AITA for soaking my niece with a hose after I was told not to because she was wearing white?

A man used a hose to soak his 12-year-old niece after she repeatedly threw water balloons at his son, despite the boy asking her to stop. His niece was wearing a dress with a white section, and his sister had warned against getting her wet, saying it would become see-through.

Frustrated by the situation and his niece’s behavior, the man drenched her anyway, leading to conflict with his sister and brother-in-law, who accused him of being inappropriate and abusive. read the original story below…

‘ AITA for soaking my niece with a hose after I was told not to because she was wearing white?’

34m and a dad of 4. My babies are 13m, 11f, 11m and 8m. Our youngest has some significant sensory issues and anger management issues, which he is being evaluated for (important info for context). He’s already been diagnosed with ODD but this goes beyond that.

My sister (34- my twin) has a 12yo daughter, “Jane”, who is a spoiled rotten kid- as she is an only child and my sister puts a whole new meaning to “gentle parenting”. As in she doesn’t parent, because her kid is just expressing herself and she doesn’t want to parent out her personality, which sucks.

I love my niece to the depth of my being but I do not like her or my sister. I don’t know how else to put it. On Saturday we had a memorial of life service for my uncle who passed away months ago. It was held at my brother’s house. There was probably about 12 kids there. We got easily 40 of those 60 pack water balloon things and let the kids go ham.

It was a huge ordeal. However, my youngest at some point decided the water was too much for him to handle, said he was done playing and came to sit by me and dry off. He was being great, which I was grateful for because he has A LOT of bad days. But my niece kept coming up and throwing more water balloons at him after she was asked to stop.

It was causing him to spiral and he starts raging out, basically and my sister was telling me to calm my kid down and tell him to stop being a baby. She didn’t want to get wet so every single time he went to throw one back, she would start screaming telling him to stop.

At that point my sister got involved as well and yelled at my son saying “don’t you dare, she said not to get her wet because she’s wearing white and it’ll be see through”. I told her to tell her daughter to stop throwing water balloons at my son because he had already said to stop and she said “he’s already f**king wet”.

So basically my niece was perfectly fine to throw s**t at my kid, who had asked her to stop repeatedly, but they weren’t letting him defend himself. The last time my niece came up to him, I spoke up and said “don’t think about it, he said no”.

She didn’t listen and threw it anyways so I grabbed the hose beside me and drenched her for a solid 30 seconds. She immediately starts crying and covering herself and goes to hang out in my sister’s car. My sister starts berating me and stating that I “knew it was going to make her see through and decided to be a c**ep anyways”.

My mom and father kicked her out for that comment. I’m getting texts from my BIL however stating that I’m a p** and what I did was uncalled for and a**sive and that I would never be allowed around my niece again because I’m “inappropriate”. ETA: the “dress” wasn’t even all white. It had a white strip along her stomach. That’s the only spot of white that was on her. The rest of the dress was dark.

Here’s what Redditors had to say:

Odd_Calligrapher_932 −  nta i’m a nanny and my rule is if your don’t want to get sprayed or have water balloons thrown at you that is perfectly fine but you don’t get to throw them at the other kids either.

Bitter-Fishing-Butt −  should have soaked your stupid sister as well

ASlightHiccup −  She was deliberately provoking your kid for her amusement…NTA . I wonder if she had any friends or is a b**ly at school…

GonnaBeOverIt −  NTA what a f**king b**t. She deserved it.

[Reddit User] −  Oh look, a “parent your own child or someone will parent it for you” in the wild. Your child, the younger one in this situation, was getting hit with water balloons after being asked not to multiple times. But *that* was okay for sister dearest? Sounds like your b**t of a sister is raising a b**t of a daughter.

Remember that just because she’s your twin doesn’t mean you have to expose your children to her or her poor parenting

rojita369 −  NTA. Should have soaked mom too.

CandThonestpartners −  At the end of the day he told what would happen if she soak his kid again. She did it, he only stood by what he said. He is not a c**ep I’ve worn a white dress it’s got soaked and it hasn’t turned see through. At the end of the day the sister needs to tell her daughter about boundaries.

She’s old enough, she should know that NO means NO.. I stead she kept going on and on. Well whatever happened after the fact is her own fault and her mum’s fault.
Why should she have her boundaries respected whilst she won’t respect anyone else’s. What because she’s a young girl and the boundaries of the kid she wasn’t respecting was a young boy.. Nah that doesn’t matter.

Capable_Judgment8209 −  Everyone is acting like OP gunned her down with a fire hose. It was likely a garden hose, as far as we know the niece had 2 working legs, and I presume OP didn’t get up or chase her. She could have walked away.

If she didn’t want to get wet because she was wearing a dress, then she shouldn’t have been playing with water. All it would take was a 5 year old who didn’t know better to land a water balloon. She agreed to play and a vital part of that is getting wet.

The son did what he was supposed to, OP was protecting his son, and if the sister didn’t want OP to parent, then she should have patented the niece herself. What the niece was doing was malicious, she was trying to rile up the son and make him lash out.. NTA.

Squat_n_stuff −  NTA but I think you should’ve blasted the s**t out of your sister – something like “my son has already said stop – anything your daughter does to him I do to you ” now she’s on the hook for her daughters behavior

Lovetheirony −  Should have sprayed your sister too

Do you think he overstepped, or was it justified to defend his son? Share your opinions below!