Childrearing

<h2>&ldquo;<b>Water is the driving force of all nature</b>.&rdquo; - Leonardo da Vinci</h2><p>It seems like a silly argument but one mom just had enough with her son&#39;s girlfriend. She felt like his girlfriend was being rude and ungrateful. The breaking point seems trivial, but she learns this conflict runs much deeper than water.</p><h2>AITA for blowing up on my son&#39;s girlfriend?</h2><p><a data-click-id="user" data-testid="post_author_link" href="https://www.reddit.com/user/throwawayDILwater/">throwawayDILwater</a></p><blockquote> <p>My husband thinks I&#39;m in the right, but my niece helped me make this post on here to see what other people think.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>I (52f) have three sons ages ranging from 13 to 20. My oldest son (20m) has a girlfriend (19f) that hangs around our house a lot... It&#39;s a really small house and doesn&#39;t have a lot of space.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>She&#39;s a nice girl but gets on my nerves sometimes because she&#39;s always over. I really don&#39;t think she&#39;s right for my son, either.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>Our tap water has a weird aftertaste so I order gallon water bottles and use them to refill a big glass bowl with a tap.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>It is not cheap to get water and other groceries delivered, so I tell my sons, husband, and the girlfriend to be courteous of the other people who live here and not use up the water, as it runs out fast in our big household.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>Yesterday, I caught her filling up her big metal water bottle with the jug water, and I calmly told her that other people live here, too, and she shouldn&#39;t hog the water all to herself.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>She was rather short with me and said something along the lines of: &quot;Actually, this water bottle is big enough to hold all the water someone should be drinking in a day. I&#39;m not hogging water, I&#39;m just trying to stay hydrated.&quot;</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>I found her tone to be disrespectful and ordered her to leave. She scoffed and went back to my son&#39;s room. That&#39;s when I really got frustrated.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>I opened their door and told her she has to leave. My son got really angry with me and told me that his girlfriend didn&#39;t do anything wrong and why is it a crime for her to drink water?</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>I explained that I order this water for our family to use, not leeches who hang around all day rent-free. My son&#39;s girlfriend got a little teary eyed and left the room and out the front door without saying anything.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>My son told me that I was a major a**hole and should have just minded my business. I think she&#39;s just wasteful and a brat. AITA?</p> </blockquote><h2>It seems like a fairly trivial argument, but clearly points to deeper issues. Here is what people had to say:</h2><p><a data-testid="comment_author_link" href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Old-Operation8637/">Old-Operation8637</a></p><blockquote> <p>Have you discussed with your family about having guests over, the size of your home, and your inability to provide water for guests? It seems like it should be a simple family discussion about this as it is financially based.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><p><a data-testid="comment_author_link" href="https://www.reddit.com/user/judgy_mcjudgypants/">judgy_mcjudgypants</a></p><blockquote> <p>There isn&#39;t really a difference between &quot;fills up bottle once with enough water for the day&quot; and &quot;drinks the same amount of water one cup at a time&quot;. Bottled water does cost money, but if that&#39;s a problem, asking her to contribute $ would be a more logical first step. YTA for pretending this is about the water when it&#39;s not.</p> </blockquote><h2>One reader&#39;s post actually got more traction than the OP&#39;s post.</h2><p><a data-testid="comment_author_link" href="https://www.reddit.com/user/one_1f_by_land/">one_1f_by_land</a></p><blockquote> <p>Okay. YTA, but I&#39;m going to try to explain why in a constructive way so you hopefully understand all sides of this.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>First of all, you have the right to lay down the law of your land in your house. That includes who is in it, who is using your supplies, how they&#39;re used, and what conduct you expect from guests. Your guests (including your son) also have the basic human right to take offense at your hostility.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>Nobody likes to be treated like a burden or an imposition, and you&#39;ve put this girl in a difficult situation where she feels like in order to enjoy her boyfriend, she has to put up with your antagonism, justified or not. That&#39;s exhausting for everyone.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>The fact is that you&#39;re 52 and she&#39;s 19, and as the owner of your house, <em>you</em> need to be the one who communicates your desires clearly, not passive-aggressively. You&#39;re trying to play both sides by subtly driving her away with your antagonism while also not giving your son cause to be angry with you.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>The absolute kindest way I can put this is that what you&#39;re doing right now is reactionary communication instead of preemptive communication. You clearly have a problem with this girl and everybody knows it.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>By being passive-aggressive and at times openly hostile to her in order to drive her away, you&#39;re disrespecting your son&#39;s choice and trying to impose your will on him.