I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – blending families is one hundred times harder than people want to believe it is when they set out to attempt it.

You have to accept ahead of time that kids are people, too, and they might not react the way you wish they would sometimes.

Or ever.

This teenager lost his father but has a special memento of their time together.

When I (16m) was a baby my dad bought me a Simba stuffy.

My dad was really into The Lion King and it was a movie he introduced to me real early and a movie we shared a love for.

I used to dress as Simba for Halloween and had Simba cakes for years.

Simba was my favorite toy and always made me think of my dad.

He passed when I was 8.

His mother remarried and he has a much-younger stepsister who adores him – but he just can’t fully get on board.

My mom remarried less than a year later to Nick. Nick had a baby daughter when he and my mom got married.

She doesn’t see her mom so we have lived together 100% of the time since mom and Nick got married.

She is obsessed with me. I’m a little more mixed.

She can be cute or sweet or whatever but sometimes it gets on my nerves when we’re called siblings and she will call Nick “our dad” and correcting her usually comes with being scolded by my mom and Nick because they said she loves me and wants to connect us more which I should appreciate.

She also gets upset when I go to see my grandparents or my aunt or uncle and she’s left behind.

My grandparents and my aunt and uncle are my paternal family so my stepsister isn’t related to them and I don’t want to bring her along because I barely get to see my family anyway.

My mom has encouraged me before to bring her along and show she’s my real sister.

But I don’t think of her that way and I never have even though I know she thinks of me as just her brother.

Now, she really wants his memento of his father – and his parents will not respect the fact that he’s said no.

I say all of this because maybe it will be relevant here. I no longer sleep with my Simba stuffy but I keep him on a shelf across from my bed so I can see him when I’m in bed and so he’s close by.

I also got a clear box for him so I can still see him but he’s clean and stuff.

My stepsister has wanted him for months now. om and Nick have both taken Simba down from the shelf and out of the box to give to her and I had to take him back.

I asked mom and Nick to respect my no.

They say I should share and my stepsister would sleep with him instead of leaving him on a shelf.

They don’t care about it being something I treasure from dad.

So, he told his stepsister himself that she was never to touch it, and removed it from the house altogether.

So one day my stepsister was really annoying me about it and she kept begging me to let her have Simba and she’ll take good care of him and I can see him whenever I want.

I told her no, I do not want her to have him, he is special to me because my dad bought him and my dad is gone.

She said if “our dad” bought him then we should share.

I said Nick is not my dad, my dad passed and he bought me Simba and I want to keep him just for me.

She got upset and asked if I didn’t want her to ever have him and I said yes, I don’t want her to ever have Simba.

She was devastated and my mom and Nick were furious and it got worse when she said I’d be mad if she ever had Simba again.

He’s resentful and his parents won’t let it go.

I had to hide Simba away from everyone because of this, which has made me very resentful of all three, even though my stepsister is young and not really to blame.

But I hate not seeing him every day.

My mom and Nick think I was wrong to directly address my stepsister on this.

AITA?

Does Reddit think he’s being ridiculous or rude? Let’s hear them out!

The top comment says his parents should be far more supportive.

 

 

This person wonders why they don’t just get the stepsister her own plushie?

And this commenter thinks he could be more proactive.

What the parents are doing is not good parenting.

Either way, he was not wrong to address it with his stepsister.

This is definitely not the way you create a healthy blended family.

In case anyone was taking notes.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a guy who was forced to sleep on the couch at his wife’s family’s house, so he went to a hotel instead.