Dad Backed for Funding Daughter's College Fees But Not Step-Child's: 'Fair'

A step-mom has been dubbed an "a**hole" for calling out her husband for giving his daughter money, but not her own.

The now-viral Reddit post, titled, " AITA for telling my husband if he wants to give money to my stepdaughter, the same amount should be given to my daughter as well?" has been upvoted 6,300 times since it was shared on September 20. You can read the post here.

The original poster, 46, stated she has been married to her husband David, 51, for five years and he has a daughter named Erin, 21, who is the same age as her daughter Amy.

She explained Amy got into a school with a scholarship and the remaining fees were covered by savings from her previous relationship with Amy's dad.

Whereas Erin moved out of state to Massachusetts and her school doesn't offer scholarships, but David had a college fund for her and she will cover the rest herself.

She added: "What's going on now is David said we have a fair amount of savings, and he wants to give some of that to Erin for her student loans. That's not exactly fair to Amy, he said that hers are paid off, but I replied he should give the same amount to Amy for rent or something even if she doesn't have college fees."

In the comments, the original poster mentioned Erin is a maths major at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). According to the college's official cost of attendance calculator, the annual fee including tuition, housing, and personal expenses is roughly $79,850.

LendEDU—an online marketplace for a variety of financial products—surveyed 1,000 college dropouts and the results found that 35 percent of students left college without a degree due to financial reasons.

The original poster continued: "This is just the tip of the iceberg, Erin plays violin with the local orchestra, she had her first (small) show about a month ago. We went all the way to MA because David wanted to see her perform. He was also the one who bought her the violin as a gift when she got into college, but no gift for Amy."

"We argued over this and David said that it's difficult for Erin 'alone'. I replied that then she should've stayed here instead of running off to a different state, and picking up things like a violin to show that she's better than everyone. He got really mad at me for saying that, I'm just trying to be fair."

In the comments, the original poster stated Erin's mum passed away when she was three years old. She also told other users that 75 percent of the savings in the joint account are contributed by David as he "earns more".

But the original poster's comments about the violin seemed to have riled up other users who have dubbed her an "a**hole".

The top comment racked up 19,800 upvotes, it said: "I was leaning toward not an a**hole until I got to, "she should've stayed here instead of running off to a different state, and picking up things like a violin to show that she's better than everyone." That is a very strange and immature thing to say and throws the story into I-Don't-Think-We're-Getting-the-Whole-Story land."

Another said: "That violin jibe. Also digging into my stepdaughter for going to college out of state. Bizarre. She makes it sound like Erin ran off and joined a circus. Yup, you're the a**hole (YTA) for the original poster."

Newsweek reached out to u/throwaway6630685 for comment. We could not verify the details of the case.