NEED TO KNOW
- A single dad says his teen daughter isn’t speaking to him after he “embarassed” her at a sleepover
- He explained that she broke one of the only two rules he gave her, so he sent her friends home
- The man shared his story on Reddit, where fellow Reddit users said he handled the situation “perfectly”
A man says that his teenage daughter is refusing to speak to him after he “embarrassed” her at a recent sleepover, and he’s wondering if he potentially mishandled the situation.
The 42-year-old parent detailed his story on the popular Reddit forum “Am I the A——,” a place where people go to seek advice about interpersonal dilemmas. In his post, he explained that he has a 17-year-old daughter named Anya and a 14-year-old stepson named Noah.
“Noah’s mom passed a few years ago, and I’ve had full custody since. He’s had a rough go of it, but he’s a good kid,” the dad of two wrote, adding, “He’s not antisocial or shy, but he does not appreciate having his space invaded, and when very upset, he can kinda shut down.”
He proceeded to write that his daughter — who is “much more outgoing and has lots of friends — recently asked if she could have a sleepover at their house.
The Reddit user said that he agreed under two conditions: He asked that the girls “keep things down after 11” so that he could sleep and that they not go into his stepson’s bedroom as “the friends who were coming were pretty loud and have a tendency to crowd Noah.”
“In my opinion, these are not strict rules,” he noted.
However, the man said that when he went upstairs to check on the teens at about 10 p.m., he found the girls in Noah’s room, adding that it “looked like they’d been there a while.”
The PEOPLE Puzzler crossword is here! How quickly can you solve it? Play now!
“Two [of the girls] were literally sitting on his bed with him there, one of them was flipping through his sketchbook, [and] another was messing with his other stuff,” he recalled. “Noah was clearly upset.”
The man said that he told the girls to leave the room, and he called “every single one of their parents” to have them picked up.
The Redditor said that his daughter then “blew up” at him and said he had “embarrassed” her, adding, “But I told her that I gave them TWO rules and they failed spectacularly.”
He admitted that his daughter is not currently speaking to him, and he is now left wondering if he “handled things right.”
“AITA [am I the a——]?” the man asked at the end of his post.
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Reddit users were quick to say that they thought that he handled the situation extremely well, assuring him that he was in no way the “a——” here.
“Very good job OP [original poster],” one person replied. “I am sure Anya is upset, but that is because of her own actions. Noah is upset because his sister intentionally hurt him. Those are different things, and you did the right thing in correcting the former child and protecting the latter child.”
“NTA [not the a——],” another person said. “This is some of the best parenting I have seen in a long time […]. You handled this perfectly, and your daughter needs to reflect on what she did to [her stepbrother] in his safe space.”
“One thing I want to point out is how this may be something Noah thinks about a lot moving forward in life,” someone else added. “You stood up for him against your daughter. Your ‘real’ kid. As a teen boy living with a stepfather and stepsister, you have to wonder if he thinks you view them equally. You just proved to him that you do. He’s as much your son as your daughter. You absolutely handled this the right way.”
Read the full article here