My Daughter Couldn’t Respect Privacy, and a Family Fight Broke Out

Part of parenting is teaching valuable life lessons to children, which help them grow into kind and responsible individuals. However, a father who is doing his best to teach his daughter a lesson was seen in a bad light for doing so.

He shared his parenting challenge on the internet.

The man wrote, “I have a daughter, Emily (16F), from a previous marriage. My wife, Sasha, has a son the same age, Mark (16M). Mark doesn’t stay with us that often; he prefers to stay with his bio dad. That being said, when he is here, I find Mark to be a pretty good kid, polite and respectful.

His dad decided to take a trip for work, in the last few weeks of school, so Mark’s here for a bit. He’s out of the house most of the time and doesn’t take up much space. He does get kind of grumpy when there’s too much going on around him, especially noise, but for that, his favorite thing is the expensive noise-cancelling headphones, which he almost always has with him — a present from his dad.

Emily’s school has already finished, so she’s home. The problem is that the room Mark is, sometimes has miscellaneous items put in when he’s not here, and therefore Emily seems to think it’s fair game to go through his stuff. I’ve told her to stop, but Sasha hasn’t been taking it seriously, in my opinion, saying that most of Mark’s stuff is easy to replace.”

He continued, “The big problem happened when Mark accidentally left his headphones in his room, and Emily accidentally snapped them.

Mark found out when he came home from school and flipped. He shouted at her, saying she was ’spoilt without anything to back it up’, loud enough that my wife and I heard it from the other room. Sasha wanted me to calm things down, which I did — but I also told Emily, she’s replacing them.

The thing is, Mark’s dad offered to have someone get him a new pair immediately, and that it wasn’t a problem. I said Emily would pay him back, and I’m sticking with it.

Emily and Sasha think that’s unfair since Mark’s dad can afford to buy 10 more. But I don’t think you get to break someone’s stuff and not pay for it. Those aren’t the values I was raised with or what I want for my daughter.

That being said, I do realize in this case it’s kind of unnecessary and there may be better ways for her to make it up to him. Am I wrong?”

People from the internet have shared their thoughts.

• I’m sorry, but there is NO way a 16-year-old snapped headphones “accidentally,” especially good quality noise-cancelling ones. I think your daughter knew exactly what she was doing. She probably knew the importance to him too.
  She should pay back regardless. She should apologize sincerely, and then you ALL clean his room out, and while he is not present, it is LOCKED. He gets the key. © Sassypants2306 / Reddit
• It’s called accountability. Just because something can be replaced easily does not mean that you shouldn’t pay for it. © TheLongLostBaker / Reddit
• Oddly, I can see why Mark prefers to spend most of his time at his dad’s, and it’s not the money. It’s the fact that his own mother prefers her stepdaughter over him, and she’s the favorite. He likes you and probably wants to see his mom, but he’s found out where he stands in his mom’s eyes.
  Give it another couple of years of this, and she’ll be lucky to see him once a year or so. Then she’ll be complaining even more.
  Good for you to have rules and boundaries. Your daughter is definitely spoiled by her stepmother, and has a “what’s yours is mine” attitude that isn’t going to do her any favors when she’s older. © Adelucas / Reddit
• No, no, there is no better way for Emily to make it up to Mark. It doesn’t matter that his bio dad could buy him 10 more right now — he already had perfectly working ones, and your kid broke them (how do you snap headphones accidentally, though?).
  She broke his stuff. She gets to pay him back. If this had happened at school or anywhere outside your home, that would not be questioned. She’d have to cover the cost of the replacement.
  Emily needs to learn that her actions have consequences, and the consequences will often be monetary loss to her. © katbelleinthedark / Reddit

Mark’s space was brought up, which he clarified.

A user pointed out, “Emily is encountering the find out portion of her messing around. I can see why Mark prefers to stay with his dad; his mom is being super flippant about his space and belongings. Get Mark a lock for the door and remove the miscellaneous items from his room when you know he’s coming over.” OP answered, “I’ve been working on convincing Sasha to let him have a lock. Unfortunately, that’s her rule, and he is her kid. As for the second part, yes, of course, we do that anyway.”

They have a rule, as he stated, “We have an agreement where we’re obviously a family, and can parent each other’s kids (mildly), but the final decision is up to the actual parent. In this case, I can make Emily pay for the headphones, but I can’t allow Mark to have a lock.”

He added, “We make sure all the stuff is out before Mark comes back. I thought she’d stopped after I reminded her there was no reason for her to be in there while Mark is here, and Sasha convinced me not to ground her for a small slip of mind. I was shocked by the fact that she was still going in, let alone that she broke something of his.”

A user replied to it and said, “I can MAYBE see going into the room being a small slip up at first, but if she’s continuously going in his room while he’s staying there, that’s no mistake. It’s invading his privacy. Let alone breaking something he values, even if it was an accident.
Why is Sasha not letting you ground your own daughter? Is she trying to be the ’good parent’? Does she want to teach your daughter that she can just destroy someone’s property and that someone else will come and fix it for her with x amount of money?”

He responded, “See, that’s what I thought. Unfortunately, I was not aware that she continued to go in after the first one or two times. For now, I do think paying for the headphones is an acceptable punishment. They are not cheap, and we’re not a rich family, so she’ll probably be taking at least a month and a half to pay it back.”

In another story, after years of planning for a wedding, all of a sudden, a woman’s sister wants a double wedding. Fed up with it, she did something unexpected that you can read about through this link.