Man's Concerned He 'Destroyed' His Relationship with His Parents Over Decision He Made with His Old Toys
A man is worried that he caused lasting damage to his relationship with his parents after they dropped off a bunch of his vintage toys at his home.
Taking to Reddit’s popular “Am I the A—–” forum, the 40-year-old dad explained that his parents have been cleaning out his bedroom from when he was a kid.
As a result, they always have “a minivan full of 1980s vintage toys, clothes, music instruments, text books from the 90s, old books, video games” and more whenever they visit.
However, he said that his parents haven’t been speaking to him for “weeks” after they found out what he was doing with the toys.
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In his post, the Redditor explained that his parents believed that his kids would want to play with all of the things that they were bringing over. However, he rapidly learned that wasn’t the case.
“My kids simply aren’t interested in playing with GIJoes from the 80s. Or G1 transformers. Or playing with instruments from my elementary school days. Or wearing 30-35 year old clothes. Or playing old NES games,” he wrote.
Explaining that he’s got “a small single story house,” he added that there wasn’t anywhere to store all of these things.
While looking on eBay, he realized that some of the things he had “are worth WAY more than I thought” and decided to sell whatever he could.
That led to some issues when his parents realized what was happening.
The man wrote that his mom, in her 70s, was “livid.”
“In her mind, those toys were bought by HER (for my birthdays) and SHE owns them. She said that anything else that’s left in my room will be given away to the church. You know what stinks about that? My old Pokémon and magic collection is still there… the church is about to get dozens of mint first run cards,” the man wrote.
He fretted that the situation “destroyed” his relationship and wanted to know if he was in the wrong.
Fellow Redditors chimed in with some very mixed thoughts.
Some people thought that the original poster was being immature since they toys had been at his parents home all this time, including one user who wrote, “You know what would be awesome? If he had gone back to get his childhood crap 15-20 years ago instead of letting it sit there forever, giving his parents ideas.”
However, others thought that there might be more to the story, pointing out that sometimes parents will let their kids keep their old things at home indefinitely.
Others took issue with his mom’s response.
“So she wanted to unload all of this old junk on you, and she thought she had a say over what you did with it? That’s ridiculous,” someone opined. Another chimed in, writing, “No, she wanted to unload all the ‘precious treasures she bought for her son and has been keeping safe for his kids’. Reads like she built up this fluffy flowery dream about the kids gushing over vintage toys, and reality destroyed it ’cause they’re not those kinds of kids.”
Of course, others took a more nuanced approach.
“I don’t think you’re the AH [a------] for selling some stuff… but you also have to understand the sentimental desires behind your mother’s gifts and work to communicate with her,” one person wrote, adding that even though her “reaction was extreme,” it was still something that might have made sense.
Many people urged the man to make a case for getting his old trading cards, with several estimating that they might be worth a small fortune now.