Dad asks if he was wrong to make one of his two daughters pay to join family vacation.
AITA for refusing to pay for my daughter’s plane ticket but paying for my youngest daughter who this vacation is dedicated to?
Hello all, I have 2 daughters named Kate (23F) and Alexa (16F). For starters Kate lives with me rent free and bill free. She used to live with her mother full time, but her mom kicked her out at 18.
I don’t blame her mother though. Kate was absolutely terrible in her teenager years. She was rude, disrespectful and would steal,smoke, skip class,etc. Kate barely finished high school and was put in a continuation school. Since then though Kate is doing a lot better. She didn’t want to go to college, but she works at a fast food restaurant and is saving up for her own apartment.
Alexa, on the other hand is the opposite. She’s amazing in school, works, volunteers and still has time to do sports and clubs. I’m extremely proud of her and feel as if she puts too much pressure on herself. Me and my girlfriend decided to surprise her with a vacation. Alexa has always wanted to go there, and it wasn’t as pricey as we expected. We planned this in early October.
I told Kate about the vacation and asked if she wanted to come, but said she would have to pay her own ticket. She said yes and would give me the money before Halloween. Well she never gave me the money even after being reminded, so I booked the trip on November 1 for the 18-21 of November.
I told Alexa this Sunday at dinner and she was very excited. Kate then said “ you’ll have to cancel and hope they refund. I work those days.” I told her she wasn’t coming since she didn’t pay. She was confused and thought I was paying for her. I told her that she was an adult who worked and lived free, why would I pay.
She got upset and said because she's our daughter, and since I was paying for Alexa, why not her? An argument then happened which resulted in Alexa and Kate crying, and Kate saying she hated me.
Kate has been ignoring us until we apologize and pay her ticket, which I won’t. Well yesterday Alexa sent me a link to a video on tick Tock where it shows Kate crying and explaining the situation, but she lied about a lot of things in the videos and made Alexa and I look like bad guys.
The video got a lot of attention and support. She even opened up a GoFundMe where she received close to 500 dollars. I showed my girlfriend and we are both livid. Alexa was also very upset about the comments which fueled my anger. When she came home a huge argument broke out and I basically kicked her out for the week.
She’s been posting on social media platforms talking about me, my daughter and girlfriend. My daughter even got some nasty messages on her social media. My girlfriend told me I’m right on this but my daughter told me to just pay for her ticket. I want to know if I’m doing the right decision, so help.
Info from OP:
Alexa and Kate have different mothers. Alexa’s mother is dead which is why for you guys I show “favoritism” for her. Kate lived with her mother (my baby momma/ never married) Her mother couldn’t take it so she kicked her out at 18. Kate chose to live with her mother before then.
Comments:
Blauwere17 says:
The fact that Alexa her mother is dead is not the reason why we think favoritism is involved. We think that because favoritism is involved. You literally described Kate as “the opposite” of “amazing” Alexa and admitted to treating them differently. Where did you take Kate on her dream vacation?
crazyshortasian says:
Didn't you also say she's also saving up for her own apartment. Working a 15/hr job even full time makes it hard to save up for anything. Do you expect her to use the money she saved up to get her own place to pay for the vacation? One month wouldn't be enough to save for both a 200-400 vacation with a 15/hr job..
SoloPiName says:
Yta. 1. So, she misunderstood who was paying and you just silently booked the tickets without any word to her? No, 'Hey I'm booking the vacation Sunday. How are you on saving up your money?' That's sneaky and quite frankly sounds calculating. 2. You are celebrating one kid by leaving out another.
You don't choose travel as a family activity unless you really don't want the family member making sh*t wages at a fast food restaurant to attend. Again, calculating and sneaky. 3. When you behave poorly, as you have, you don't get to get angry at the other persons narrative. If you wanted to be spoken of better you should have behaved better.
ToadseyeGem says:
My verdict is ESH, personally. OP, you're N T A for not paying, but announcing the trip at dinner without telling Kate definitively that you were booking the trip and she was not going since she didn't pay ahead of time just set this up to be a sh*tshow. I get that she had plenty of chances and reminders, but you should still have told her the window had closed privately.
JNF919 says:
Kinda think this is ESH. Her reaction is pretty bad, but it kinda seems like you're stacking the deck against her for past behavior a bit when they're both your daughters.
Mentioning about how Kate was 'absolutely terrible' as a child even though you admit she's doing way better now, while you're 'extremely proud' of Alexa when that's not really relevant to the story is a pretty big tell. I'd be pretty upset too if I felt like my parents were totally favoring my younger sibling.