Parenting gets complicated when generosity isn’t evenly shared and hurt feelings start piling up.

So when one father’s siblings spoiled his daughter with expensive gifts but overlooked his stepdaughter, the imbalance became impossible to ignore.

He realized far too late that staying neutral only made things worse.

Keep reading for the full story.

AITA for allowing my daughter to take gifts from my siblings?

My siblings love my daughter (14). They have a habit of buying many gifts for her, and some of them are things that I can’t afford to buy, like a laptop.

My wife and I have been together for 8 years, married for 1. She has a daughter (15) too.

There seems to be some major favoritism in the family that this father is only now starting to acknowledge.

Now the issue is that my family doesn’t consider her my real child and have no interest in buying her expensive gifts.

My wife also doesn’t have any siblings, and my stepdaughter’s dad is a deadbeat, so there is no one buying her expensive things.

His wife has grown increasingly resentful of this, and finally calls him out for his inaction.

My wife thinks I’m an AH and says I shouldn’t let them give my daughter anything until they learn to treat the kids equally.

But I think my daughter shouldn’t suffer because my stepdaughter is suffering, so I refused.

This only made matters worse in their marriage.

My wife and I aren’t talking now, and we both think the other one is the AH.

AITA?

He didn’t want to choose sides, but remaining neutral was just as hurtful.

What did Reddit think?

This man is in the wrong, but not for the reasons he might think.

As a father, he should be stepping up a heck of a lot more than he currently is.

This is blatant favoritism in action.

If this behavior is allowed to continue, it will cause some serious rifts.

In the end, ignoring the imbalance didn’t protect anyone. In fact, it only deepened the growing divide.

Now the real work ahead is figuring out how to make both girls feel valued.

If you enjoyed that story, read this one about a mom who was forced to bring her three kids with her to apply for government benefits, but ended up getting the job of her dreams.