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>This isn&#39;t about the water: it&#39;s about you wanting her out of your house, and because you&#39;re not clearly putting down boundaries, these little things are adding up and blowing over.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>She is 19 and likely doesn&#39;t understand why you&#39;re so hostile. If you would rather not have her in your house all the time, communicate that with her. Tell her it&#39;s stressing you out to have guests over all the time and that you&#39;re feeling claustrophobic.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>There are many direct, mature ways you can handle this situation, but it starts with <em>you,</em> not her. You&#39;re the one with the problem.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>I wanted to respond to one comment I kept seeing pop up -- which person OP should be taking her complaints to, her son or his girlfriend.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>Tbh when I re-read the post, the proprietary tone OP took when speaking about him (&quot;I don&#39;t think she&#39;s right for him&quot;) suggested a couple of things to me: her methods with communicating with her son are outdated and new adult boundaries need to be drawn so they can co-exist in a healthy way.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>And the value she places in their relationship is preventing her from expressing her frustrations honestly. She doesn&#39;t mind her son being there in that small space: she minds his girlfriend. In an either/or situation where she forces him to choose, she might not like the choice he makes.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>Instead of taking that risk, she&#39;s settled for a passive-aggressive antagonism that pressure-cooked the situation up to the point where everything exploded over bottled water.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>I&#39;m not going to get into the politics of &quot;19/20 year olds should move out&quot; -- I don&#39;t care about the age of adult children living at home. It&#39;s a tough market and everybody&#39;s survival tactics are valid.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>What I do care about is the mother and girlfriend having an adult conversation between themselves, <em>without</em> the need to use the son as a mediator between them, so they can both express themselves without filters.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>Once OP has taken the steps to mend the situation she&#39;s co-created with the girlfriend, they can both take the situation to the son and have a group meeting about what to do in the future. But for right now, the son doesn&#39;t need to be in the cross-hairs of this argument. OP and girlfriend both need this practice.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>The girlfriend is a teenager and also might not know how to accurately translate OP&#39;s behavior. The fact that OP describes her as a kind girl is important context.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>It&#39;s taken a while to get to the point where this girl snapped under pressure and back-sassed OP in her home, and while I agree it isn&#39;t fair to put a 19 year-old toe to toe against a 52 year-old mother of three.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>I also worry that involving the son right away might escalate the situation if he&#39;s put on the spot to defend one of them over the other. There should be an even balance of power in the room so no one&#39;s voice gets drowned out.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>If the girl&#39;s parents are around, one should sit in. If they&#39;re not... there&#39;s probably a good reason the girl is over there so often.</p> </blockquote><h2>The OP actually took all the comments to heart and then provided an update:</h2><blockquote> <p>Thanks for all the comments. I have spoken to my son about the issue, and you all made me realize that it was deeper than just the water. I showed him this post and explained that it&#39;s not her, it&#39;s me.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>I think she reacted that way when I initially told her off for filling up the bottle because--and my son helped me realize this, too.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>I was never really nice to her to begin with, in the course of their three year relationship (in my defense, she only started hanging around our house a lot about six months ago because she got a license).</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>We called her on the phone this morning and I apologized for my reaction to the bottle. I explained I didn&#39;t mean to make her feel bad about the water--it really wasn&#39;t that big of a deal, and I feel silly for making it a big deal.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>She apologized for having an attitude and explained how she can feel a little defensive around me sometimes. I told her and my son that I will work on my attitude. My husband still thinks she was being disrespectful but I explained that I&#39;m the reason she felt the need to act that way in the first place.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>It&#39;s not my choice who my son decided to date and I need to respect his choice. I think she is a sweet girl, and I feel horrible for the way I have been treating her. Again, thank you to everyone for making me realize my mistake.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>PS: I have looked into purchasing a Brita pitcher to see if that is more cost effective. My son&#39;s girlfriend now brings water from home--although I didn&#39;t tell her to do that.</p> </blockquote><h2>So do you think this mom was too harsh or was this a breaking point indicitive of a larger issue?</h2><div className="ad-splitter"></div>

