Walls are big enough for many pictures and hanging achievements.
Everyone can share in family happiness and pride.
Right?
Case in point…
Redditor Throwaway624335 wanted to discuss her experience and get some feedback. So naturally, she came to visit the “Am I The A**hole” (AITA) subReddit.
She asked:
“AITA for refusing to take down my daughter’s graduation photo and replace it with my husband’s graduation photo?”
The Original Poster (OP) explained:
“My daughter (18) graduated high school and I hung a photo of her graduation party on the living room wall.”
“She wants to go to a community college and she’ll live with me and her stepdad while doing that.”
“My husband recently earned his Master’s degree, and yesterday, he showed me his graduation photo that he framed and prepared to hang.”
“I asked where we were gonna hang it and he said the living room.”
“I said ‘great! right next to Amy’s graduation photo then.'”
“He said not next to it but instead of it.”
“I was puzzled.”
“I asked why, and he said that he didn’t feel it was right having his graduation photo, a Master’s degree be hung next to a high school graduation photo, a high school degree.”
“He said that both photos have ‘different weight and value’ and suggested I take my daughter’s photo down and hang his instead.”
“I was fuming because he refused to let her photo be hung anywhere near his and by that he has claimed the entire wall.”
“I refused and said this photo has been here for months!”
“And my daughter deserves to have it on display for encouragement.”
“He got upset and said that I was making it a big deal and could instead just use the hallway hall or something but I refused.”
“We had an argument about it and he kept insisting on having her graduation photo be taken down and not be hung on the same wall as his.”
”Due to the difference in degree value and weight and also he thought that a high chool photo isn’t hang-on wall worthy and called me inconsiderate of his feelings.”
“He says it’s disrespectful to him and his efforts and said that I’m choosing this ‘hill’ to die on was ridiculous.”
“AITA for choosing this hill to die on?”
Redditors shared their thoughts on this matter and weighed some options to the question AITA:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
Many Redditors declared OP was NOT the A**hole.
“NTA. I’d hang it right over the toilet where his attitude belongs.” ~ Low-Assistance9231
“Seriously? What kind of growna** man with a master’s degree is threatened by a kid’s high school graduation?”
“The question OP needs to be asking is ‘Why does my husband see my teenage daughter as competition?'”
“This is not healthy.” ~ Mryessicahaircut
“Why can’t it become a collage of family achievements?”
“It’s ridiculous and unnecessary to REPLACE her picture altogether.”
“I feel like this is a symptom of a larger problem.”
“This man doesn’t respect the family he has married into, or OP or her daughter.”
“It shouldn’t be an either-or, but he’s made this small patch of grass his hill to die on.”
“It doesn’t speak well of his character as a person.” ~ thegreatmei
“Yep – my wife’s Master’s degree graduation photo, her brother’s law school graduation photo, her cousin’s kid’s cub scout graduation, the picture of your nephew with his soccer trophy.”
“You take all of those, and you frame them all together in a big collage, and that goes up on the grandparents’ wall.”
“Because they are all important.”
“I genuinely do think that OP’s husband’s Master’s degree photo is every bit as important as a photo of a grandchild’s soccer team.”
“Not, y’know, MORE important. But definitely AS important.” ~ IanDOsmond
“NTA. He is an a**.”
“I have a Master’s and am getting a second one for work.”
“I hang my 4-year-old’s painting on the wall in the family room and my degree is in its folder in the drawer where it belongs.”
“Are you sure he is an adult?”
“Fighting with a teenager over whose accomplishments have more weight.” ~ ganeshs32
“NTA. How old is this man and why does he think he needs to compete with a teenager?”
“Why is he jealous? This is so strange.”
“Is he also a teenager who excelled so much that he earned his masters at 18?”
“Even if that was the case he doesn’t get to remove your daughter’s photo to replace it with his.”
“He sounds like a total a**hole.” ~ Fragrant-Procedure-3
“NTA. Hang his on his own ‘dedicated’ wall in the bathroom… just above the toilet.”
