Can you think of the last stuffed animal you had?

Maybe you still have one with you, or maybe it was a long time ago.

No matter how old we get, it seems like they can hold a lot of sentimental value, and bring up a lot of strong feelings:

AITA for blaming my mom for this?

On my 20th birthday, two of my best friends from high school gifted me a stuffed toy.

We do not keep in touch often and this gesture meant a lot since I’ve been feeling like I’ve lost the bond that I used to share with them.

So I keep the toy in my room and everyone can see it if they are in the room.

Then the niece enters the picture.

A month ago, a niece of mine, who is like a third cousin’s daughter came home.

She is around 7 or 8 years old and I haven’t met her or her mom (who is a like a third cousin of mine) before this.

I might’ve seen them at family gatherings years ago but never actually spoken to them.

So this girl really liked the stuffed toy and decided to hug it and sleep in the night.

The next day when they were supposed to leave, I wasn’t home.

Apparently my mom insisted that she kept this toy because she loved it so much.

My mom knew this was a birthday present and did not even bother asking me if she could give it to the girl.

And now she was on the case of the missing toy.

I only noticed today that the toy isn’t in my room.

I assumed it was in the other room where that little girl slept while she was at home and did not think much of it.

So today I went to the other room to get it back and didn’t find it.

I asked my brother if he knew where it was and that’s how I got to know about my mom giving it to the girl.

Then there was an argument.

I asked my mom about it and she said that she gave it to the girl.

She could tell that I knew what happened by then.

I just said “why would you give away a birthday gift?” and I went into my room.

Then later she saw that I was still mad about it.

She says “You weren’t using it anyway and the girl liked it so I gave it away”.

I said “How does one “use” a stuffed toy?”.

She went on to say that she would ask my friend to get me another of those stuffed toys.

I asked her how she could tell them that she just gave away a gift.

She said that she would tell them that she misplaced it.

I just told her to leave it at that and not to tell my friends about it.

And now she’s not sure where she stands.

I do know that I might sound silly to be feeling this way, but it is like she doesn’t really understand how much it meant to me.

If she just said sorry I wouldn’t have felt so sad about it but after she said all those things, I just got sad and angry.

Am I the [jerk] for feeling this way?

The comments attempted to parse it out:

She doesn’t get it, but that’s no excuse.

Others had been there before.

They weren’t hers to give away.

She may not have understood, but she should try to.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a daughter who invited herself to her parents’ 40th anniversary vacation for all the wrong reasons.