All parents ask their kids for help from time to time, but there are some requests that are just way out of line.
A woman on Reddit found herself up against this sort of issue when her mother demanded her severely injured sister cook her dinner.
The Original Poster (OP), who goes by Known-Inspection9565 on the site, wasn’t sure how she’d handled the situation. So she went to the AITA (Am I The A**hole) subReddit for input.
OP asked:
“AITA for getting upset when I found out my sister had to cook?”
She explained:
“My(19f[emale]) sister (13f) recently fuc*ed her leg up in an accident in our garage (something very heavy fell on her) and broke her arm(she’s ambidextrous and it was her right one). So standing hurts a lot, especially since it’s only been 2 days.”
“I work customer service and am a college student so I am busy a lot. My mom said we have like nothing at home so asked me to go get something after I finished work so I did.”
“I get a call and my sister seemed quite upset and was asking me when I would get home. I wasn’t late or anything so I was kinda surprised and told her when I would get home and asked why.”
“She said that mom had a rough day at work so she made her cook which isn’t uncommon but she had to stand there and watch the stove which was quite painful and dangerous in her current state, and made her do it despite her protests. And well… I lost my sh*t . I called my mom insane and inhumane and that she could have called me or dad or something”
“Then I came home took over and gave her an even larger piece of my mind. I told her that if she was that tired there were other options and that making her cook with one hand in pain is insane.”
“I said that this is unforgivable behavior, and then she started yelling back saying that I work to provide for you and you ttreat me like this? I made a small lapse in judgement when I was tired you need to calm down. We haven’t spoken to each other since and now I think I may have gone way overboard and overreacted. AITA?”
“Oh yeah my dad is in the picture but works long night shifts and wakes up around noon so we haven’t talked to him about this yet”
People on Reddit were then asked to judge who is in the wrong in this scenario based on the following categories:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
- NAH – No A**holes Here
Unsurprisingly, they were emphatically on OP’s side.
“NTA. Who gives a flying fu*k if your mom is omg TIRED. Your sister is one, a child and two, pretty severely injured.”
“Your mom is a selfish a**hole” —musical_spork
“I think cooking as a regular chore for teenagers is actually fantastic– honestly, I’ve met too many adults who cannot feed themselves without takeout. It’s a basic life skill, practice is good, and 13 is a reasonable age to be able to make simple meals, as long as it’s a frequency that’s not too burdensome (e.g. once a week).”
“That being said, it’s inexcusable to have her cook while so severely injured. Just as the parents should take over a kid’s other normal chores like taking the trash out if they’re hurt or sick, someone else should’ve either cooked, gotten take-out, or even just announced that dinner that night would be cold cereal.” —my_best_space_helmet
“I’ve done 16 hour shifts, then gone home and cooked for my family before passing out. This mom is one hell of an AH for sure.”
“NtA” —cybermagetx
“Hell man NTA there were times I was hella tried after work and cooked a big meal sometimes (get the craziest food cravings at closing shifts lol) not hard to push a bit more or even have a snack before cooking. Her sister definitely needed to heal first it’s just gonna make the injury take longer to heal.” —TheAnnMain
“NTA. If work is so busy there’s cooking in bulk on the weekends so you’ll only have to heat up the meal too.”
“However any good mom would never make her severely injured daughter cook. There’s take out, there’s sandwiches….”
“Saying you’ll cook after a nap and make mac & cheese or anything simple.” —Mera1506
“NTA. I mean, how fuc*ing tired do you have to be to force your 13 year old with a broken arm to slave over the stove for a while? What was next, have your sister peel grapes and feed them to her?” —Bozobozo111
“…I mean I’m tired after work too but I would eat from a box of cereal or order a pizza instead of having the injured child cook. Especially since OP was bringing food anyway that’s just mind-boggling to me.” —glamgal50
“It’s not a ‘small lapse in judgement’. She insisted her injured child cook dinner, despite the child protesting they were injured, to the extent that the child had to call another adult for help.”
“If it were a small lapse in judgement, she would have realised it was a bad idea when her 13 year old daughter protested, not when another adult pointed it out to her.” —Raise-the-gates
“How do you even make such a lapse in judgement?! The kid is by all indications visibly and egregiously injured, even tried to fight to not cook because of the injuries. OP’s mom is talking absolute nonsense, she didn’t make any lapses she did it thinking she’d get away with it, and if the Dad is anything but furious then just call the cops on them.” —uniquetgraves
“NTA”
“it doesn’t matter if your mom still supports you what she did to your sister was wrong. she could have called you and asked you to bring something home for dinner instead or she could have ordered something to be delivered…there were multiple things that could have been done so your heavily injured sister didn’t have to do anything.”
“hopefully it doesn’t make her injuries worse, which moving around so soon definitely can”
“sorry but personally I’m not empathetic towards your mother for making a seriously injured person do anything just because she was tired” —Etenial
Hopefully OP’s mom can learn to be a bit more empathetic in the future.