“So every time he takes a pee he can be reminded of how much of a pompous ass he is.”
“I also have a master’s degree… I would never be so big-headed to do something like that.” ~ WhoIsTheRealJohnDoe
“So since I accomplished a lot in my life, I can NEVER acknowledge my kid’s accomplishments?”
“What kind of logic is this?”
“We hang kids first scribble next to the art we choose for our walls.”
“We encourage every milestone as they go.”
“Each builds who they are.”
“OP, your daughter is going to school, she has so much more to go.”
“Either your husband is a huge jerk or, hopefully, he’s having an issue about something else and taking it out on this.”
“This IS your hill to die on. ABSOLUTELY!!” ~ Calpernia09
“NTA. My mum has my Masters’s graduation photo next to my niece and nephews ‘nursery graduation’ pictures.”
“It doesn’t bother me at all.”
“Husband needs to chill with the superiority complex.” ~ Academic-Panic
“NTA: he sucks. This is so degrading, to both you and your daughter.”
“Every educational endeavor is worthwhile and deserves to be acknowledged.”
I have two doctorates personally.”
“I keep my father’s master’s degree with me and it’s currently up in my office.”
“Sure, it’s technically a lesser degree in the academic hierarchy—it doesn’t make it any less valuable.” ~ Eab11
“I have a master’s degree and didn’t even get photos taken.”
“Imagine having so little self-esteem that your child’s high school graduation is a threat to your master’s degree.”
“He’s being ridiculous. You are NTA.” ~ sweettea75
“NTA. I know it isn’t only men who do this, but god damn do we seem to be doing MOST of it. Just mortifying.”
“If you get a PhD, are you going to hang his master’s photo in the closet or the basement?”
“He’d pitch a giant fit and rightly so.”
“Tell your husband that since he got his big boy master’s degree, it’s time to grow up and recognize that other people have milestones in their lives, too.”
“And that the ‘weight and value’ of such things are not for him to determine.”
“Something that, you know, most people who have graduated ELEMENTARY SCHOOL have learned.” ~ stdnormaldeviant
“NTA. Her achievement in no way detracts from his.”
“You should be able to celebrate the achievements of your child and your husband in the home.”
“How will she feel when she comes in and her photo of her greatest achievement to date has been replaced because it’s somehow ‘lesser.'”
“He really needs to get over himself.”
“What’s more important to him, family or ego?” ~ walnutwithteeth
“NTA! I assume there is room above the toilet in the bathroom, he can have that wall to himself!”
“If his mother is alive, he should ask her to hang it in her house the way you are hanging your daughter’s picture in your house.”
“Also a grown man placing himself in competition with an 18 yr old, REALLY WTF!”
“He said you are choosing to die on this hill, but not only did he construct this hill he is the one ready to go to war over a photo.” ~ Fine_Football2377
“NTA. They are both great achievements and can be celebrated equally.”
“He’s putting down someone who hasn’t even been on Earth long enough to achieve a master’s degree.”
“Maybe one day she’ll have the same.”
“Since he is a major AH and insists on pulling this sh*t, hang his degree in the bathroom.” ~ emotionallydented445
“NTA. Your husband is asking you to choose between him and your daughter.”
“He is a grown man throwing a fit over an imagined difference of importance.”
“Yes, a master’s has a different weight than a high school diploma, but that doesn’t mean the people represented by those degrees do.”
“If he feels so strongly that it shouldn’t be presented alongside your daughter’s high school diploma, he can go hang it elsewhere.”
“Either way, removing her diploma to put his up instead is childish as hell and little more than a way to ‘one up’ his step-daughter.” ~ JBagginsKK
“There had to have been a sea of red flags before this one.”
“That kind of narcissism to shine a spotlight on his degree does not appear out of nowhere.” ~ PizzaInteraction
Well OP, you have a situation on your hands.
There should be enough room on the walls for everybody’s achievements.
It sounds like it’s time for some family therapy.