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Parenting can be difficult, but being a child can be difficult too, especially when your parents aren’t very good at communicating.

In this story, one teenage girl admits to making a small mistake that she didn’t think was a big deal. Apparently, her dad thought it was a big deal and expected her to almost read his mind to know what he wanted her to do about it.

Obviously, she can’t do that, but he seems to think that his wishes were common sense and she should’ve somehow just known.

Now, she’s crying, and he keeps yelling at her. It’s at the point where she’s wondering if she really did do something wrong.

Keep reading for the whole story.

AITAH for expressing myself to my dad?

Context:

Yesterday my (16f) father (54) asked me to bring him the water we have in the fridge.

We keep tap water in a 2 liter/large soft drink bottle, which we wash every time we refill it.

To get the water cold faster, we put it in the freezer then put it in the fridge before it turns into ice.

She made a minor mistake.

Yesterday I forgot the water in the freezer so it turned into ice.

No biggie, it happens.

I left if to thaw out and then I put it into the fridge when about 50% of it was water and there was ice floating in it.

When my father asked me to bring him the bottle, it still had ice in it but he had drank most of the water already, so there wasn’t much water. It was only a little less than halfway filled with water, although he calls that empty.

Uh-oh!

I brought him the bottle, not thinking it was a big deal since it still had water in it and he could just let the ice thaw while he drinks whatever water he pours.

Turns out it was a big deal.

He asked me if I was serious.

And I asked him what he meant because I genuinely didn’t understand what his problem was.

Her dad doesn’t seem all that good at communicating.

His response was to set down the bottle hard and go on his phone.

I didn’t understand the problem and when I asked again he ignored me, so I went on my phone too.

We were both in the living room, because he doesn’t allow me to lounge in my bedroom during the day.

He finally spoke.

After a few minutes he yelled at me, out of the blue, to put water in the bottle.

I was caught off guard and it upset me, but I took the bottle to the kitchen and put water in whatever space it had in the bottle and then brought it back.

He finally put water in his glass and then went on this whole tirade about how I have no common sense for not being able to tell he wanted me to put water in the bottle, and that the reason I have no common sense is my phone and that all I do on my phone is watch nonsense.

It’s not over.

Fast forward to today.

Conflict:

He brought up the phone thing again.

I was already in a bad mood because I had been agitated since last week for some reason I don’t even know, and because during this moment he was making me leave my room.

They ended up arguing.

That made me get into an argument with him, and the argument essentially went like this:

“That’s not true, I do watch good things on things on my phone.”

“Then how didn’t you have the common sense to know to fill the water bottle yesterday?”

“How would I have known? That isn’t common sense, that’s you throwing a tantrum and then not wanting to communicate.”

The argument continues…

“Stop yelling.”

“I’m not yelling.”

“Yes you are!”

“You’re yelling at me!”

“Because you’re raising your voice at me!”

“Whatever! Fine, you win, I’ll just let you stand there and call me stupid.”

Yikes! Dad is really escalating the situation here!

At that point, I passed around him to get out my room and go to the living room.

He stopped me by putting his arm in front of me very quickly, making me abruptly walk into it, and then keeping me in place.

Admittedly, I exploded and pretty much said he hit me, which made him explode and go on and on and essentially say that he isn’t my friend and that I can’t talk to him like that and that he brought me into the world so he’s my father and he could hit me if he needs to.

She was pretty shocked at her father’s words.

I know he didn’t actually hit me, that was irrational but I just wanted him to back off. B

ut his explosion stunned me, because he was yelling in my face and my father genuinely looked me in the eye and told me that he had the right to hit me.

It has stunned me into silence and I stood there and took it.

She has learned to become a doormat.

Typically, I don’t argue, and this is the first argument I have actually had with anyone. Especially my father.

Disagreements did come about while growing up, but I never really gave my two cents, and when I did I would just back down and let the other person win immediately.

I pretty much went back to doing that.

For the whole day since then, my father kept bringing it up, kept saying I had no common sense, kept saying that it’s my phone that caused that, and he even said that if I ever tell him again something about him hitting me, then he would disown me.

Here’s how the rest of the day went.

For the entire day I just shut up, sulked, and even cried and talked to my friends as if nothing was wrong.

I actually nearly vented to one of my friends because he caught onto my bad mood, but I just blamed it on how I haven’t been having the best week.

When I did mention again, calmer, just once, that my only problem was him not properly communicating yesterday, he exploded again about how it was common sense and that I should have known to do that and that he gave me a chance by going quiet instead of saying something.

There’s a lot of AITA questions in this one story, but I’ll just narrow it down to: AITA for expressing myself to my dad?

My mom has been dead for 3 years, she couldn’t really do much during this whole thing, honestly.

Her dad is awful. I don’t know if he’s upset about something else and taking it out on his daughter or what, but his anger over water is completely irrational. She’s not a mind reader, and it wasn’t a big deal. Sheesh.

Let’s see how Reddit responded.

This person asks a good question.

Another person can relate to her experience.

This is a good idea.

Here’s some more good advice.

Her dad was seriously irrationally upset at her about something that wasn’t even a big deal. To make her cry about water and not being able to read this mind? Sheesh. He’s awful.

I hope she does have grandparents or someone she could stay with for a while. She needs a trusted adult to talk to about this, and she needs somewhere she can stay without being mentally abused.

I wonder what her dad is really upset about.