Mom teaches daughter an important lesson for passing mean comments about brother's Christmas gifts

People often blame the parents when their children display insensible or rude behavior. However, one cannot simply ignore the fact that there could be many bad influences other than parents in a child's life like friends, neighbors or other relatives. Especially for teens, choosing the right circle of friends speaks volumes. A mother noticed one such inconsiderate behavior by her teen daughter influenced by someone else and tried to teach her a lesson. When u/busr2e784 was concerned that her daughter was too stubborn to apologize, people came up with diverse opinions. 

The 33-year-old mom of 4 shared that she and her husband gave money to their kids every year to spend on Christmas gifts for each other. "This year they got $100 to spend on each sibling, $50 on us, their cousins and their grandparents and $30 on aunts and uncles," explained the mom. She mentioned that apart from her youngest son (2-year-old) who needed help in choosing gifts, their three older kids were well capable of picking the right gifts to the family members' liking. Her eldest son, Liam wanted to opt for thrift store items for Christmas gifts this year as he found the idea intriguing ever since he saw a video on TikTok. "Liam has been a huge fan of thrifting. He has found $50 or $100 items for a few bucks," wrote the mom.

The parents encouraged Liam's idea of thrifting and the boy was able to buy so many gifts for his family that his parents had to get some giant trash bags to fit those gifts. "The kids all shop for Christmas gifts separately, so they didn't know which stores each other were going to," the mom mentioned. During a casual family conversation, Liam brought up that he had bought some more gifts in various thrift stores that day. Replying to Liam, the couple's oldest daughter, Kayla passed insensitive comments criticizing that his thrifting was "gross" and that she didn't want any thrift store gifts because she was "above that filth." 

"I will admit, we are quite privileged and live in a privileged area, so when my daughter said that, I asked where she learned that and she said her friends said similar things," explained the mom. When the teen refused to apologize to her brother, the parents decided to make her write an apology letter and tried to teach her that thrifting was a good thing to do. "She said she wasn't going to do it and has been arguing with us all day over it. I asked some friends who are also parents of teenagers if I was out of line and got mixed results," wrote the concerned mom.

The comments section had varied opinions and people pointed out that both the daughter and the parents were at fault here. "For the sake of society and your own sanity, that behavior needs to be corrected before it gets out of hand. An apology letter and making her research the benefits of thrifting is a great idea. Also props to Liam for using his brain on how to get the most for the money he had," reassured u/Riddles_Pandaowls. "You need to realize a forced apology isn't a real apology. It's just something people do to get the pressure off them so others will leave them alone," commented u/mimic-man77. "Children who grow up in privileged environments are unlikely to understand what it’s like for the people who don’t. Giving them hundreds of dollars to spend on others doesn’t equate to developing empathy," wrote u/Praha3.