Woman Demands Father Pay for Phone He ‘Completely Destroyed.' But They Say She's Being Unfair to ‘Poor Old Parents'

Yahoo

9 hours ago

A mother was left conflicted after her father broke her daughter's phone
The 50-year-old explained that her dad destroyed her 17-year-old daughter's phone after trying to force a charger for another device into it's charging port
Her parents are refusing to pay for a new phone, calling her unreasonableA woman seeks support from the Reddit community after a family visit led to a heated dispute over a broken phone.
The 50-year-old mother, who posted her story on Reddit, describes a tense situation involving her 17-year-old daughter and her 72-year-old father.
"For some background, my father has always struggled with being responsible with money," she shares in her post, noting that her father is "currently in limbo between being broke and being barely not broke," setting the stage for the conflict that unfolded.
The incident occurred during an early Mother's Day celebration at her parents' home. "My daughter spent time alternating between being on her phone and sketching while me and my parents were talking," she recalls.
When her daughter's phone battery began to run low, she asked her mother if she had a charger, but their devices were incompatible.
"My dad has a very cheap and old phone, and offered his charger," she continues.
However, the charger wouldn't work due to the different styles, and the teen ended up leaving her phone on the counter while joining everyone else, aside from her grandfather, in the living room.
"We spent the rest of the visit watching TV with my mom in the living room while my dad was in the kitchen," the mother writes, unaware of what was about to happen.
As the family prepared to leave, the daughter went to retrieve her phone and was met with devastation.
"My daughter went to grab her phone and started screaming and crying," the mother recounts. The phone's charging port was destroyed, the screen was cracked, and the frame was dented.
The grandfather admitted to forcefully trying to charge the phone until eventually realizing "it didn't work." However, he seemed unfazed by the damage.
The mother confronted him, asking how he didn't "realize the phone was breaking?" To which he insisted he was "too focused on trying to push the charger in."
Frustrated, the mother told her father that he would need to pay for a new phone or repairs, whichever was more reasonable.
"He started arguing with me, saying that he can't afford to buy an iPhone, and that my daughter can go without a phone for a while," she recalls. But she pushed back, emphasizing the importance of the phone for communication and safety.
Her parents accused her of being unreasonable, saying, "I'm taking money from poor old people (yes, they pulled that card)."
The mother insists her parents are "not going to go into poverty if they pay for this."
"My dad just won't be able to gamble," she adds. Despite always paying their bills and having food on the table, she says her father quickly spends the rest of their income.
The mother's siblings also weighed in, with her brother and sister suggesting she should pay for the phone herself, calling her daughter "a spoiled brat for throwing a 'tantrum' over not having her phone 24/7."
The mother ends her post questioning her own judgment, asking if she is "really that much of an a–––––– for demanding that he pay for a phone he broke?"
Read the original article on People