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The original was posted on /r/AmItheAsshole by /u/Existing-Judge6669 on 2023-08-04 10:19:54.
My mom died when I was 7 and it was a hard loss for me. My dad remarried when I was 10 and I’m now 16m. The first four years my dad and stepmom were okay with me not celebrating her for mother’s day. The last couple have been more difficult. Dad has tried to get me to buy her a mother’s day card and to spend the day with her. I have always said no. Then about a month ago they decided that since next year my half sister will be 1 when the day comes around, we should do a vacation and make my stepmom the star of the day. I said they can go but I won’t be, and that she will never be my main priority on mother’s day, but if they want a day where I focus on her, they can pick stepmother’s day or something. My dad said he had enough with me denying her mother’s day. I told him she’s a mother now so she can have her own child celebrate her for mother’s day but she is not my mother and she is not even the woman I consider my primary mother figure. That goes to my paternal grandma who I am very close to and who actually agrees with me. Dad and her have fought over this. She said she may be his mother, but she was also the only mother my mom ever knew (her mom abandoned her as a baby and she was raised by a father who resented her) and she loved her like a daughter and understood why I wanted mother’s day to be for my mom.
My stepmom asked me why I can’t celebrate my mom another day. Make her birthday the day where she’s my main though and focus on her, who is living, breathing, feeling and she said mostly importantly, she has been in my life almost longer than my mom now. She asked how I can have known her as a mom for 6 years and not want to celebrate her on the day for moms. I told her I never knew her as my mom. I have never once looked at her and felt that bond or thought of her in that way. I told her when I think of mom, I think of my mom and if I hear mom figure, it’s my grandma, not her. I said she doesn’t even make the list. I told her since she is my stepmom, another day is fine by me. But not mother’s day.
My dad told me I have a rotten attitude and to think about the embarrassment my stepmom will feel if they do a trip for mother’s day and I refuse to go and make it special for her. That refusing to give her mother’s day is like saying her contribution doesn’t matter. He also said picking another day that hardly anyone knows about is not a compromise, it’s shaming her.
AITA?