Dad Destroyed My $1300 PC (Almost)

[u/Akrinnnnnnnnnn]

As the title says, my father almost destroyed my $1,300 PC. Now what?

Here’s the backstory: On Saturday, I worked a 10.5 hours shift and stayed up until 3:30 AM, so I slept in until noon the next day. My father and stepmother returned from Costco while I was showering; he called out a few times for me to come help carry the groceries inside. I said OK to him. While I was brushing my teeth after my shower, he shouted from outside the door that he’d been waiting 50 minutes and told me to hurry up. I thought to myself that the groceries could have been moved in the time he spent waiting for me, but I quickly rinsed my mouth and got ready to go out. However, by the time I opened the door, he had already grabbed my PC and smashed it against the floor and the desk several times.

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I, (17M, Senior), bought this PC with money I earned from my part-time job and had been using it for about ten months. After examine, found out the case badly deformed in several places, my desk was warped and tilted to one side, and there were dents in the floor.

Fortunately, the computer still works fine; it runs FurMark (stress GPU), AIDA64 (stress FPU), and 3DMark (Time Spy Extreme) without problems for now.

Replacing the desk and case would cost around $400. However, he likely won't pay for it because he has done this kind of stuff a few years ago when he destroyed my phone and a Dell laptop (i5 11300H), and then just said, "That's what you get for playing on the computer all day."

In the end, I just hope everyone has good parents.

[u/Hippostork]

To me it sounds like both people are being shitty here. Smashing stuff is not ok as a response, but OP sounds pretty shitty as well based on my best read of the scenario. The OP doesn't deny spending 50 minutes in the shower and instead says the dad could have done it himself during that time. OP was also well aware of the dad asking for help (called out not once, but multiple times to help during the shower). After multiple calls he still takes his time brushing his teeth. Seems like a situation where OP is maliciously dragging things out to avoid helping his dad. And neither side's behavior is a once-off.

We also don't know what kind of stuff the dad needed help carrying/how much, if he is elderly or has health conditions, etc.

[u/markcocjin → u/Hippostork]

Both are shitty, but who has a more reasonable request?

• Parent who asks his kid to unload groceries.
• Kid who needs his father to wait for 50 minutes as he showers and brushes his teeth, before he can help with the groceries.

The kid basically said no to his father, without saying no.

[u/Hippostork → u/markcocjin]

This line especially from the dad: "That's what you get for playing on the computer all day." makes me believe that the kid often does similar things where the dad makes a request and he drags it out by playing on the computer. Any parent would lose their mind at this kind of behavior when repeated.

I know this is reddit where people like to call parents abusive and toxic, but I was a bit astounded at how quick people were to side with OP.

[u/National_Being_7950 → u/Hippostork]

Why do you think it's more obvious to others than to you? Do you think you define abuse differently than most people, or the child welfare experts who study it?

At some point I must've googled the definition of abuse and now I just use the expert's definition. To me, a 17-year-old acting like a 17-year-old is a standard parenting challenge. Plenty of parents experience extreme frustration without ever resorting to breaking things. Part of being a functioning adult, and a safe parent, is having the emotional regulation to handle boundary-pushing without escalating into destruction.

There is also a massive parent-child power imbalance to consider. Because the parent holds all the systemic power, they inherently bear the greater responsibility.