01/08/2026
I genuinely don't think I did wrong here, but my wife says I went too far, so I need an opinion. I(43m) have 3 daughters. The oldest, "Jane", is 16, and the youngest, "Faith", is 11. They don't get along very well. I've put both of them in therapy, and they don't fight like they used to, but I doubt they'll ever be friends. A couple of days ago, the two of them were having an argument over Jane making cookies for her friends and only giving Faith one. I told Faith that it was fine and that she could make her own cookies another day. In retaliation, Faith stole and destroyed one of Jane's portfolios. Jane's an artist, and a very good one too. She only had three of these portfolios, and this one was her favorite. She was devastated. A few of the drawings she did took close to a month and were absolutely gorgeous. There are a couple copies of some of them, but the majority are just gone. As punishment, I went into Faith's room and bagged up her entire rock collection. I saved a few of the more sentimental ones she got as a gift and will return those later, but most of them I threw out. I told her that how she felt is how Jane felt and that she should think of how she'd feel in the other person's shoes before doing something. My wife thinks I should have just grounded her. But my wife rarely follows through with groundings, especially with Faith. Personally, I feel like this was a better lesson. AITAH?