Husband allows niece to take his wife's souvenir Sanrio coloring book from Japan, she demands it back: ‘[He] said I was petty and childish’

Author image for Lana DeGaetano
Lana DeGaetano • "Show me to me please."
Feb 11, 2026 5:00 PM EST

A souvenir is a material representation of an irreplaceable memory. 

We, as humans, hold on to material items that remind us of intangible memories we're afraid to lose in the ether of our minds. We want to keep these items close so we can ensure our memories are kept safe, away from the villain of time and aging. When someone threatens our sentimental items and what they represent, it's normal to feel upset and territorial. At the end of the day, we are our memories, and those memories attach themselves to what we surround ourselves with on the physical plane. When this woman's husband disrespects her wishes and tries to give away her prized souvenir from Japan to his niece, she refuses to let that slide. Scroll to read.

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  • A little girl plays with crayons and paper in the backseat of a car.
    via Getty Images For Unsplash+

    A little girl plays with crayons and paper in the backseat of a car.

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • "AITA for taking a coloring book back from my niece after she got attached to it?"

    1 (27F) live with my husband (31M). We've been married about a year and a half.
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  • Overall things are good, but we're still figuring out boundaries, especially around our stuff. I collect Hello Kitty and Sanrio items.
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  • Nothing extreme, but I have a small display shelf in the living room and a few related things on the bookshelf.
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  • Most of it is stuff I've picked up over the years. I fell in love with Hello Kitty as a kid when I lived in Japan, and after my family moved to the US I stopped seeing it around, so collecting it now feels a little nostalgic.
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  • Nostalgia is a tricky feeling. It's bittersweet, both melancholic and revitalizing. For this woman, her souvenir-memory shelf served as a reminder of a past life, one she has left behind to pursue other pastures. She even has them on display so they are a constant reminder of who she is, who she was, where she comes from, and where she's going.

  • A souvenir shop in Japan.
    via PJH for Unsplash

    A souvenir shop in Japan.

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • Last year I went back to Japan to visit my grandparents and found these really nice Sanrio coloring books.
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  • They're not like the cheap kids' ones at the store. The paper is thicker, the art is really detailed, and I bought them more as nostalgic collectibles than something for random kids to use.
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  • This past weekend we babysat his niece (6F) while his sister was out of town. I was working from my home office, so he handled most of the childcare during the daytime.
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  • Yesterday on my lunch. break, I saw her looking at my shelf. She asked if she could touch some of the figures, and I said yes, as long as she was very careful and put them back.
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  • I assumed she meant the ones she could already reach/JUST the figures she was asking about at that exact moment.
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  • Later, I came out to grab a snack and saw her coloring at the table. At first I thought it was a normal coloring book, but then I realized it was one of the ones I brought back from Japan.
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  • From my hello kitty shelf. I didn't want to upset her, but I thought I set pretty clear guidelines and 6 seems old enough to understand that to me.
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  • This is a tricky situation. A coloring book, specifically one that contains Sanrio characters, reads as quite youthful to those who don't understand. A child would naturally gravitate toward this type of item, but it's important as a parent to communicate that not everything exists for their benefit. A six-year-old seldom understands this to the greatest extent, but when the item they want is an item that holds sentimental value to another person, it's an integral step that ensures they won't take or destroy it.

  • I could be wrong. so I just said, "Maybe we can find another book for you to color in." She was really into it, and my husband laughed and said we should just let her keep it since she'd already started coloring in it.
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  • I quietly told him I'd rather not and that we could easily buy her a different book.
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  • He brushed it off and said I was overthinking it. I didn't want to argue in front of her, so I dropped it.
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  • That night, after she went to sleep, I saw he had packed the coloring book into her backpack.
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  • That bothered me, because it felt like he'd decided to give away something of mine without asking.
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  • So I took it out and shoved it under a couch cushion lol. I know it seems so dramatic but I just knew if I put it back on the shelf it would wind up back in her bag.
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  • The next morning she had a meltdown looking for it. Crying, screaming, meltdown. We explained when her mother came that she had lost a coloring book "we" gave her.
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  • After they left, I put it back on the shelf. He said he was really disappointed in me, said I was being petty and childish and should have let her keep it.
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  • I told him it wasn't about the price, it was about the fact that it was something I brought back from Japan and part of my collection, and he gave it away without asking.
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  • Now things are tense, and I'm wondering if I overreacted by taking it back.
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  • At the end of the day, this was a learning lesson (or should be) for both the woman's husband, their niece, and the girl's parents. A child cannot always get their way, and in a relationship, you must respect your partner's wishes. They're not telling you certain things for fun; they are telling you because it's a fact of the matter.

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family drama relationships husband Japan children souvenir
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