Most food might grow on trees, but most families in the United States now have to spend a high amount of money to keep enough food in their homes.
Basically, food is far from infinite, and someone has to pay for it, cringed the members of the “Am I the A**hole?” (AITA) subReddit.
Redditor throwaway_Ticket4954 was home for the summer from college and was first surprised to see that her stepbrothers were now living in the home, adding two more teens to the house, but she was even more surprised by how quickly food disappeared from the house.
Since she wasn’t getting enough food to eat, the Original Poster (OP) started buying, cooking, and storing her own, only for her mother to shame her for not sharing it with her siblings.
She asked the sub:
“AITA for only buying food for myself?”
When she came home for summer break, the OP was surprised by how quickly the food in the house was depleted.
“I (19 Female) have been home from college for about a month now. I live at home with my mom, her boyfriend, my twin sisters (both 15 Female), and my mom’s boyfriend’s two sons (13 Male and 12 Male).”
“I didn’t even know his kids were living here permanently until I got back for summer break. I don’t have a problem with them personally; we barely speak. Right after they moved in, my older brother moved out, and they moved into his bedroom.”
“The only thing is food in this house disappears constantly. It’s not that my mom and her boyfriend don’t buy groceries. They do. But no matter how much food is in the house, it’s gone in a day or two.”
“My younger sister and ‘step brothers,’ I guess, eat all the time. They’ll eat a full breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and then still go downstairs constantly throughout the day and night, making snacks, extra meals, or just raiding the fridge.”
“Like, I’m not exaggerating, sometimes they make ten different things between meals.”
Even the leftover meals weren’t safe.
“Even with leftovers, I’ll come home and there’s nothing left. I’ve asked my mom about it, and she’ll say she told them to save me some, but they never do.”
“It’s happened so many times that I just gave up. I started putting food aside before I left the house, but even then, someone would eat it.”
To make sure she had food, the OP started buying her own.
“So now I’ve started just DoorDashing my own food or cooking my own food and keeping it in my mini fridge from college.”
“I stock it with groceries I buy with my own money, and just cook for myself when I need to eat.”
“I don’t touch the shared food anymore, and I don’t invite anyone to share mine.”
“When my mom and her boyfriend are at work, and the fridge is empty, and my siblings are hungry because they ate all the food in two days, I don’t bat an eye because it’s not my fault or responsibility.”
The OP’s mother was not happy about her “not sharing” with her siblings.
“The other day, my mom made a comment about how I ‘only think about myself,’ and I should ‘think about the house as a whole.'”
“My sisters are playing a part in this, but the majority of it is on her boyfriend’s two sons. Before I left for college, and they didn’t live here, food would last.”
“I told that to my mom and she’s like, ‘They’re still growing,’ and ‘You’re just being dramatic because you don’t like them living here.'”
“That’s not the case at all. I get that maybe I’m wrong for DoorDashing or cooking food while they’re hungry, but I’m also tired of being hungry and stressed in my own home.”
“They don’t think about me while they’re eating my leftovers.”
“AITA?”
Fellow Redditors weighed in:
- NTA: Not the A**hole
- YTA: You’re the A**hole
- ESH: Everybody Sucks Here
- NAH: No A**holes Here
Some reassured the OP that she needed to eat, too, and was being responsible.
“OP asked for them to save her some food, and nobody thought about her at all. Even then, the mother should have done more to put a stop to them, not saving her anything.”
“She has to think about herself; at least she’s being responsible and using her own money and own mini fridge to take care of herself. Much more than the other teens in her house can say, and they’re all old enough to earn an allowance or work, at least enough to buy snacks.”
“NTA.” – Glum_Designer_4754
“So you weren’t getting enough food, by your own mother’s admission. Now you are getting enough, but in poker terms, you’re running a side pot.”
“Meanwhile, the larger population has one fewer people to split food with, and they’d see the benefit of this IF YOU’D BEEN GETTING ENOUGH FOOD. If there was enough to go around, by removing yourself, you’d be benefiting the house!”
