Redditor Wants To Know “AITA” For Not Taking Stepdaughter On Family Vacation

Even under the best of circumstances, blending families is a tricky and delicate balance. Taking two (and often more) individual families into account when creating one new, interconnected family unit is an exercise in communication, emotional intelligence, and, very often, humility.

Again: these are the best possible circumstances. That’s not to say it can’t be beautiful and meaningful, but it’s always going to be hard. And sometimes it’s hard because, let’s be honest, people aren’t making their very best efforts. Like a recent post on the popular “Am I The Assh*le” (AITA) sub-Reddit asking “AITA for not taking my stepdaughter on vacation?”

I know what you might be thinking: you can’t necessarily make an AITA judgment from the title of the post alone. Sometimes, very crucial information is buried in the details of the post.

This is not, in fact, one of those times, but the details we are given, well, they certainly make this issue more interesting…

Reddit user u/Classic-Choice9766 (whom I’ll call “Classic”) has two children — 3 and 4 — with her husband. Said husband has a 15 year old daughter from a previous relationship, of whom he has custody every other weekend.

“Our son and daughter have never been to Disney,” she explains. “So this year we are surprising them with a trip. My husband, myself, and the 2 kids will be going to Disney for 5 days. My stepdaughter has been to Disney 6 times so we didn’t think she’d want to go since we have to do things the little ones can enjoy.”

Right away, I’ve hit a bit of a record scratch moment. No asking if she wanted to go? Disney is, famously, designed for whole families in mind so automatically assuming a teenaged child wouldn’t be interested (especially since you don’t go half a dozen times if you don’t like it) feels… OK. Let’s continue…

Classic explains that the Disney trip is happening the same time her stepdaughter is going on a ski trip with her friends. (Classic and her husband paid for half.) Now, personally, I’d love to know if the Disney trip was planned before or after the ski trip came about, but unfortunately we don’t get the answer.

When the stepdaughter’s mom asked Classic’s husband if he would be able to take their child to her friend’s house so they could leave for the ski trip together, he had to decline. That was the morning he, Classic, and their two shared children would be heading to Disney… This is the first, it seems, that both his ex and their daughter learned about the trip in the first place.

“Her mom said we obviously don’t take care about my step daughter since we’re not taking her and has made my step daughter upset thinking we didn’t want her to go,” Classic says… but did the mom make her upset or was it, you know, finding out she wasn’t invited on a family vacation to the Happiest Place on Earth?

Classic says that she and her husband have offered to take her stepdaughter… but that now puts the teen in the position of having to choose between one trip she was looking forward to with her friends and one she was initially excluded from with her family.

“She said she wants to do both and it’s not fair for her to miss the trip with her friends.

“We just want some unbiased opinions,” she concludes. “AITA?”

While the most liked comment among Redditors suggests “ESH” or “Everyone Sucks Here” — suggesting the stepdaughter’s mom escalated the issue and the teen probably would have had a bad time at Disney anyway — the vast majority of comments rule “YTA”: “You’re the Assh*le.”

“I am the oldest stepdaughter,” reads one comment. “My siblings are significantly younger than me, I would assume my stepmother hated me at 15 if this happened. …You made the choice for her without including her even though she is part of the family.”

“YTA along with your husband!” says another, before continuing. “You knew when her ski trip was so you set the Disney trip up at the same time so you wouldn’t have to take stepdaughter. Try to excuse your actions by saying didn’t think she’d want to go. You just didn’t want to ask if she did so she couldn’t say she did. … You offered to cancel her ski trip but what you should have done is change the Disney trip. But that gave you another lie to perpetuate: she didn’t want to go, she wanted to go on the ski trip instead. I hope [your] husband reads this with you. You’re both AH.”

But perhaps the most poignant reply comes from a Redditor who says,

“As a child of a set of divorced parents with step parents, I grew up with [one] step parent that did not treat me any different than the new children. Then there was the one step parent that treated me as a legal entity having to deal with me when required. Fast forward many years, and that one step parent wants to know why I do not want them around my life or my kids.”

This article was originally published on scarymommy.com.