"What kind of boy enjoys things that are meant for girls?": Grandma throws out $200 worth of 14-year-old grandson's baking supplies, dad bans her from their house until she appologizes or replaces everything

Author image for Ely Bulnes
Ely Bulnes • Writer and Editor
Jul 15, 2025 4:00 PM EDT

If you go to your nearest Walmart and visit the toy section, you'll likely see a lot of pointlessly gendered toys. Slowly, as a society, we are starting to come to terms with the fact that kitchens, baby dolls, and sports are not exclusive to boys or girls. Boys will, presumably, grow up to be self-sufficient adults and fathers, and girls have always enjoyed sports as much as boys. Still, it's curious and ridiculous to spot the same plastic bowling set, one blue and one pink, in different sections of the toy aisle, marketed to different kids based on their gender.
Some adults still feel it necessary to enforce old-school gender roles. Our protagonist in today's story is too old to be playing with toys; he has long graduated from his play kitchen days and is now an up-and-coming baker! His grandma finds the boy's hobby too "feminine" for her liking, so she takes matters into her own hands. 

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  • 01

    AITAH for kicking my mother out for throwing away my son's baking things because she believes that baking is only for girls?

    Cheezburger Image 10529204736
    via Sladic from Getty Images Signature

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • 02
    My fourteen year old son loves to bake and he is really good at it too. He started with simple things like cookies but now he can.
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    bake just about anything from bread to pies, even cakes. Sometimes friends and people we know will ask him to bake them
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    something and he will charge them a small fee. My mother has always hated the fact that my son loves baking.
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    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

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    She doesn't understand 'what kind of boy enjoys doing things that are meant for girls'. Ironically his younger sister hates baking. I
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    tried explaining to my mother that there's nothing wrong with my son's love for baking and that she's being s st but my mother is
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    stubborn and always makes sure to mention just how much she doesn't approve of it every chance she gets.
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  • I take it grandma has never seen an episode of The Great British Baking Show?

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    She was visiting us for a few days and I came home from work to find my son distraught. When I asked him what's going
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    on, he told me that he came back from a friend's house only to find that his baking things had disappeared. When he asked his grandma, she just said that now he can find a new appropriate hobby.
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    He has a specific kitchen cabinet where he stores all his baking things and sure enough it was empty, they weren't in the trash either.
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    I asked my mother what she did with my son's things and she proudly told me that she got rid of them because I was clearly not
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    going to do anything about it and that I was a bad father for allowing it to go on as long as it did.
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    These were approximately $200 worth of items collected over a period of time, hand mixer, scale, measuring things, pans etc. I told her that the only thing that I have
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    allowed to go on way too long is the constant disrespect for my son and that she needs to apologize to him and either bring back his things right now or replace them.
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  • If the disparaging comments weren't enough of a reason to ban grandma, the entitlement needed to throw away someone's possessions certainly is. 

  • 17
    She stubbornly said that she is not going to do that so I told her that first thing in the morning she needs to leave and she's not
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    allowed back here or around my children until she learns to respect their choices. She huffed and puffed all night and left in the
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    morning. She was originally supposed to leave on Sunday, the day after my son's birthday. She even took the gift she had bought him and left with it.
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    My stepdad called me to let me know just he thinks I am for what a piece of s treating my mother this way and kicking her out like some random stranger, I told him that she did this to herself and hung up.
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  • 22
    simagus These were approximately $200 worth of items collected over a period of time That is actual theft causing you actual material loss. Just saying.
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    Disastrous-Bee-1557 If she's not willing to return or replace the supplies, then I say take her to small claims court and get reimbursed.
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    Chance-Difference-83 NTA, and tell your mom to visit somewhere with elite cooking, like Italy or France, and see how many bakers are men.
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    She has some outdated beliefs that are her problem and not yours or your sons. I feel so bad for him though, that must have been really hard on him! Kudos for having his back.
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    Ok-Combination 3741 Send her a bill for replacements
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    SharpFly833 OP My mom is the most stubborn person ever, she would probably still disapprove. After this stunt, I have totally washed my hands off her. She can continue being backwards for all I care, as long as it's far away from my kids.
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  • 28
    Appropriate_Sky_6571 How can she not know of all those male pastry chefs? Or even in The Great British bake off, so many men
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    Any-Question-3759 And frankly that's beside the point. There could be zero famous male bakers. There could be zero male bakers period. It's a hobby that hurts precisely no one.
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relationship advice teenagers baking grandma relationships parenting raising teens love grandparents raising kids Parenting Fail parents entitled people hobby family drama family
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