AlTA for refusing to share my daughter’s 27 Christmas gifts with her half-brother who got 1?

A Reddit user recounts a dramatic Christmas conflict with their ex, who demanded that their daughter share her 27 gifts with her half-brother, who only received one. The user, who shares custody of their 7-year-old daughter, explains the complex family dynamics: their ex cheated, had a son with someone else, and is struggling financially.

The user went all out for their daughter’s Christmas and birthday (both celebrated on December 25th) but did not buy any gifts for her half-brother. When the ex arrived with her son, she was furious to see the gift disparity and demanded the daughter share her gifts. The user refused, prioritizing their daughter’s happiness and the boundary they had promised her.

After being kicked out of the house, the ex accused the user of being heartless and intentionally ruining her son’s Christmas. The user wonders if they went too far by refusing to let their daughter share her gifts.

‘ AlTA for refusing to share my daughter’s 27 Christmas gifts with her half-brother who got 1?’

I share custody of my 7-year-old daughter, Zara, with my ex. But while still dating my ex cheated on me and mothered a boy who’s now 5. She has full custody of her son since the dad is a deadbeat who only sees his child every few months. On the other hand, I have majority custody of our daughter and have her 3 weeks of every 4.

Besides attempting to co-parent the best we can, our relationship is nonexistent. This is mostly because my ex is narcissistic. She expected me to pay child maintenance because I kicked her out and now she lives in a 2 bedroom apartment in a s**tty area. She also told her son I was his dad for whatever reason. Because of this we only physically interact whenever I pick up or drop Zara.

Anyway, Zara was born on Christmas Eve which means I buy her a lot of presents. This year I bought 20, plus 5 from my brother and 2 from her mother. My ex didn’t get the bonus she had hoped for from work which she was relying on for Christmas dinner. When picking up my daughter she told me her mom had asked her to ask me “Can we spend Christmas as one family this year” AKA my ex wanted it to seem our daughter wanted to spend Christmas as one family and not her.

I have a closer bond with my daughter than my ex does, so she was honest with me about the situation. I asked her if she was ok with the idea, and she told me she didn’t mind as long as her half-brother didn’t mess with her things. I agreed to respect her boundaries. From what she’s shared, her half-brother is the typical annoying younger sibling, and they don’t have a close relationship. Considering they only see each other once every three weeks, it’s not surprising that they are not particularly close. Not that I care anyway.

When Christmas morning comes and my ex and her son arrive my daughter is screaming for us to begin opening presents. We all go into the living room and my ex is shocked to see the number of presents under the tree. She looked at me weirdly and asked which ones were for her son and I told her none. I guess due to the sheer number of presents she thought I had bought a gift for her son. I told her no and this was all for her since it was also her birthday.

She got angry quickly and pulled me to the kitchen and quietly screamed at me. She called me selfish and greedy not just for buying Zara too many presents but for the price of them. Zara had already opened a new bike, kindle, and chemistry kit. And how her son now had to watch his sister open presents while he was only holding a children’s book which is all she could afford. She then told me Zara needed to share her gifts and let her brother open the rest.

I told her that was a no and I was not going to force Zara to share the gifts she earned for being a good girl this year. This time she didn’t bother lowering her voice and full-on raged at me. How I do this on purpose to get back at her for cheating and how I love being cruel before call me a s**iopath. My brother came in hearing the fight and pulled some money out to give to the boy, but I told him to put it away and told her to get the f**k out of my house.

She texted me the next day about how I ruined her son’s Christmas because I refused to share a couple of toys and he cried all day. Do I feel bad? Sort of but I don’t think I am the a**hole since I did promise my daughter her brother would not touch her things. Christmas eve and Christmas Day is considered one day for us because Zara was born on Christmas Eve and it’s weird to open bday presents one day and Christmas presents another day.

Let’s dive into the reactions from Reddit:

goknightsgo09 −  I 100% believe you’re under no obligation to purchase gifts for her son and your daughter should not have to share. That being said, knowing her financial situation and the fact that she has two children to buy for as opposed to one, you had to have known her son wasn’t going to have the same amount of gifts to open.

You could have explained to your daughter that you were going to do the majority of her gifts with just the two of you because you didn’t want to make her brother feel bad. In doing this, not only do you not let the boy sit there and experience a sad situation for him, you also teach your daughter compassion. After all, it’s not the boy’s fault your ex cheated on you. He’s innocent in all of this.

SeeKaleidoscope −  Your ex is obviously as ass. But you should have anticipated  this. A child has a broken heart. An innocent child. Jesus man. You should have asked ex how many gifts he had. Have her open all but that number prior to them coming. ESH

throwAWweddingwoe −  You will get a lot of N T As on reddit for this but issues of this nature are bigger than just whether you are an A H or not. You may not care about this child but a sibling is one of the fundamental relationships in a person’s life and if you love your daughter the way her fundamental relationships are developed and nurtured in her formative years should be of importance to you.

