AITA for takeing away a toy that I had just given to my kids?
I (36 f) am a single mom of 5 children. 7 year old twin boys, 3 year old twin girls, and a 2mo baby boy. Their father left last year early on in the pregnancy with our youngest and moved across country. While he hasn't been physically involved or met our youngest, the boys know they can call him whenever they want, and generally I try to give them all space when they talk.
Last week, the boys asked for a specific jurassic world toy. They have quite a few but not this one. When I went to the store that EXACT toy happened to be on clearance and there were two left on the shelf, so I just figured out how to make the budget work and brought those suckers home.
I got home, and I gave the dinosaurs to them while their sisters were at their dance class… and listened to them complain for 20 minutes that I had gotten the wrong toy. I pulled up the video that they had shown me when they asked for them, and they said it was the wrong color/size.
I suggested getting them out of the box maybe they just needed to see it with its tail attached and out of the box. They didnt want me to help open the boxes because I would ruin it, so I got them their scissors and let them do it. One boy cuts though part of the box and started shouting at me about how I didn't stop him from makeing a mistake. I told him to stop talking to me that way, I offered to help and you quite rudely yelled at me no. At this exact moment his brother decided to tell me that this toy was stupid and he named a different dinosaur he wanted. He just… kinda slammed the whole thing on the ground.
So I stood up, took both the dinosaurs still in their boxes, and put them in my closet. I told them maybe we would try again tomorrow when I figure out what the heck is going on in their noggin's but this isnt how you speak to me or how you treat people who just did something nice for you.
I get a call that evening from their dad, asking what was going on, that the boys said I was taking all of their toys and throwing them away. I sort of explained the situation, and what they said to me. He was quite for a long time because this was how HE used to speak to me, and he had never heard it from them before. It only truly started after he took off.
He said they were wrong but I was equally wrong for taking something away that I had just given them, that it's going to make them think that their belongings aren't actually theirs. I said we are going to have to disagree because this wasn't some toy they were just using in a way I disagreed with, they were being complete boogers to me as a direct response to the gift itself.
We ended the call before it got to heated, and I just don't believe what I did was wrong. When I asked him he suggested I should have done, he just said “ I don't have all the answers for you OP, just that you made the wrong choice here " and now I have gone from confused and a little hurt to just mad.
Aita?