Man is scolded for allowing a kid to eat very spicy food, 'she got teary-eyed.' AITA?
"AITA for not putting in more effort to dissuade a kid from eating very spicy food?"
My (21m) dad’s business counterpart "Steve" is currently in our country on a trip. He also brought his daughter "Emma" (13). Initially, Dad wanted my sister (18) to take the kid sightseeing but my sister shook her head and said her English isn’t good enough, and that she wouldn’t be able to hold an interesting conversation with her. So my dad and his counterpart gave me that task instead.
I felt obligated to inform Steve our AQI is 154 so he can decide if he wants me to take the kid to see one of our temples outdoors (we have beautiful Buddhist temples) or to an indoors museum instead. He picked the latter so I took her to a National Museum. Later I took Emma to the mall where we had dinner at a nice restaurant.
This is where the problem is. Our curry is very spicy. It’s a staple of our cuisine. The restaurant has this sort of chart where one chili is mild and five chilies means extremely spicy. My mom always picks five chilies and then tells the waiter to tell the chef to go extra spicy, while the most I ever took is three chilies. And that was only in an ill-conceived attempt to impress a girl.
Emma saw me pick one chili and asked how spicy can it be. Then she picked five. I told her "That’s a very bad idea." She insisted. I told her "I’m telling you. It’s way too spicy." But she said she can take it. She spat out the first bite and got teary eyed.
I quickly ordered coconut water; it’s how my mom taught me to sooth my mouth from the burning sensation. Later, let her pick another dish and a dessert. She was quite mad and so was her dad when she told him. He said that as an adult I shouldn’t have let her do something so foolish.
Here's what top commenters had to say about this one:
Lainy122 said:
NTA. I'm not sure what Steve excepted you to do - physically restrain her? You told her that it would be too hot, and it was too hot. 13 year olds don't listen, because they are 13. The only way you can be old and wise is to first be young and stupid. The only permanent idiot here is Steve for thinking events would play out differently and holding you accountable for his unrealistic expectations.
teen33 said:
My kids are sometimes like that, especially if it's food that they haven't taste before but looks very appetizing. It's for me to tell them, let's order a small portion first and if you like it we'll order more.
In your case, "let's order one chili first, if it's not spicy enough, we'll order the five chillies." But I wouldn't have known how to deal with kids who insist to eat something I know they can't handle when I was your age. So really NTA.
sailor_moon_knight said:
NTA. I, too, have been a thirteen year old in a southeast Asian restaurant. Vastly overestimating your spice tolerance for weird teen reasons and then suffering is practically a rite of passage. (At least for US Americans, idk, maybe European and Canadian kids aren't as masochistic lmao)
In a couple years this will be a hilarious story that Emma's family will tell at every opportunity. You did fine, this is fine. This is a nice low-stakes situation for Emma to learn the value of respecting local knowledge when she's visiting another country, which might even save her some grief in future travels.
Bold-Belle2 said:
NTA. You warned her, so its her fault for not taking that warning.
purplepig14 said:
NTA. You warned her and she insisted that she could handle it. I’m not sure what else you could’ve done at that point besides physically taking the dish away from her before she could try it (which I’m sure would’ve been a problem with her/her father too).
AceOfGargoyes17 said:
NTA. You warned her. She insisted, but she's 13 and old enough to know choose what she wants to eat and live with the consequences. You got her coconut water and another dish plus dessert after she made the mistake.