Parent backed for calling son a “nerd,” saying he wasn’t superior to sister

A parent is being defended by the internet after calling their son a “nerd” and told him that he isn’t superior to his sister.

In a post going viral on Reddit’s infamous r/AmITheA**hole forum, a parent under the username u/Key_Bar_9915 shared their story in order to receive comments from the “AITA” community to determine if they were in the wrong.

“I have two kids, Jake and Jamie. Jake is 16m and big into ‘the media I like is my entire personality and I’m better than you because I like those things’ and has grown up to be very judgmental, cold, and mean,” the Redditor began, “Jamie is 14f and is a very bubbly, friendly girl. She makes friends with everyone everywhere she goes, and she is also kind of a mini trendsetter for her school. She started selling homemade scrunchies at school and it took off.”

The original poster (OP) stated that Jake makes fun of her for being “vapid,” “girly” and other things. Redditor and their husband sat their son down and discussed misogyny. They thought the problem was solved as Jack was nicer to his sister.

During the last week of school, Jamie came home and announced that she won an award for her scrunchie business. To celebrate, the family had tacos for dinner since that was Jamie’s favorite. The OP reiterated that they like to celebrate both their children’s successes.

The OP wrote, “Jake was pissy at dinner and interrupted to talk about his video game accomplishments. We were all very polite and listened and congratulated him. He just looked at his sister and was like ‘And I did that by MYSELF without having to make everyone else hear about it all the time and dressing up like a pickme to get everyone’s attention.’

“I just looked at my husband, then Jake, and said ‘Being a nerd doesn’t make you superior to anyone in this family, Jake. You can like video games and still be a nice person to your family, especially your little sister. Quit acting like a little snot.’ He got red in the face and took his little tantrum upstairs to his room. Since then, he’s barely talked to anyone and just holes up in his room playing games all day,” they continued.

Their husband told them they shouldn’t have said that as it will “pit them against each other” even more. The OP said that Jamie doesn’t understand why her brother treats her so harshly.

Newsweek reached out to u/Key_Bar_9915 for comment.

Many children have siblings. To help raise your children to have a love for each other, it’s good to start the idea of relationships early in their childhood, show them positive ways to get through conflict, recognize all children when recognizing one of their accomplishments and have them learn to respect their boundaries, per lifehack.org.

Are you in need of some advice to get your teenagers to stop fighting? According to empoweringparents.com, have rules when it comes to arguing at home, don’t take sides, give them space to work it out, teach them how to get through their arguments in a positive way and don’t compare your children to one another.

Other Redditors defended the OP for what they said to their son.

“[Not the a**hole]. Cut the internet off and see how much he can do by himself then,” wrote u/PaintLicker_2022, receiving the top comment with over 10,000 upvotes.

U/VixNeko had some advice for the OP, “Kid sounds like a nice guy in the making. I recommend some therapy but also try to open a dialogue with him to figure out where all this anger towards anything feminine comes from. (I think there might actually be some kind of secret here) [Not the a**hole].”

“[Not the a**hole]. He should not dish it out if he can’t take it. You could have been far meaner saying that video game accomplishments aren’t the same..which would have been mean. To me he sounds insecure and jealous of his sister…which is why he is putting her down. He sounds like the introverted type a bit and seems to be bothered that his sister is naturally bubbly….and maybe he feels..gets more praise because of it. I would consider getting him into counseling before his attitude gets worse,” u/SuccotashTimely6764 echoed.

“[Not the a**hole]. He sounds like a typical angry teenager, and they often need to be called out,” u/figuringthingsout__ said.