Mom calls son's gf 'a brat' for drinking too much water. AITA? UPDATED

&ldquo;Water is the driving force of all nature.&rdquo; - Leonardo da VinciIt seems like a silly argument but one mom just had enough with her son&#39;s girlfriend. She felt like his girlfriend was being rude and ungrateful. The breaking point seems trivial, but she learns this conflict runs much deeper than water.AITA for blowing up on my son&#39;s girlfriend?throwawayDILwater My husband thinks I&#39;m in the right, but my niece helped me make this post on here to see what other people think.  I (52f) have three sons ages ranging from 13 to 20. My oldest son (20m) has a girlfriend (19f) that hangs around our house a lot... It&#39;s a really small house and doesn&#39;t have a lot of space.  She&#39;s a nice girl but gets on my nerves sometimes because she&#39;s always over. I really don&#39;t think she&#39;s right for my son, either.  Our tap water has a weird aftertaste so I order gallon water bottles and use them to refill a big glass bowl with a tap.  It is not cheap to get water and other groceries delivered, so I tell my sons, husband, and the girlfriend to be courteous of the other people who live here and not use up the water, as it runs out fast in our big household.  Yesterday, I caught her filling up her big metal water bottle with the jug water, and I calmly told her that other people live here, too, and she shouldn&#39;t hog the water all to herself.  She was rather short with me and said something along the lines of: &quot;Actually, this water bottle is big enough to hold all the water someone should be drinking in a day. I&#39;m not hogging water, I&#39;m just trying to stay hydrated.&quot;  I found her tone to be disrespectful and ordered her to leave. She scoffed and went back to my son&#39;s room. That&#39;s when I really got frustrated.  I opened their door and told her she has to leave. My son got really angry with me and told me that his girlfriend didn&#39;t do anything wrong and why is it a crime for her to drink water?  I explained that I order this water for our family to use, not leeches who hang around all day rent-free. My son&#39;s girlfriend got a little teary eyed and left the room and out the front door without saying anything.  My son told me that I was a major a**hole and should have just minded my business. I think she&#39;s just wasteful and a brat. AITA? It seems like a fairly trivial argument, but clearly points to deeper issues. Here is what people had to say:Old-Operation8637 Have you discussed with your family about having guests over, the size of your home, and your inability to provide water for guests? It seems like it should be a simple family discussion about this as it is financially based. judgy_mcjudgypants There isn&#39;t really a difference between &quot;fills up bottle once with enough water for the day&quot; and &quot;drinks the same amount of water one cup at a time&quot;. Bottled water does cost money, but if that&#39;s a problem, asking her to contribute $ would be a more logical first step. YTA for pretending this is about the water when it&#39;s not. One reader&#39;s post actually got more traction than the OP&#39;s post.one_1f_by_land Okay. YTA, but I&#39;m going to try to explain why in a constructive way so you hopefully understand all sides of this.  First of all, you have the right to lay down the law of your land in your house. That includes who is in it, who is using your supplies, how they&#39;re used, and what conduct you expect from guests. Your guests (including your son) also have the basic human right to take offense at your hostility.  Nobody likes to be treated like a burden or an imposition, and you&#39;ve put this girl in a difficult situation where she feels like in order to enjoy her boyfriend, she has to put up with your antagonism, justified or not. That&#39;s exhausting for everyone.  The fact is that you&#39;re 52 and she&#39;s 19, and as the owner of your house, you need to be the one who communicates your desires clearly, not passive-aggressively. You&#39;re trying to play both sides by subtly driving her away with your antagonism while also not giving your son cause to be angry with you.  The absolute kindest way I can put this is that what you&#39;re doing right now is reactionary communication instead of preemptive communication. You clearly have a problem with this girl and everybody knows it.  By being passive-aggressive and at times openly hostile to her in order to drive her away, you&#39;re disrespecting your son&#39;s choice and trying to impose your will on him.  This isn&#39;t about the water: it&#39;s about you wanting her out of your house, and because you&#39;re not clearly putting down boundaries, these little things are adding up and blowing over.  