A mother has divided the internet after revealing she gives her daughter a $60 weekly allowance—but pays her son nothing.

Reddit user u/Murky_Willingness763, a 45-year-old mom of two, explained that her family moved earlier this year to be closer to her aging parents. With her job shifting to a hybrid model, she needed a quiet work-from-home setup but her new bedroom was too small to accommodate an office. She asked her 15-year-old son and 17-year-old daughter if they’d be willing to give up their rooms from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. so she could work there instead.

“I proposed this to them—my son flat-out refused (‘no way in hell’), but my daughter offered her room and half-joked about charging me rent for the space,” she wrote in the subreddit “Am I The A*****,” where the post quickly racked up over 13,000 upvotes.

Taking the comment seriously, the mom decided to pay her daughter $20 a day, totaling $60 a week, as compensation for her space. She noted that she herself took the smallest, dampest room in the house.

“Now the issue: my son is p***** that his sister is getting $60. I don’t do regular allowances, just canteen money (about $10/week) and other needs as they come up. I told him he had the same opportunity and was now s*** out of luck. He got angry and brought up the move, saying he never gets to see his friends,” she added.

She said she regularly drives them to visit old friends and reminded her son that she wouldn’t tolerate being spoken to disrespectfully. But things escalated.

Her son lashed out at his sister, calling her an “opportunistic b****,” and she responded by calling him a “whiny little a*****.”

To de-escalate the situation, the mom suggested one of them spend a night at their grandparents’ house—not as punishment. “My son opted to go and while dropping him off, my mom told me I was favoring my daughter and should be paying them equally. My dad disagreed, saying my son had the chance,” she explained.

Expert Insight

Rachel Marmor, a licensed mental health counselor and the chief wellness officer at the PAIRS Foundation in South Florida, told Newsweek this situation isn’t just about the money—it reflects deeper emotional dynamics.

“What this mother did wasn’t necessarily favoritism—it was a response to a real-life offer and a mutually beneficial agreement with her daughter. The daughter provided a solution and took initiative. The son declined that same opportunity. So the outcomes are understandably different,” she said.

She said the mom didn’t necessarily show favoritism, but the son may have felt left out because fairness in families is often felt emotionally, not logically. She added that even fair decisions can hurt if they’re not communicated with care and transparency.

“In the end, harmony in a household doesn’t come from perfect choices—it comes from how we repair, how we listen, and how we affirm that each person matters. Especially when they’re hurting,” she said.

Reddit Reacts

Redditors were split.

“I can understand your logic, but I also don’t totally agree with giving one child such a huge amount of money and the other nothing, and I think you are missing the bigger picture for your son, where he feels like his needs are not being considered as important within the family,” wrote one user.

Another added: “I agree that $60/week is too much, but it’s also affecting the daughter during school breaks. Daughter is committing to getting up and mostly (if not completely) out of her room by 8:30 every day that OP has to work. Obviously not every teenager does it, but I definitely appreciated being able to sleep from midnight to 11 or noon during breaks.”

Others pointed out the son had the same opportunity. “The deal was without money involved. OP first asked who wanted to give up their space, only after the daughter agreed and made a joke about rent did the money come into the picture. If the son had gotten the monetary offer he might have accepted or at least he’d have no reason to be upset otherwise since he turned it down himself,” one user said.

Another was less sympathetic. “Diddums. Maybe next time he’ll think twice about being so rude to his mother,” wrote one user.

Newsweek reached out to u/Murky_Willingness763 for comment via Reddit. We could not verify the details of the case.

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