If you break it do you replace it?

[HolaWeenie]

Would appreciate people's perspective on this.

Family member has damaged our kids joint Christmas present. He was worse for wear and was found in our playroom throwing pieces of wooden fruit around, much to the kids hilarity. My husband asked him to calm it down and be more respectful of our stuff, 5 mins later he fell onto our kids toy and has damaged/buckled it.

His partner went beserk at him saying he has no respect for people's things or homes etc, offered to replace it and then left because of it, despite me saying they didn't need to leave. Whilst waiting for a cab they attempted to fix it and made it playable.

The next day they came over to collect some things and it was awkward they said have you looked at it yet and is it acceptable in its current state, we had only just packed the last of our guests off so hadn't looked closely. We have now, and think it's not good enough in its current state. So sent a message saying we appreciated they'd made it payable but we would like a replacement and they can have the buckled one (they have a kid in the same age range who was loving playing with it) We've have a frosty "fine" response. It's obviously not fine. Are we in the wrong!?

Of course you are not in the wrong.it was a brand new present.you don’t want it repaired to just break again in the near future.
He should not have drunk himself into such a state.

You're not in the wrong.

I imagine the sober one of the two is still very angry and embarrassed.

"Fine" is the kind of text you send when everything has got on top of you. She's probably had a really shit Christmas.

Your children must be upset and rightly so.yes they should replace the toy with some grace.

No of course not, they damaged it so should replace it.

Maybe they were a bit frosty because they are annoyed at themselves. Also maybe they thought they didn't have to as you left it a while to say so.

Definitely not your problem though.

Yes, if you break something you replace it.

On the rare occasions I have broken something of someone else's I have always replaced. Common courtesy imho.

Thanks all, yes I think the fact that it's playable in their eyes is good enough, it's an expense they don't need and also embarrassment, that all makes sense to me.

Agree with pp.

We teach our children to respect their possessions and those of others. What kind of a message does it send if they see that grown ups can be careless and wreck their toys?

Good point re showing our kids that you take responsibility for carelessness.