She is 19 and likely doesn&#39;t understand why you&#39;re so hostile. If you would rather not have her in your house all the time, communicate that with her. Tell her it&#39;s stressing you out to have guests over all the time and that you&#39;re feeling claustrophobic.  There are many direct, mature ways you can handle this situation, but it starts with you, not her. You&#39;re the one with the problem.  I wanted to respond to one comment I kept seeing pop up -- which person OP should be taking her complaints to, her son or his girlfriend.  Tbh when I re-read the post, the proprietary tone OP took when speaking about him (&quot;I don&#39;t think she&#39;s right for him&quot;) suggested a couple of things to me: her methods with communicating with her son are outdated and new adult boundaries need to be drawn so they can co-exist in a healthy way.  And the value she places in their relationship is preventing her from expressing her frustrations honestly. She doesn&#39;t mind her son being there in that small space: she minds his girlfriend. In an either/or situation where she forces him to choose, she might not like the choice he makes.  Instead of taking that risk, she&#39;s settled for a passive-aggressive antagonism that pressure-cooked the situation up to the point where everything exploded over bottled water.  I&#39;m not going to get into the politics of &quot;19/20 year olds should move out&quot; -- I don&#39;t care about the age of adult children living at home. It&#39;s a tough market and everybody&#39;s survival tactics are valid.  What I do care about is the mother and girlfriend having an adult conversation between themselves, without the need to use the son as a mediator between them, so they can both express themselves without filters.  Once OP has taken the steps to mend the situation she&#39;s co-created with the girlfriend, they can both take the situation to the son and have a group meeting about what to do in the future. But for right now, the son doesn&#39;t need to be in the cross-hairs of this argument. OP and girlfriend both need this practice.  The girlfriend is a teenager and also might not know how to accurately translate OP&#39;s behavior. The fact that OP describes her as a kind girl is important context.  It&#39;s taken a while to get to the point where this girl snapped under pressure and back-sassed OP in her home, and while I agree it isn&#39;t fair to put a 19 year-old toe to toe against a 52 year-old mother of three.  I also worry that involving the son right away might escalate the situation if he&#39;s put on the spot to defend one of them over the other. There should be an even balance of power in the room so no one&#39;s voice gets drowned out.  If the girl&#39;s parents are around, one should sit in. If they&#39;re not... there&#39;s probably a good reason the girl is over there so often. The OP actually took all the comments to heart and then provided an update: Thanks for all the comments. I have spoken to my son about the issue, and you all made me realize that it was deeper than just the water. I showed him this post and explained that it&#39;s not her, it&#39;s me.  I think she reacted that way when I initially told her off for filling up the bottle because--and my son helped me realize this, too.  I was never really nice to her to begin with, in the course of their three year relationship (in my defense, she only started hanging around our house a lot about six months ago because she got a license).  We called her on the phone this morning and I apologized for my reaction to the bottle. I explained I didn&#39;t mean to make her feel bad about the water--it really wasn&#39;t that big of a deal, and I feel silly for making it a big deal.  She apologized for having an attitude and explained how she can feel a little defensive around me sometimes. I told her and my son that I will work on my attitude. My husband still thinks she was being disrespectful but I explained that I&#39;m the reason she felt the need to act that way in the first place.  It&#39;s not my choice who my son decided to date and I need to respect his choice. I think she is a sweet girl, and I feel horrible for the way I have been treating her. Again, thank you to everyone for making me realize my mistake.  PS: I have looked into purchasing a Brita pitcher to see if that is more cost effective. My son&#39;s girlfriend now brings water from home--although I didn&#39;t tell her to do that. So do you think this mom was too harsh or was this a breaking point indicitive of a larger issue?

&ldquo;Water is the driving force of all nature.&rdquo; - Leonardo da Vinci  It seems like a silly argument but one mom just had enough with her son&#39;s girlfriend. She felt like his girlfriend was being rude and ungrateful. The breaking...

Mom calls son's gf 'a brat' for drinking too much water. AITA? UPDATED

“Water is the driving force of all nature.” - Leonardo da Vinci

AITA for blowing up on my son's girlfriend?