You present the issue as if the only solution was either share or not share the gifts and had that been the only option I’d say N T A. You don’t need to provide gifts for this child nor should your daughter be required to share.

However, you – an adult capable of creative problem solving – had many options available and the option you chose was one that hurt an innocent child (because any child in that situation would be hurt) and damaged 2 of your daughters fundamental relationships (with her mother and sibling). Additionally, it ruined Christmas for everyone present because I guarantee you what your daughter will remember from today will be her parents fighting not the stuff she received.

I’ve been a family lawyer long enough that kids I represented (I am often the court appointed attorney for a child) are now adults. Really consider what I’m going to say next with an open mind, on the whole children are self absorbed, have zero foresight and lack empathy until well into their teens if not early adulthood, fortunately they don’t stay that way but they do not consider the implications of an action in a way that an adult should and as a result when given a choice often choose the one with immediate effect they prefer without considering long term ramifications.

As parents, or in my case as their advocate, it is our job to consider the bigger picture they are as yet unable to fully comprehend. I can tell you this with 100% sincerity, from my professional experience the children who had at least 1 parent who valued the future wellbeing over the present had far better life outcomes.

All you had to do was let your ex know your daughter would have a large number of gifts and ask her to come over 2 hours later so her son/your daughter’s brother (who is only 5) wouldn’t have to sit there and witness her receiving all these expensive gifts while he only got a book. Doing that would have avoided this damaging memory your daughter now has of her parents fighting and shown an ounce of empathy for a fatherless 5 year old whose in no way responsible for the life he was born into.

Popular-Review5130 −  While technically you’re N T A, I think both you and your ex behaved appallingly. What kind of behavior do you want to model for your daughter? How can you think that putting a 5 year old child in that position is okay?
If I was your mother, I would be so ashamed of you. Edit: this is definitely an ESH except for that poor boy. JFC, all the adults in this story need to get their s**t together.

suaculpa −  INFO. Why didn’t you just say no to having them over instead of looking to rub it in a five year old’s face that he doesn’t have as many presents? I mean yeah, he’s not your kid and his mother is a dirty c**ater who should suffer forever, apparently but he’s also an innocent kid and the way you went about this was as distasteful as you could. But not to worry, Reddit will absolve you because cheaters deserve hell and no one owes anyone anything – not even a modicum of empathy.

Own-Cryptographer499 −  NTA. Not your kid, not your responsibility to buy him presents. Tell the ex if shes so concerned she can go buy him more presents.

nonchalantenigma −  I have mixed emotions. You aren’t an ah for not buying anything for the boy. You, your brother and mother have no relation to the boy so none of you owe him a gift. You are not an ah for not forcing your daughter to share her gifts… but I do hope your daughter understands the value of sharing. I would call your ex an ah to expecting you, your brother and mom to buy things for her son. It is also an ah move to expect her daughter to automatically share things.

It would have been nice if you helped your daughter get her half-brother a holiday gift, as it is her brother. However, I do not know the dynamics between your daughter and her brother to say whether or not this was truly an ah move.
I do think it is an ah move to allow your daughter to open 27 presents in front of a guest child at Christmas. I feel you could have set a later arrival time for ex and son to get to your house OR explain to your daughter that presents are going to be later this year so the majority of the present opening would be done when your ex and her son weren’t at your house.. Edit: typo.

v_blondie −  I’m going with what will likely be a wildly unpopular ESH. Are you responsible for buying her son gifts? Absolutely not. Did she create a lot of this situation? Yes. But a 5 year old kid, who has no control over what the adults in his life do or put him through, is the one paying the price.

There is no reason you adults wouldn’t have been able to forsee this outcome. A little boy feeling unloved and left out. You’re setting him up for a lifetime of hurt that may bleed into eventual resentment toward his sister. Do you want her to have a well-adjusted childhood and a healthy relationship with her brother one day? If so, take some small steps to help facilitate that.

I’m not saying you have to buy him gifts too – although it would be kind to get him something small/inexpensive (but thoughtful). But think through the logical outcome of your decisions, at least. Yes, I realize that your ex essentially invited herself and her son over. And yes, she caused much of this.

But maybe next time, something like a simple ‘you can come over for dinner after we’ve opened most of Zara’s presents, so your son doesn’t feel left out’ would save that poor little kid some of the misery he is likely to face on the regular.. Edit- a word.

Liquid_Fire__ −  You mean to tell us you had a kid over for Christmas and you didn’t get him anything? You couldn’t spare 5 bucks for a 5 yo? Honestly?

lantana98 −  That 5 year old child will remember this day for the rest of his life as the day he was shown he is without value.