Rage at Dad Admitting He ‘Hates’ Birthday Gift From 3-Year-Old Daughter

A man has come under fire for revealing he “hates” the birthday gift his 3-year-old daughter picked out specially for him.

In a Reddit post shared under the handle u/ConversationFar3511, a woman claiming to be his ex described his devastated reaction to the present and the effect it had on their young daughter.

She said her ex later accused her of sabotaging his birthday by letting their daughter get the gift but while he was left seething, most reading the post felt he was the one who had crossed a line with his response.

Birthdays matter, whatever your age. A YouGovAmerica poll of 1,000 U.S. adults found that far more people feel positively than negative about their birthday.

The poll found 19 percent said they loved their birthday while 24 percent said they liked it. A further 47 percent felt neutrally about it while 7 percent disliked the date and 4 percent hated it.

Getting older didn’t appear to be a factor either, with people between 30 and 44 found to be the most likely age group to say they felt positively about their birthday.

Birthdays evidently mean a great deal to the father at the center of this particular Reddit post. However, in this instance, it appears to have come at the cost of his daughter’s feelings. “She’s amazing and loves her daddy,” the man’s ex wrote. “It was his birthday on Monday so I let my daughter grab some bits for him.”

Among those “bits” was a blue football. “My daughter knows that her dad loves football and also the color blue, so she picked out a blue one for him,” the ex explained. “I knew it wasn’t his team but there’s nothing on the actual ball, it just said the team on the wrapper.”

Fast-forward to his birthday and she said the moment he opened the gift “his face fell and he dropped the ball like it burned him…”

“His mum gave him the evil eyes so he did the clearly fake ‘thank you’ and then our daughter was disinterested,” the ex said.

According to the post, he remained “off” with her for the rest of the day and later called her up to slam her for “doing that” and getting something she knew he “hates” just to upset him.

“I explained that she picked it out and he claimed I should have corrected her because he hates the gift,” the ex said. She has since branded him a “child” and insists it was not a deliberate attempt to derail his birthday celebrations.

Commenting on the incident, Jennifer Kowalski, a licensed professional counselor at Thriveworks, a nationwide provider of online and in-person therapy services, acknowledged that co-parenting “is no easy task” and the issues that led to the relationship failing can often carry over.

“The appropriate response from the father should have been gratitude towards the child rather than animosity towards his ex.” she told Newsweek. “It tells me that nothing was resolved by separating, and that they are both still harboring resentments towards one another.”

With separation impossible due to their daughter, Kowalski urged the parents to “work at their communication.” She said: ” They need to always put the child first and always model the type of relationship they hope the child will have in a future partner one day.”

Kowalski added: “This is not to say that they need to get along all the time, but for the limited encounters that they will have together with the child, they can put their problems aside and do what is right in the moment.”

Though she was able to see both sides, many on Reddit were scathing of the dad’s reaction. “Daddy has anger management problems if he can’t grin and bear it for a 3 year old,” one user wrote with another agreeing: “3 year old is more mature than daddy.”

“Who says they ‘hate’ a gift, let alone one picked out by a three year old?” a third added. “Sure, some football fans can be pretty intense in their hatred for rival football teams, so it doesn’t hugely surprise me that he saw this as an attempt to upset him. But he’s not your partner—he’s her dad, so letting your daughter choose the gifts was reasonably a higher priority to you than anticipating a grown man would be upset by the wrapper on a toy.”

Newsweek reached out to u/ConversationFar3511 for comment via Reddit chat. We could not verify the details of the case.

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