Father Secretly Bought Son a Phone After Wife's Repeated Refusals. Then She 'Found Out and Went Ballistic'

Mar. 15, 2025

A young boy holds a phone in a line of other teens in a stock photo.Photo:Getty

Getty

A father’s decision to secretly buy his 15-year-old son a phone, despite his wife’s repeated objections, has led to conflict between the couple.In a recent post to Reddit, a 54-year-old father explains that while he and his wife have always made parenting decisions together, they have recently disagreed regarding their son Kyle, 15, and whether or not he should be allowed to have a cell phone.“With my 3 kids out of the house (26F, 20M, and 18F), Kyle has been feeling lonelier than ever,” the dad writes. “He has many friends at school, but he enjoys spending time with his siblings more, especially 20M. Now, Kyle didn’t have a phone yet and he has been expressing how he’s tired of being the odd one out of his friend group and how much he hates being the only one without a cellphone,” the father says in his post.The poster notes that his other three children received phones when they were 13.

A couple fights in a stock photo.Getty

“He agreed. He got the phone and was very very happy. It’s been easy for me to contact him (I mainly drop him off and pick him up from school) and he’s been a lot happier,” the father adds in the post.

However, the secret didn’t stay secret for long. The father writes that “somehow this weekend (after keeping the phone a secret for a month), my wife found out and went ballistic. She screamed at me, told me I “betrayed” her and how dare I give our son a phone when he could easily do “bad things” on there.“In turn, the father defended his own actions, telling his wife that she was being “unrealistic and hasn’t been giving me proper reasons as to why Kyle shouldn’t have a phone. My wife said she’s told me many, many times not to buy our son the phone and she felt like I betrayed our mutual agreement,” he writes.

Never miss a story — sign up forPEOPLE’s free daily newsletterto stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.Commenters on the post are largely siding with the father.One user who commented on the post expressed concern that the poster’s wife might have “untreated mental health issues,” saying that “screaming and crying over the mere idea of a teenager having any electronic devices sounds totally unhinged. I think you might have bigger issues than a cell phone.“Another user pointed out that teenagers definitely need a phone “for easy communication when they leave the house.“However, the same user also pointed the finger at the father, arguing that going against the agreement with his wife and making their child keep secrets from his mother was not setting a “great example.”

source: people.com