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When a parent gives you a gift of any sort, it should be yours to use and enjoy however you want.

What would you do if your mother gave you a bunch of Pokémon cards, but once she realized how valuable they were, she had you sell them and kept the money for herself?

That is what happened to the kid in this story, and he is very upset about it. He thinks the money should be his, but his parents keep giving him excuses as to why that isn’t the case.

Personally, I think he is definitely right, but he isn’t going to convince his parents. Read through the details below and see what you think.

AITA for wanting money I was expecting to be mine?

My mom used to work at a Wizards of the Coast store.

These cards can be worth a lot of money.

She was given a whole bunch of Pokémon cards when they were closing-and then a while later she gave them to me (I was 18 when I got them I think? 21 now) cause she thought they were worthless.

I was talking to friends kinda randomly, and we started talking about cards-and I brought up some of the cards my mom gave me. Turns out, quite a few of them were worth…a lot. I was sitting on a goldmine.

It is always nice when you come into some unexpected money.

I didn’t do anything for a little while, but when my mom was looking for a particular D&D adventure set and thought about looking at a local store that also buys and sells cards, although we wouldn’t have the money to get it. I shared: “Oh. Those cards you gave me sell for like…a lot.”

Weekend comes. Friday night, I look in TCGPlayer and make a note of the market price of every card that I’d be looking to sell.

It isn’t a great idea to sell them all at once on a whim.

Then Saturday. I mostly just wanted to go to the store myself, but my mom wanted to come along, so I let her.

We went to a couple stores and got stuff for me, her, and my little sis. At the second store, my mom asked “Do you want to just sell the rest and be done?”

Oh, it wasn’t that much money anyway.

I said “Sure” because there was a lot of people in the store, and I was overstimulated and little sis was bored. So, I just wanted to be done. We got the rest in cash, a total of $270.

I expected this to be mine. My mom, however, took it as hers. And then, when I asked “Can I get my binder back?” she told the guy “Throw in an extra $5 and you can keep the binder.”

That isn’t really fair that Mom is keeping the money.

I said I didn’t care. He gave me the $5.My mom kept the entirety of the rest of the money.

I wanted it. I thought it would be mine. Here’s where the question comes in.

Why doesn’t she use her own money to pay for the tickets?

My mom got speeding tickets that need paid off. She got the first one on a corner she knew police waited to catch speeders.

She got her license suspended and drove anyway. Got herself caught on the same corner. She got a second ticket and a fee and put on probation.

The leftover money from the cards would be going to cover the second ticket (the first one has been paid).

His parents are just making excuses for keeping the money at this point.

I asked today, and my parents basically refused to give me anything until I pushed for something and basically left me feeling like I was the bad guy for wanting the money I expected to be mine.

They offered me two different attempts to split the money-and/or like I was an idiot or stupid for thinking I’d get any of the money because I was (to quote/paraphrase my dad during the discussion today): “I was given the cards to be the caretaker of them, not given them as ‘full ownership’.”

Yeah, they just wanted the money.

Which meant, in his head, that I didn’t actually need to get any of the money from the cards, especially since they need it very immediately for the ticket and I didn’t have any specific use for it (aside from saving for going mostly across the country, south, in the fall).

So, AITA?

No, he should have gotten the money. In reality, however, his parents aren’t going to give it to him, so he shouldn’t keep trying. Just remember this the next time he has something of value.

Read on to see what the people in the comments have to say about the situation.

I agree with this commenter.

It is a small price to pay for the lesson he learned.

This person says he shouldn’t have told her that they were worth money.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a woman who is hurt she’s being blamed for not caring for her friend’s dogs, but no one asked her to.

Mom is gaslighting him for sure.

He did nothing wrong according to this commenter.

His Mom is way out of line here, but there is nothing he can do about it. It is best to just accept this as a lesson learned, and in the future, don’t let his Mom know about anything of value that he has.

It is unfortunate that some parents are like this, but it is reality.