Uncle Favors One Kid Over The Others And Gets Her A Chess Set, But Their Dad Doesn’t Think He’s Been Fair

Some people connect better than others, whether that’s kids and teachers, friends, siblings, etc.

However, it’s important to be mindful of how that connection might make others feel, especially when children are involved.

This man took to Reddit to share his story.

I (35F) have been married to my wife (Amy – 33F) for the past 10 years.

I have no siblings. Amy has a brother (Max – 40M) who has three kids, two sons (Leo 6 and Ryan 5) and a daughter (Anne 8).

We have two kids (Sarah 7 and Ava 5).

The uncle connects better to his niece vs his nephews, despite loving them all.

Now I love all of Max’s children. And they get along really well with our kids.

They constantly have sleepovers and play together, etc. Leo and Ryan are walking earthquakes.

They’re pretty active kids who enjoy physical activities much more than anything else.

Anne is more laid back, and we have a special bond.

His niece takes interest in her aunt and uncle’s hobbies and careers more than her siblings do.

For example, my wife and I have a thing where we play chess or do crafts with our girls. Anne usually joins and asks us to sit with her.

She also likes my profession (I’m an ENT doctor) and asks me all kinds of questions. She loves the idea of being able to see inside one’s nose and ear.

For Christmas, we got all of Max’s kids a special gift. They came over for dinner one day during the holidays.

Now I’d already gotten Anne her very own chess set around a month ago, and hadn’t been able to give it to her because I kept forgetting it and it was in my office for a good while.

He forgot to give it to her despite buying the set months prior, so he chose to give it to her at Christmas in addition to the gift they got her specifically for Christmas.

However, I thought I’d just give her the gift while she was with us.

Amy also agreed and said it would be a good idea and she could play chess with her friends etc.

The father of the niece and nephews was not happy about the daughter receiving an extra gift.

Max seemed to hate the idea. When the kids were gone he told me I was being sexist for clearly favoring his daughter, and said I needed to treat his kids equally.

I said I just wanted to give a special gift, Amy took my side and said Max was being very petty about something as innocent as this.

He is still upset with me. I wanted to apologise but Amy said I don’t need to because I didn’t do anything wrong.

Was it an AH move to give her the chess set then?

There was slight division in the comments of this story, but overall readers sided with the father of the boys.

One person suggested that the man could’ve made it a gift for all of the kids to prevent anyone feeling disincluded.

This person felt similarly.

However, this reader felt it’s okay to not always be fair, especially considering the boys hadn’t shown a prior interest to chess.

Looks like the writer of this story is facing a “checkmate” situation.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a daughter who invited herself to her parents’ 40th anniversary vacation for all the wrong reasons.