There’s a dad out there who I think about sometimes. Not my dad, to be clear; just a dad—a man I’ve never met, whose existence I’m only aware of because of a Reddit post written last year by his adult daughter. The post was a litany of complaints: This man was selfish, the daughter said, and flaky, and a bad husband to her mother. But the last straw, the thing that really got her goat, was the socks. Every year for Christmas he would get her socks as a gift; he thought it was funny, a sort of self-deprecating joke about his lack of gift-giving skills specifically and his shortcomings as a father in general.
The Reddit poster had a different view: “Eventually I realized it was him finding pleasure in openly disrespecting us.” As a result, she was barely on speaking terms with her father, she wrote, and strongly considering a complete estrangement.
I’ve always felt sorry for Sock Dad, who I imagine would be somewhat mystified by the notion that his annual Christmas gag was actually an act of brazen contempt that ought to cost him his relationship with his daughter. And I was reminded of him this week, after Brooklyn Beckham took to Instagram with a similarly lengthy j’accuse aimed at his own family—and specifically his parents, soccer star David Beckham and his formerly-of-the-Spice-Girls wife, Victoria Beckham. According to 26-year-old Brooklyn, his mom and dad have been guilty over the years of a legion of offenses, most of them alleged attempts to sabotage Brooklyn’s relationship with the woman he married in 2022.
“[My] parents have been trying endlessly to ruin my relationship since before my wedding, and it hasn’t stopped,” he wrote.
Victoria in particular was savaged over her alleged mistreatment of the couple in the lead-up to the Palm Beach, Florida, wedding, reneging on a promised dress design at the last minute and then hijacking the couple’s first dance with a salacious performance of her own. Brooklyn wrote that his mother “danced very inappropriately on me in front of everyone,” and that “I’ve never felt more uncomfortable or humiliated in my entire life.”
