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Redditor Accused Of ‘Poisoning’ Young Nephew After He Snuck Into Their Room And Ate Iron Gummies

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Taking care of kids is a full time job. They tend to do exactly what you least want them to do at all times.

But, it’s important to teach them not to pick up random things to eat.

This Redditor encountered this very issue with their nephew. So they turned to the “Am I The A**hole” (AITA) subReddit for moral judgment.

They asked:

“AITA for poisoning my nephew?”

The Original Poster (OP) explained:

“My sister and nephew stopped by as they were running errands and asked to borrow my husband’s leaf blower.”

“I was looking for it in the basement and my sister went to the bathroom leaving my 7 year nephew in the living room.”

“He went to my bedroom and opened up my nightstand and ate some of my iron gummies.”

“My sister found him out and rushed him into the ER since we weren’t sure how many he ate. He stayed for 3 days in the children’s hospital for monitoring and was given a drug to make him not absorb the iron.”

“Luckily he’s ok now and is totally recovered.”

“My sister is pissed at me for not telling her there were iron gummies in my house. I feel terrible about it but it’s not like I remember to tell every visitor I have iron gummies in my bedroom like she should have been watching my nephew.”

“She and I haven’t spoken much since the accident.”

Redditors gave their opinions on the situation by declaring:

  • NTA – Not The A**hole
  • YTA – You’re The A**hole
  • NAH – No A**holes Here
  • ESH – Everyone Sucks Here

Redditors agreed OP was not the a**hole.

“NTA. Your nephew poisoned himself.”

“7 years old is more than old enough to understand ‘don’t put sh*t you find in your mouth.'” ~ StAlvis

“Right wtf has mom been teaching him I absolutely remember knowing to not eat random stuff at that age.” ~ Inuiri

“Oh honey my 7 year old nephy who is non verbal came up to me this weekend with a bunch of vitamin gummies, asking me through gesturing and limited words if he can have some.”

“This guys nephew does whatever the fuck he wants, no supervision. Totally NTA.” ~ PuggyPaddie

Some shared their experiences.

“I agree those are both possibilities but I’m constantly trying to put on the breaks with our parenting because it’s a little obsessively incident avoidant. Sometimes I feel like we are teaching the kids to fear and over think everything.”

“My youngest at TEN YEARS OLD, who is very sensitive, very well behaved and is fricking GIFTED was walking the dog and decided to eat some random a** berries he found growing along the fence line. And what’s even better, when I taught him how to pick the Blackberries that grow wild here in summer, I said a dozen times never ever never ever ever ever EVER pick and eat anything else.”

“I explained to him in DETAIL that most of the things he might find growing wild that look edible are poisonous. That some of then are deadly. I explained the symptoms. I specifically said there’s berries that look edible that can hurt you really bad or kill you. And that if he ever felt curious, just to get me and we would find out what it was together. “

“AND ONE DAY THIS MOTHER F*CKER JUST HELPED HIMSELF TO SOME WILD BERRIES.”

“He casually came up to me after and was like, hey, btw, there’s some blueberries growing out there you can eat too. I’m like…. uuuhhhhh… sir… did you like the way they tasted? Him- Meh, they were okay. WHAT IN THE HOLY SHITKITTENS HAVE YOU DONE, MY SON? my sweet, gifted son.”

“Did you think you were in the damn grocery store? I had to use a plant app to make sure but I knew it all along, it was nightshade, he ate nightshade berries. And then the same thing, how many did u eat? He says, I don’t know. I. DON’T. KNOW. … Was it closer to 2 or 20? … I don’t know.”

“I’m on the phone with poison control and I’m like, no, he’s 10, TEN. idk how this happened, nope, he doesn’t know how many… Apparently aliens just lifted his brain out of his skull for a minute.”

“I’m almost positive that during my original OCD tirade about wild berry picking, I actually pointed to that exact plant and was like… like that one, looks like food, don’t eat that shit, it’s poison. Kids have developing brains, that’s all I can figure.”

“I also have a kid with severe developmental delays, autistic, nonverbal, PANDAS, OCD, SPD…. WXYZ … you name it… very limited understanding, no concept of danger, never done anything remotely like this. (Knock on wood)”

“Parenting is complicated and sometimes makes no sense.”

“I bet OP and mom are probably very caring and responsible, which is why they feel so horrible now. But mom really can’t accept it because it’s just not acceptable for a parent to make a mistake that could hurt their kid. No matter how innocent.”

“Just look at all the replies that she must be a terrible parent for this isolated mistake that they know very little about and includes the variable that kids can do really stupid things for no reason. She’s still condemned.”

“Which is one of the worst feelings you can feel, thinking you made a mistake that hurt your child or that other people believe you did. Maybe she never thought to warn the kid that some gummies are dangerous and it’s killing her. Maybe she did and found out the worse truth of all, that even when u do everything perfectly right, your kid can still get hurt.”

“Either way, she’s not processing it and blaming OP unfairly.”

“I’d say it’s understandable that this mistake happened and that everyone involved could modify their behavior slightly to ensure it doesn’t happen again. But most of all, op should go to mom and explain how they understand what a horrible experience that was for her and how terrifying it must have been. (My special needs kid has had to fight for his life many, many times over.”

“I’ve almost lost him so many times, just coming close, even a little is so f*cking damaging. It’s so terrifying. It really traumatizes you.) If OP can make her understand how much they sympathize, how sorry they are for their involvement but also let her know that it’s not her fault and it’s not op’s fault, these things happen.”

“OP can assure her that she can help childproof for when they visit or make new protocol for always keeping one of them with the kid or something.”

“But they can work this out. And mom might act a little crazy about it all but, OP, try to be patient, sympathetic and help her work thru it. You guys absolutely should not lose your relationship over this.”

“OP, The truly terrifying truth is that you guys can do everything right and things like this can still happen and occasionally you’ll make mistakes too and that’s just natural, for everyone, whether they acknowledge it or not.”

“NTA.” ~ Diligent_Explorer

It’s not OP’s fault entirely.