Mom decides to teach 'overweight child' portion control at sleepover. AITA?
Sleepovers are both a delightful part of childhood and a minefield of adolescent insecurity.
One mother was worried about her daughter's 'overweight' friend. She didn't want to make her feel targeted, but she wanted to show her portion control. She refused to give her any more food than she thought was appropriate for all of the girls, despite the young girl asking for more. When her parents picked her up, they had some serious complaints for the host mom.
'AITA for monitoring the portion sizes of my daughter’s overweight friend?'
My daughter “Lily” 9F recently had a sleepover birthday party with 5 of her close friends, including “Tina” (also 9F). Tina is significantly overweight and well on her way to becoming obese, and I’ve noticed her parents (both also overweight) have not taught her proper nutrition and portion control.
She’s always the first to reach for a cookie or a donut, and consume three times as much as most kids her age. I feel sorry for her because it seems it isn’t her fault she is overweight but her parents’ fault, and I worry she will develop severe weight issues later in life.
At the sleepover party, I decided I was going to try to monitor her portions and nutrition as much as possible. We ordered pizza for dinner, and I imposed a two slice limit, knowing none of Lily’s other friends would eat more, but Tina was begging for a third piece and I said no.
Then, for cake I cut everyone a small piece, and again this wasn’t a problem for anyone but Tina was really upset and on the verge of tears. For breakfast I imposed similar limits, and when Tina’s parents picked her up I heard her say, “I’m starving.”
I understand it would be a problem if I let everyone else eat whatever they want and ONLY limited Tina’s portions, but that was not the case. Tina was the only one who wanted to exceed the limits.
However, later I got a call from Tina’s mom calling me fatphobic and telling me it’s not my job to parent her child. This ticked me off. I could have said, “It’s your job, but you’re not doing it, so somebody else has to,” but I just politely explained to her that her daughter had to follow the same rules as all the other girls and hung up.
My husband got home later that day though and after I explained what happened he said I could relax a little since it is a birthday party after all.
We went back and forth for a bit, but the point that stuck with me was that while I held everyone to the limits I put, I DID set them specifically with Tina in mind and with the assumption (which held true) that only Tina would want to eat more. Does that make me the AH?
Here were the to responses from readers:
YTA and Tina's mother is absolutely correct, it's not your job to parent someone else's child. What you did was obnoxious and I have second hand embarrassment for you for being so completely inappropriate.
YTA. Especially since it was a sleepover. If you'd have 2-hour party and you didn't serve enough food to satisfy one guest's appetite, she could have at least gone home immediately afterwards and had something else to fill herself up.
Tina's appetite control, or lack thereof is none of your business. And restricting her for 1 day isn't going to have any kind of positive impact on her life. You just invited a child to your daughter's birthday party and chose to make her miserable. How positively inhospitable of you!
YTA. You are insufferable. You appear to be the very definition of an almond mom. Good job on not only humiliating your daughter’s friend. She’s likely to remember you fat shaming her for the rest of her life
She and your daughter are likely to have eating disorders in their future. Hope that makes you happy.
YTA... and you doubled down on being TA. (1) Do you really think having a little girl over for ONE NIGHT (where you fed her pizza and cake, anyway) is really going to have any magic effect on her health/weight? So this was a pointless exercise.
(2) I don't think imposing limits is bad, if, say, there was only enough pizza ordered for every kid to have 2 slices. But if there was leftover pizza, you should have given anyone who asked a little more.
(3) Why are you fighting with Tina's mom, and throwing insults?!?
I don't really care too much about this 'fatphobic' thing. You didn't teach Tina anything about health or nutrition. You have no influence over this kid, anyway, so that truly is up to her parents, teachers, doctors, etc. You just decided to make a child guest miserable at a birthday party, which helps no one.
YTA, a single party of her eating with restrictions is going to do nothing in the end. All it’s effectively did was create a binging moment for that child who is going to go home and stuff her face to excess because she was limited at your house. It’s up to her parents to teach her good habits, and if they’re failing her, there’s nothing you can do.
I was honestly expecting most comments to be n t a. I'm pleasantly surprised that this wasn't the case.
YTA. You refused a hungry child food because you don’t like the size of her body (and her parents bodies). This child went home from your house hungry and you are…proud? Think you did some valiant? Taught the kid a lesson?
All you did was teach all the kids there that your home is an dangerous place to be a child and that you will exert your perceived authority over their bodies the second you can do so. I feel so bad for your child.