“Your mom should be ashamed of herself, and if her boyfriend is a good guy, he should be, too. There wasn’t enough food in the house for having you at home for them to even notice the difference when you stopped eating it.”
“They don’t keep enough food around, and you’re helping with that! They’ll be raiding your mini-fridge next.”
“NTA. Get a lock.” – liquidlen
“I’d tell your mom that you ARE thinking of the whole house when you have your own food. You’re not taking FROM the house. The house is just consuming more than the house is providing, but that was already a problem when you arrived, not after.” – ChoccyFriend13
“NTA. You’re providing your own food for your own consumption.”
“If you’re not taking any of the food provided by mom and her boyfriend, then those four garbage disposal teens are getting the same amount of food they were when you were at school.”
“How was your mom handling it then? Probably telling those kids to stop eating so much. Now she’s trying to pass the blame onto you.” – Oh-its-Tuesday
“If Mom is buying the same amount of food as before OP came home, shame on her. But if she actually adjusted grocery purchases to include food OP, and there’s still nothing left for OP, those four kids are now eating way more than they were before. And passing the blame onto OP is all kinds of wrong.”
“The mom needs to take a hard look in the mirror if she didn’t adjust her grocery shopping, and if she did, she needs to do some serious investigating at home and talk to those kids.”
“OP is NTA for making sure she gets something to eat.” – Inner-South876
“Another Redditor wrote, ‘Tell the adults in the house to feed their own f**king children,’ which I totally agree with.”
“Then the OP wrote, ‘I told that to my mom, and she’s like, ‘They’re still growing.’ To that, I’d be like, ‘Okay, then buy more food. If you can’t buy enough food to feed all of us, then I will fill part of the gap where you are failing to parent by buying food for MYSELF. I will not, however, fill the part of the gap where you are failing to parent by buying food for THEM, too.'”
“You probably can’t say that without risking being kicked to the curb, but know that you are NTA, and this is not your responsibility. You’re doing enough already by filling your own belly.” – boochie
Others were concerned and felt this screamed of parentification.
“NTA. Tell the adults in the house to feed their own f**king children. Jesus.” – 30Helenssayf**koff
“Not your kids, not your job. They shouldn’t be snacking as entertainment either, but that’s bad parenting for another story.” – TeenyTinyPonies
“Provided that the breakfast, lunch, and dinner are full, nutritional meals, they should only need one or two snacks. Either these kids aren’t being fed properly by their parents, or they’re eating out of boredom because they need some sensory input.”
“Either way, it’s not OP’s job to keep her sisters and her mom’s random boyfriend’s kids fed. NTA.” – Aletheia-Nyx
“Teenagers are constantly hungry. It’s not out of boredom or sensory input, it’s hunger because they’re growing. Sometimes they grow sideways and then shoot up, and OMG, just getting them clothes that fit was a job.”
“My brothers (and later my son and grandson) would come home from school and eat four sandwiches along with a gallon of milk. Then they still eat dinner.”
“But, OP, it’s not your job to feed them. You’re NTA.” – Risheil
“All those kids are in or hitting puberty and dealing with growth spurts and bodily changes. Plus, they’re likely burning a lot of calories in summer activities. They’re going to need a lot of food to sustain that, and the parents need to step up and deal with that.”
“In high school, my brother used to eat two bagels as an after-school snack and still be hungry before dinner. He reached over six feet before he finished growing, and worked out eight or nine times per week.”
“He’s always been in great shape, but there’s a reason his nickname has been ‘bottomless pit’ for over a decade. Even now, he pays two-thirds of the grocery bill because he eats so much more than his wife.”
“It’s the mother’s and her boyfriend’s responsibilities to fill that gap, not the OP’s.” – Putrid-Performer2509
The subReddit was disgusted on the OP’s behalf and was glad that she had taken matters into her own hands to make sure that she had enough to eat.
The fact that her mother was blaming her for the amount of food in the home and not sharing the food she was buying and cooking with her own money only suggested that she was not providing enough food for her household, knew it, and wasn’t ready to accept responsibility or the price tag.