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The original was posted on /r/amitheasshole by /u/Impossible-Bake-3314 on 2023-11-18 16:31:00+00:00.

My daughter (14) had been complaining about a “monster zit” on her nose for a couple of weeks and was using pimple patches to treat it. At least, that’s what I thought was going on and had no reason to question it. I was driving her to school yesterday and noticed that in place of the pimple patch, there was a little nose stud and I was shocked and asked multiple questions. I made it clear that I was not happy. Rather than going off on her in the kiss and ride line, I took a breath and let her know that we would be talking about it after school. In the end, I made her remove the piercing and took her phone away for the weekend.

The idea of a nose piercing has been brought up plenty of times over the past year or so. The compromise that I thought we had settled on was that we would discuss it more seriously when she is 16 years old, which I think is fair. I’m not conservative and absolutely encourage her to express herself via fashion, hair, makeup, jewelry, etc.

She would not come out of her bedroom last night and cried and cried, which may have also been because of her phone being taken away. She told me that removing the piercing should have been punishment enough and I actually think I went pretty easy on her. The thing is that she lied about doing something that I thought had been settled. The kiddo clearly thinks I’m the asshole, but I’m not so sure. Luckily, there was no infection and I’m hoping it closes up without scarring. I’m a single parent and her father is not involved whatsoever making times such as this a bit more tricky for me to handle without second guessing my actions.

Am I the asshole?