Mom leaves out stepdaughter from family Disney trip fearing she will ruin it, asks if she was wrong

Balancing responsibilities between kids and stepkids can be challenging, especially when dealing with a moody teenager. A mom on Reddit, u/D-Hearing228, shared her dilemma about planning a Disney trip that doesn’t include her stepdaughter. She explained that her stepdaughter would be staying with her father instead. The 41-year-old mom has four children, including her husband’s two from his previous relationship, and while she usually includes everyone in family trips, this time was different.

Even though the mom has always treated the children equally, there are times when the extended family goes on different vacations taking the kids while leaving the mom out. This has never been an issue for her because they usually take family trips together which includes all 4 kids. However, the mom has been facing some issues with her 16-year-old stepdaughter who is not social and is not fond of the activities in which others around her participate. She has behavioral issues where she enjoys something until others start to enjoy the same thing as well.

"If other people are already happy about it, she immediately hates the idea," the mom wrote in the post. "We thought maybe she just wanted time with each parent alone. So we did that with both her mom and dad. She still complained the whole time. Her counselor said maybe she wants activities with both parents to show they get along. They did that but if they showed any enjoyment at all, she hated whatever they were doing. We've done girl days with her mom and me and she hates it. We have found the less enthusiastic we are, the more she wants to do it." Whether it is about outdoor activities or food, the teenager has the same complaining attitude towards everything.

"So this year, we had been talking about Disney for a while. My nephew has cancer and has always wanted to go with us because he has no siblings and not many friends because he's missed a lot of school. Step-daughter said it was stupid as soon as everyone else wanted to go. Her father said he would have a lot of work to catch up on when he got back. The kids agreed that they wanted to go and he wanted us to, so I made the plans and we decided to go back another year with all of us," the mom continued her post. So she made reservations for herself, her other kids and the nephew, deciding that the stepdaughter could stay back with her dad since she didn't want to go anyway.

However, the mom’s husband felt she was wrong not to include his daughter in the Disney trip. The mom clarified that her stepdaughter’s constant complaints would make the trip difficult for everyone, but she still checked in with her multiple times to see if she wanted to join. Each time, the answer was no. Feeling torn between her husband’s opinion and her stepdaughter’s reactions, the mom turned to Reddit for an outside perspective on whether leaving her stepdaughter out was the right call.

u/Kaynico wrote, "She's 16. Plenty old enough to lay in the bed she makes. She said she didn't want to go, so plans were made for her not to go. She'll learn quickly, hard and fast in the real world and nobody wants to waste time or energy on a selfish, entitled killjoy." u/dontlikebeige mentioned, "Don't get bogged down in her behavioral problem. Just say, SD said she didn't want to go. The plans are made. Your husband is mostly ticked off that he is in charge of his daughter while you are gone." u/ByronicPan added, "I'd only advise, you, your partner and the child's mother to focus more on her mental health treatment because this thing sounds very pathological, to say the least."