Woman furious struggling SIL 'humiliated' her daughter over eating their food. AITA?
"AITA for telling my SIL she's not allowed around my daughter again after she humiliated her over food?"
My SIL is very hard up right now and has been going to food banks to feed her, my brother and the kids. She works part time and takes care of my brother (car accident, partially temporarily paralyzed).
They are waiting for insurance to kick in to pay for his medical bills, an on call nurse and PT. Since she moved to part time and is hard up with money, she offered to babysit my daughter (11) for extra cash. I offered to give her $250 a week, day care prices. She agreed.
Now, since I know they have been going to food banks, I have been providing my daughter food every day I send her there so my SIL doesn't have to worry about it. Usually a couple sandwiches and snacks.
However, I got a text from my daughter yesterday saying my SIL humiliated her and made her feel stupid over taking food.
I guess my daughter was still hungry after eating all the food I packed (she just had an ADHD med change and I guess it peaked her appetite) and she went inside and ended up eating a bunch of food and my SIL lost it because it was 'all they had' (they were having a pool party so everyone was outside and didn't see her take the food). She told my daughter to get outside.
So I immediately left work and came to investigate and I found my SIL inside with her head in her hands. I asked her what happened and she wouldn't even look at me. I started prying for an answer because my daughter was visibly upset and practically ran to the car when I got there.
She snapped and said 'go ask your kid how much she f*^%$ng ate, Chrissy, AFTER I told her not to touch what little food I had. Go!' So I told her no, you tell me, you're the f*$#@ng adult.
Well, she literally dumped out an entire full size packing box of empty containers. Cracker packs, like 4 fruit containers (strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and watermelon), pudding cups, bags of chips and an empty sandwich meat bag. It was a lot and I'm not saying it wasn't.
But then she goes 'want to see what I have left to feed my f**&^%$g family?' Opens her fridge and it was basically bare. Now, in no way am I condoning it because that was absolutely a lot of food but I still think it's f*$#@d up that she made my daughter feel like s@*t about it.
I told her my kid wouldn't be going back there at all and she said 'good. Your kid just knowingly took at least 3 f*^%$#g days worth of food from my kids mouths so I'd rather not see her anyway.'
My mom says I'm an AH because I knew my kid has a big appetite and didn't pack more food for her, which apparently makes this my fault. She says that I should offer to buy them groceries, which I won't do. I guess she went grocery shopping for them following this.
Here were the top rated comments from readers:
YOU DIDNT OFFER TO REPLACE THE FOOD, yes YTA that was the least you could do.
The worst part of this post is OP literally puts “all she had” in quotes. As if she’s rolling her eyes at the terror of food insecurity and all around instability this family is facing. Now she’s punishing her brother’s family by taking away another $1000 they were counting on.
Personally, I think OP is YTA for letting her paralyzed brother’s family get so food insecure before offering to help. My sisters are my bffs. No way would I be ok with them using food banks and not step in to help.
We donate to food banks all the time, and what I’ve seen them give out to families has decreased a lot since Rona. Even if SIL gets food, it’s prob not enough. For OP to not immediately feel awful her daughter ate all their food is insane. YTA OP. Food insecurity is nothing to gloss over.
YTA for not replacing the food. Your daughter is old enough to understand the need to wait until she gets home for more food. That is a LOT of food to eat after sandwiches and after being told it’s not hers to eat.
YTA. Your daughter ate 3 days worth of food from a family struggling. Go and replace that food asap and get your daughter to a doctor to discuss her out of control eating. Your daughter snuck food. That is a huge problem.
YTA for not replacing the food. That was a lot for your daughter to eat even with a med change.
Your daughter is old enough to understand what 'please don't touch our food' means and should be disciplined appropriately if she breaks these boundaries. Whether or not your SIL did this appropriately is difficult to tell from the story.
You know how hard up your SIL is at the moment, and you didn't offer to replace the food that your kid took. It's not about how much food you packed for your daughter, it's about your actions (or lack of) afterwards. YTA.
I cannot imagine the stress your SIL is under. She’s taking care of a seriously injured man and 3 kids, trying to work, cook, clean and juggle which bills can get paid and which ones can wait a month. She’s got to go to food banks and taking on another kid just to get a little more money. And then your kid gobbles up what she was told not to eat.
Yeah, she snapped. It was just one more thing and she lost it. This wasn’t a pack of crackers cause she needed a snack. This was a huge amount of food for a person of any age. Jeez, I’m rather overweight but a single container of strawberries will stuff me, much less all the rest!
Yes, YTA. The only correct response was to apologize for your kid being rude, run to the grocery store and replace what was eaten. And when you get home, talk to your daughter on why she ate everything after being told no. Sounds like Princess did it out of spite, but maybe something else was going on. And yay for Mom who made sure her other 3 grandchildren didn’t go hungry!