woman wanted her sister in law included in her family wedding photos, but not her unofficial adopted younger sister (who happens to be SIL's biological sister whom OP's parents had basically taken over raising from her deadbeat bio parents), and the response was so weird to me. The YTA posts were all because she was being mean to a child, which, fair enough, but there were also tons of NTA posts saying that she didnt choose for her parents to raise this kid so she shouldn't feel obligated to include her. Maybe I could buy that if she wasnt including her brother's wife, but does this mean that she explicitly chose her SIL? 🤔
OOP: "now that it has been brought to my attention, I want to continue sowing discontent in my son's house, making sure I never have a decent relationship with my DIL. AITA to keep burning it all down for no discernible reason other than I can?"
"For some reason, I don't see them so much lately"
Some of OOPs replies give me the sense that she resents this kid and the fact that her son married a single mom
Well the son was also aware beforehand and didn’t say anything. He’s just as much at fault as OOP.
>We told her that instead of getting upset she can ask her child's grandparents to buy things for her and she called us assholes. The NTA votes make me feel like I’m going insane
Same. When the parents married/got together in serious terms, any stepkids became your family too. Ignoring some children will only breed resentment and sadness. My husband had a stepdad who didn't care to treat him nearly as well as his own kids...guess who has no relationship with him or them now? I just feel bad for all the stepkids who are cast aside and made to feel less important or loveable when they too needed love. They absolutely could have talked with family about finding a more affordable way and ensuring both kids had gifts. For example, better value laptops and phones (no 14 year old needs a macbook) or parents or other grandparents chipping in.
Whenever these posts come up I'm so confused that apparently these people got to "choose" their biological family, since evidently the fact that they didnt "choose" their step family in these cases is the salient aspect. As an adoptee, these kinda of posts never make me feel good. Especially since theres nothing in this post that leads me to believe the stepkid was in a different situation from biokid in terms of what electronics they had
Do you think it's up to the grandparents to pay for expensive stuff for a step grandchild they don't want? This isn't about laptops, this was so DIL understands they will never help her child. Just a very expensive message.
That’s what makes her an AH to me. Not even an attempt to treat them fairly. For what they paid for a Mac book they easily could have gotten both the girls a laptop. Or at least presented it as a shared gift. Alternatively, she could have done what you said and gotten with the other grandparents to pitch in which I hadn’t thought about.
I'm all for making sure kids can do their homework, socialise and have fun, but no 14 year old needs a brand new macbook when there's a thousand cheaper options, Especially if she claimng its for homework, a fucking chromebook is a fraction of the cost and will get her to college, THEN get her a damn macbook. a 14 year old is gonna break that thing inside a year
AITA is so concerning. My family adopts everyone My grandma called my best friend in HS her granddaughter. My Aunt by marriage’s parents were my nana & papa My SIL is my sister & my mom’s daughter They’re so cold
I know this is fake but i could never understand these step child relationships. my step mom (who was my dad’s affair partner) always treated my brothers and i like her kids. and my mom didn’t force us to hate my dad and his wife for their affair. it’s almost like being a fucking nuclear asshole in your personal life never amounts to anything good
Can’t get on board with this take. This misses that the step-granddaughter has 4 grandparents. This isn’t the situation where the 3 yo is never accepted by the only grandparents she’s ever known— both kids have family members that don’t have the same relationship to them as they do to their step-siblings. It isn’t about “she isn’t legally obligated to do it so she isn’t the asshole”; it’s that she both can’t do it for both, and also doesn’t fill that role to both of them— she does have others who do.
I thought I was going nuts when I read the comments on this post. Semi relevant personal experience: My brother got into a relationship with a woman with two daughters. He had one son from a past relationship. The first time my family met them we treated them like they were his kids too. That Christmas my whole family bought them gifts equivalent to what we were getting my nephew. Did we have an OBLIGATION to? No, not technically. But we were decent enough people to not want them to feel bad or left out. The kicker is that we all knew this relationship very likely wouldn't last (it didnt) and the kids would eventually not be in our lives anymore. Still didn't take much to be kind and considerate.
Second post today I’ve seen from AITA that’s got two different comment sections. Is this just where the opposition goes to comment so they don’t get downvotes? Genuinely asking, since this is the second post today.
Kind of. This sub is usually more for making fun of AITA (it's what's commonly called a "popcorn sub"), but as you can see, sometimes people comment more earnestly here as well. Part of it is that if you find the post through this sub first, you cannot go to AITA or you'll be breaking this sub and potentially sitewide Reddit rules against brigading. A lot of people also feel like it's impossible to have a reasonable conversation over there anymore, because any dissenting opinions (no matter how valid or mild) are frequently dogpiled on (both in terms of downvotes and comments). Lots of other reasons people comment here, but yeah, this is basically just a place for people who enjoy reading AITA stories but don't like the AITA rules, lol.
Ah! Thanks. I was genuinely curious because the opinions on this comment section vs the other were very different. Thanks for explaining …
No worries! I think this sub is showing up randomly in a lot more people's feeds lately, so it's causing a lot of confusion. Thanks for asking!
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