Her Sister Bought Her Daughter A Phone Against Her Wishes, So She Returned It, And Now Her Sister Is Accusing Her of Humiliating Her For Not Accepting Such An Expensive Gift
This 38-year-old woman has a 39-year-old husband named Chris, and they have 2 young daughters together.
Their littlest is 2, and their oldest, Mia, just celebrated her 10th birthday. They live in Scotland, and Mia will be going back to school at the end of August.
But, back to Mia’s birthday; she insisted that she wanted a phone as her birthday present. She and her husband Chris didn’t want to get Mia a phone because they felt she wasn’t old enough to have one.
She thinks Mia should get a phone when she begins high school, as, at that point, she actually will have a use for it.
“I need to emphasize that Mia has access to contacting her friends online through us and an iPad with parental controls,” she explained.
“For example, she has a few gaming apps that are kid-friendly to play with her friends, and she frequently FaceTimes them from my phone or Chris’ phone. My point is we are aware of how and who she contacts, and we are always around or monitoring it.”
“The parents of her friends have more or less similar setups as us, with their kids generally being supervised and using their phones or whatever. We also limit the time she is on it so she’s not addicted to it.”
Either she or Chris constantly monitors what Mia is doing when online, and they have created boundaries for her so she can still get to be a kid.
When their youngest grows up, she’s going to have the same rules, and when both girls turn 12, they can have a phone as that’s the age you start high school in Scotland.
Andrey_Arkusha – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only, not the actual child
She thinks that the boundaries she is creating for Mia and her littlest are within reason and quite healthy. Well, despite her making it clear to Mia that she is too young to have a cell phone, Mia kept talking about it incessantly to their family members.
She made it clear to her loved ones that Mia cannot have a phone, and she asked them not to purchase her one, even if she begged them to. Her 23-year-old sister did not listen to her at all, and her sister bought Mia a phone for her birthday.
Her sister gave her the phone, though, and said she should surprise Mia with the gift. Her sister pointed out that tons of kids Mia’s age have a cell phone, so Mia should not be “left out.”
She let her sister know that she could not accept the present and reminded her that she told everyone not to get Mia a phone. Her sister got pretty nasty with her since she laid down the law.
“My sister says I humiliated her and was rude to not accept such an expensive present,” she said.
“I told her she is undermining what I think is a reasonable boundary as a present and told her I didn’t want anyone buying Mia a phone. I have even told her to return it or keep it for herself as I’m not accepting it. She has been passive-aggressive with me since.”
“My parents say that my sister doesn’t have children and is the ‘fun aunt,’ and so doesn’t understand parenting boundaries like I do and think I should apologize just so things aren’t awkward. I may be coming across as [a jerk], but I don’t see why I should apologise and told my parents as much. Chris thinks my sister crossed a line and thinks I should stick to my principles. My brother, who is also childless, is in agreement with me and Chris too.”
She’s left wondering if she was wrong to return the phone to her sister and stick to her parenting principles.
What do you think?
You can read the original post on Reddit here.
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