Family traditions and responsibilities tend to develop naturally based on what people are good at or enjoy.

What would you do if you were the siblings who always decorated and bought gifts for your mom in the name of everyone, but one year you were upset, so you only got her a gift from yourself?

That is what happened to the sister in this story, and now her entire family is upset that she didn’t even tell her siblings she was going to do this.

AITAH because I didn’t buy a joint birth present for our mother (in the name of me, all my siblings and our father)?

I have four brothers: three older (31, 28, 26), and one younger (21). I (F, 24) am the only daughter in the family.

Seems like a pretty good family.

I wasn’t raised much differently than the boys; we all had to do the same things around the house, and we all learned how to cook, do laundry, and change car tires.

Of course, we all have different interests and strengths, but of course, that also applies to the boys among themselves.

This is often something women are better at, or prefer doing.

One thing that’s somehow a “woman’s job” in our house, however, is organizing parties, whether it’s Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, birthdays, or graduations. That includes buying presents.

I think that’s more because my mother simply loves it; you can see the anticipation in her face when she buys presents, how excited she is when e.g. the birthday child opens them.

It makes sense that their family tradition is that she do this work then.

She loves decorating the house, inviting people over, cooking special meals, baking cakes.

For my mother, this is more of a hobby than a duty. My father leaves this joy to her, doesn’t interfere, but always has our mother show him the presents beforehand because he wants to know what’s inside.

Based on what is written, she wanted to do it.

Well, my mother has been doing all of this for over three decades now, and until I was 13, she basically got nothing in return.

If my father remembered to make a cake with batter mix on her birthday, or to buy a bouquet of flowers at a gas station, that was quite a lot.

Some people just don’t really like gifts.

From us children, when we were little, she naturally received typical childhood gifts: something hand-painted or crafted, something from the heart, but of course not materially valuable.

But our father received similar gifts from us as children. So that was “fair.”

This is fine, if she enjoys doing it.

When I was 13, my older brothers and my father decided I was old enough, and that as a daughter, it was “my job” to make sure our mother got something back after so many years without happy birthdays.

I decorate the house at night while she’s sleeping, bake cakes, and most importantly, I buy a big, expensive gift, divide the price by 6, and then my brothers and my father give me the money.

Basically, I like doing it; it’s about my mother, she deserves it.

Ahh, well here is the problem.

What bothers me, though, is that the “involved” men like to praise themselves in front of Mom and other relatives, saying how much thought they put into the gifts, how much work it was to secretly decorate the house at night, and how difficult it was to learn all of this when they were the only ones receiving the gifts for years.

Mom knows full well that her sons and her husband have no idea what was in the gift all these years, and unfortunately, the relatives don’t.

No big deal, exchanges are common.

Unfortunately, I didn’t quite match Mom’s taste for Christmas; I bought a necklace.

It wasn’t difficult to fix the mistake; we went to the store a few days after Christmas, she picked out a different necklace, and it was exchanged without any problems.

Were they being mean? Or just sibling teasing.

My brothers, however, made fun of me for it, saying, “What kind of daughter are you that you can’t even pick out a necklace for your own mother?”

And to this day, some of my brothers still haven’t given me their financial share of the joint Christmas present because, “We can’t rely on you to make the gifts perfect.”

Yes, that is how it has always been done.

Last week was Mom’s birthday. None of my brothers ever contacted me about a gift, never asking for anything. As expected, they were counting on me to buy something big and then they’d give me money.

Instead, I just gave her a small gift, just within my budget.

It is fine to do this, but she should have given the siblings a heads-up.

I clearly handed it over with the words “from your daughter” instead of the usual “from your children and your husband.”

Yes, I wanted to accuse my brothers, I wanted to lure them into an “ambush.” ​​

This is just rude.

I deliberately didn’t tell anyone about my plan. They obviously think they can’t rely on me anyway, so there they have the proof.

They could have asked me, they could have coordinated with me, but they didn’t.

Except she is responsible for that up until she tells them that she isn’t. That’s how responsibilities work.

I’m not responsible for them thinking about gifts.

I knew this would end in conflict, that I would be accused of being mean, of destroying the family, whatever.

Of course, she should. She used her mom’s birthday as a chess piece.

I was a bit surprised, though, that my mother wasn’t really behind me either. She thinks I should have announced it.

She thought it was a shame that she ended up with almost no presents on her birthday.

AITA?

By her own words, she enjoyed doing the shopping and decorating, but then, rather than communicate a complaint about it, she ambushed her siblings and father. Yes, she is way out of line.

Let’s see what the people in the comments say about it.

No, she didn’t. This is crazy.

Yeah, Mom was the victim of her bad decision.

No, this is just how traditions develop.

Yes, she should have done this BEFORE the birthday.

Except she is, until she tells them otherwise.

She really should have told them about the change in plans.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check this one out about a man who created a points system for his inheritance, and a family friend ends up getting almost all of it.