I sent my brother an itemised list of everything his son destroyed in my house

"He'd ruined dresses, smashed vases and flushed two phones down the toilet, so I listed everything and the estimated costs."

The parenting community is backing up a couple who recently vented online about their "uncontrollable" nephew, after they excluded him from upcoming plans due to his erratic behaviour.

They asked the forum, 'Am I The A**hole for sending my brother a list of every item of ours that my nephew ruined?'

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'He got mad and said we favoured our niece because she's a girl'

The post begins by explaining that the couple has a niece, Bella, seven and a nephew, Michael, 10. 

"They're my brother Alex's kids," the poster says. "Michael is a good kid but he is a ticking time bomb. He is absolutely uncontrollable. I love them both but I have a much closer relationship with Bella."

"The last time Michael was at our house he poured my nail polish collection onto my wife's favourite silk Persian carpet. And that's not even 1% of the damage he has done," she continues. 

The poster and her wife recently bought a villa out of time with a pool, game room and rose garden. The two women decided to ask the brother if Bella would like to come over to visit their new place but he told her that they needed to invite Michael too, or else Bella wouldn't be coming. 

"My brother got really mad at us and said it was 'disgusting' that we favoured Bella because she was a girl and that we were both hypocritical and unfair to Michael and never included him in our plans," the OP writes.

"I told my brother that Michael was an uncontrollable kid. He had the audacity to ask what Michael had done. I told him I’d let him know (I’ve told him the items over the years as it happened but he always said it was an accident and that Michael’s a boy and boys play rough). I made a table including every item my nephew had damaged in our house and the estimated cost," she says.

Some things included in the list were: her wife's antique vases, her glass statue of the Eiffel Tower, the carpet, several of her wife's crystal decor pieces and even two phones that Michael flushed down the toilet. 

"Even the mirror of my car. I sent the list to my brother," she writes. 

This resulted in her brother calling her "arrogant" and an "uptight rich kid."

As it stands, the siblings aren't speaking - so the poster wants to know whether what she did was appropriate or not. 

Image: IStock

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'He asked - not your fault he doesn't like the answer'

Fellow forum goers stood up for the couple and agreed that they need to set boundaries with Michael's parents. 

"NTA. He asked - not your fault he doesn’t like the answer," the top comment read. 

Another said, "I grew up with five brothers, Michael has broken more stuff than we all did combined."

"No way what you did was a**hole territory. I thought maybe you'd kept a list of everything he'd broken next to your heart to bring out at all times. He opted to play dumb, so you were 100% right to bring up every situation you could remember at that point," remarked another.

"This has nothing to do with gender preferences and more to do with 'actions have consequences'. While it might feel unfair to Michael, this is an opportunity for his parents to teach him to behave better in people's homes," pointed out someone else. 

Then other people said the OP should find a compromise with her brother.

"Seems like the easiest solution would be to say, 'Michael can come, but you need to come too, then, and be responsible for making sure nothing gets broken,'" one commenter said.

And others pointed out that Michael could need some sort of help as this sort of destructive behaviour isn't normal. 

"I’m sorry, I think something is very wrong with a 10-year-old acting like this. I’m a mum and a grandma of lively, curious kids and they NEVER were destructive like this. That kid is screaming for some kind of help or attention," one said. 

And this person agreed, replying: "As an educator. Happy, well-adjusted children do not behave like this and it's shocking that Michael's parents aren't trying to figure out what's going on."

Originally published as I sent my brother an itemised list of everything his son destroyed in my house