Son throws away sister's hygiene products, so Mom throws away his Switch. AITA?

A frustrated mother came to Reddit after a family fight to ask:

'AITA (Am I the a-hole) for throwing my son’s Switch in the trash?'

u/Soft_Personality_521 writes:

My daughter Mae is 13 and has been having the worst mood swings with her periods. She’s also had really bad cramping and other issues.

She got snippy with my son Mic (9) over being loud while playing Fortnite. Mic decided that his revenge was to throw away my daughter’s feminine hygiene products all of the thrash.

Bad form.

She went to switch out her pad, and Mic threw everything away. I had to make an emergency run to get more pads for my daughter who’s already feeling sh*tty.

I hear Mic playing Fortnite on his switch and laughing with his friends about what he did. I grabbed his Switch and threw that in the trash.

Real 'eye for an eye' energy.

He starts crying and my husband is like 'really' and took it out of the garbage and told my son he’s grounded from the Switch until we decide to give it back. My husband locked it up in a safe in our bedroom and swears he won’t give it back, but throwing it away was over the top.

I don’t think Mic should get it back and it should be given away to someone else. My husband thinks I’m overreacting but what our son did was cruel and he should be punished for it and a loss of his Switch is punishment.

What do you think? Did OP overreact, or does the kid need to learn the seriousness of tampering with tampons?

Here's what Reddit thought...

Own-Preparation4687 says:

YTA (You're the a-hole)... your son threw your daughter's belongings in the trash when he was angry, and you show him that's wrong by doing the same thing? You're an adult. What your son did was wrong, but you could have taught him that lesson by grounding him rather than having a sudden, scary, emotional reaction.

Whos_of_Whoville comments:

ESH (Everyone sucks here) - your son is 9 and probably hasn’t hit puberty yet. Not giving him a pass, because he should know better than to throw stuff of value away. OP should also know better than to throw away something in a fit of rage. Only person here that did the right thing is the father. Kudos to him.

JMRR1416 writes:

YTA. Your son shouldn’t have thrown away his sister’s hygiene products, and grounding him from his Switch seems like a reasonable consequence. But you reacted in anger and retaliated by throwing away the Switch, an item that most likely won’t be replaced.

And, by the way, mood swings and cramps are not reasons to treat people badly. Reading between the lines, I’m sensing some favoritism for your daughter and perhaps she’s allowed to get away with behavior that wouldn’t fly for your son.

kegspluskats agrees:

YTA. Teach your daughter how to treat people better. Having a period doesn't make it okay to be awful to people. Mic is 9 YEARS OLD and is tired of being snapped at, you clearly condone your daughter's behaviour and don't correct her when she 'gets snippy'. Awful parenting.

Not much sympathy for OP here.

Looks like parents should be held to a higher standard than their children.