There’s A Household Rule About Money That These Teenagers Follow, But There’s Someone Lying…
Louise Peralta
They say that money is the root of all evil. It’s an established truth at this point.
Capitalism and all that, you know? Every penny counts, but what are you saving for?
In this AITA post, a young teenager asks the internet, “WIBTA if I told our parents my brother is lying about his paychecks?”
His brother is 2 years older than him, and they both have a job.
But there’s a rule in their household. The siblings get to keep ⅓ of their salary, ⅓ goes to their college fund, and the remaining money goes into an account for when they turn 21.
It’s a pretty fair rule, OP said. But his brother thinks that the rule is unfair and sees it as their parents taking money from them.
“But since we live under their roof, I think they have every right to do it,” the 15-year-old OP said.
Now one can see OP as a good son, going by his parents’ rules and seeing their household rule as an investment for their future. Or maybe he’s still an innocent child who just hasn’t succumbed to the evils of greed.
His brother’s “evil," it turns out, is that he’s been keeping his salary raise from his parents.
“We thought my brother was making $15 an hour, and they were splitting the money like that,” OP wrote.
The brother’s salary was only raised by $3/hour though. And he’s been pocketing that extra money for himself. Would you say that it’s greed that prompted this?
“I really think that's disrespectful towards them to break a rule like that. So I told him he has until tonight to tell them or I will, and he called me a bitch,” OP wrote.
If not for OP giving his brother a deadline like that, I wouldn’t have called him an a-hole. It’s true that the brother is lying to their parents, and that’s wrong, but that’s his money at the end of the day.
As another Redditor commented, “He is lying to your parents, but he is the one who will have less money in college and at 21.”
If he doesn’t think that extra savings would help him in the future, that’s on him. It really wouldn’t affect OP in any way if his brother continues lying to his parents, but it would affect his relationship with his brother.
“The downside here is you will f- your relationship up with your brother over something that doesn’t materially effect you,” a Redditor commented.
Another Redditor offered another explanation as to why they think OP is the a-hole. They suggested that maybe OP wanted to tell on his brother because he might be jealous that the brother gets to keep some of his money for himself, that he didn’t want his brother to have more money than him. The commenter went as far as to suggest that the parents might not actually be saving the siblings’ money for their future.
“Let’s be honest. You’ve been forced to do this unfair sh-t since you started working. Your brother has found a way to actually keep more of what’s his & you resent that. (Because after all, you had to suffer this controlling stupidity for your whole life & lived, so he should to.)”
What do you think about this household rule? Is it smart, or is it just an issue of trust?
Read the original post below.
WIBTA if I told our parents my brother is lying about his paychecks?
by u/DeepZucchini5313 in AmItheAsshole
