'AITA for telling my boyfriend to save food for my kids?'

"AITA for telling my boyfriend to save food for my kids?"

My bf (44M) and I (40F) cohabitate. We both have two children each from previous marriages (14M, 13M and 10M, 8F, respectively) from previous marriages. We have split some of the household responsibilities and over time it has become my responsibility to provide groceries for us all.

Recently we have had some disagreements about how and what we feed the children but I have been incorporating his feedback.

During the week when we have all four kids with us, his two kids get up and off to school a little earlier than my kids (about 10-15 min difference in routine). He makes his breakfast for his kids and then I make breakfast for mine after they leave.

Today after he left with his kids, I noticed all the waffles were gone. Stuff like this is not a big deal normally, however, one of my children is particular about food and plain waffles happen to be one of the only few foods she will eat in the morning. We have bagels and other foods in the house but ran out of waffles.

I had to scramble and figure out an alternative this morning. After I dropped my kids, I sent a text to my bf asking that next time, he set aside one waffle for my “picky” eater. He got very defensive and told me he didn’t want to deny his children waffles while giving one of my children preferential treatment.

He typed back “do better” and “buy more waffles next time”. I am wondering if my request is out of line.

Let's see what readers thought:

plaoy writes:

100% NTA. Your request was entirely reasonable. You weren’t asking your boyfriend to deny his kids waffles—you were simply asking for consideration for your child’s needs, especially since plain waffles are one of the few foods your picky eater will reliably eat.

This is not about preferential treatment; it’s about being thoughtful in a shared household where everyone’s needs should be balanced.

Your boyfriend’s defensive reaction, especially with comments like “do better,” seems dismissive of your concern. Instead of working with you to ensure all the kids are cared for, he shifted blame to you.

In a blended household, there needs to be mutual respect and communication when it comes to parenting and shared resources, including food. His unwillingness to compromise or even entertain your request might indicate a larger issue about how responsibilities and the needs of both sets of children are being handled.

You’re not out of line—your request was about fairness and ensuring your children are cared for, just as his are. It might be worth having a deeper conversation with him about how you can approach these types of situations better in the future.

garetu writes:

You know, someone is always going to eat the last of something, it's the way it works. The ages of children named here are all old enough to eat what is put in front of them. It's ridiculous when 6pp share a household for 1 to be accommodated above all. Obviously, his kids wanted waffles too.

He was supposed to tell them no in favor of your "picky eater"? Have to agree with him, if you want to allow your child to be a food terrorist then you should buy more waffles, not ask others to go w/o in favor of them. YTA.

caron writes:

You’re NTA, but for people who are cohabitating, it seems like things are really split between I do X for my kids vs he does X for his kids. Maybe it’s just how the post reads, but I find that concerning for the future.