The father of a young boy chose to have a serious talk with him after hearing him talking with his friends. After that, he put his son on probation, but his wife and in-laws thought he went too far. After getting yelled at by his wife and in-laws, a Reddit user went there to see if anyone else thought he was too angry about his son’s behavior. He was still thinking about whether the sentence he gave was too harsh.
The first poster (OP) said he had three kids, one of whom was in college, leaving him, his wife, his 16-year-old son, and his 11-year-old daughter. He said he was proud of his kids, but his son had done something very wrong, he said. One night, the OP’s son had some friends over. While they were upstairs, the OP went downstairs to bring the pizza and overheard a bad conversation.
What Did the Son of the OP Do. The OP went into the room where his son and his friends were talking and heard them talking about how his son’s friends owed him something for a dare he had done. The OP was shocked when they heard more. The OP found out that his son had dared to ask a girl in his class to go on a date. Friends told him not to ask the girl out because they didn’t think she was pretty enough or someone they would date.
The OP was mad, but he didn’t approach his son until all of his friends had left. The OP said he yelled at his son for a while because he was mad, but he gave this reason: “…the same thing happened to my cousin when we were younger, and I saw how it affected her as she started dating new people.”The OP’s son said it was just a harmless joke and that his father was mad at him because he had heard him talking with his friends on the phone when he walked in the room.
The OP’s son finally told the OP’s cousin that he felt bad for her and promised not to play the joke again. But the OP didn’t think the talk was long enough. What did the OP do to punish his son? Once the OP was sure that his son wouldn’t go any further with the joke, he took away his freedom for two weeks. His son told him it had nothing to do with him and that he shouldn’t have any say in what happened next.
The OP wasn’t sure what to think, so he told his wife what happened. She told him, “Boys will be boys.” The OP’s wife thought the joke was funny, and when he asked her what she would do if something similar happened to their daughter, she said, “That won’t happen because she has good genes.” The OP’s mother and father-in-law told him many times in the family group chat that he was hurting their grandchild by doing something that all teenage boys did.
This happened soon after the talk with his wife. The OP asked if he was wrong to ground his son and said that he would lift the grounding if he thought he was being too nosy. People on Reddit were quick to react and give their thoughts on the matter.