Sharing is caring! Or so we have heard from the time we are little children. But we all remember little children who didn’t seem to have that chat with their parents. We probably hated those kids. They stole our toys, our food, and had no regard for our time or our preferences if they came over to play.
Redditor Noadaymore unfortunately has found these children…and they are her nephews. After spending too much time with them at dinner and realize that their eating habits were less than charitable, she drew a hard boundary with her sister.
After her sister reacted poorly, she went to the popular subReddit “Am I The A**hole?” or “AITA” to get feedback from objective strangers:
“AITA for telling my sister if she can’t curb her kids selfish eating they aren’t welcome to dinner at my home?”
Our original poster, or OP, told us more about the habits that were such a turn-off to her.
“My sister has two sons ages 11 and 8 and they have an issue with being, as I call it, selfish eaters. Let me explain what I mean by that.”
“We have regular family dinners. Everyone takes turns. Most people serve food on the table for everyone to take.”
“Well, her boys attack the food and take much more than they’ll ever eat and then let it go cold OR they will eat little pieces of everything leaving it uneatable for others.”
“I started to serve everyone plates of food to try and combat this but they will take food off other peoples plates.”
This rude behavior has never been stopped by OP’s sister.
“My sister will watch and say nothing and they just stick their tongue out if I say anything. It’s worse at their own house where they will sometimes just pull the whole plates over to them and refuse to give anyone something until they’ve decided what they want.”
“I have spoken to my sister many times. I gave her three warnings and warned her she was coming close to the limit.”
“Well, I had everyone over for dinner last weekend. My older nephew ended up taking food off my daughters plate, off my fathers plate, my husbands and my younger nephew took food off everyone’s plate.”
After this final straw, OP drew the line.
“He was running around taking what he wanted and making a huge mess in the process. I told my sister when dinner was over that they were not going to be invited anymore.”
“She called me a b*tch and said her sons deserve more, that I’m excluding them for ‘petty reasons.’ I told her I also wouldn’t go to her house.”
“That I always leave hungry anyway. She told me only an a**hole would make this big of a deal about food, that we can always just get more. AITA?”
Anonymous strangers weighed in by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
- NAH – No A**holes Here
Redditors were appalled by OP’s nephews’ behavior and took her side.
“I don’t love to correct other people’s children, but if what they are doing is invading my personal space and the parent isn’t speaking up, I absolutely will.”
“First with a polite, ‘No, that’s no okay, please stop doing that.’ and then with a g-d COMMAND VOICE ‘NO!’ and that LOOK. That ‘do not make me come over there’ look.”
“OP is NTA, but why did her daughter, her father, her husband and her nephew just let this holy terror take food off of their plates like that?”
“And it sounds like this was not even close to the first time? USE YOUR WORDS, PEOPLE.”-funchefchick
“The sister doesn’t seem to want to parent the sons’ eating habits at all. ‘Her sons deserve more?’ ‘Only an a**hole would make this big of a deal about food, that we can always just get more?'”
“It’s not just about the food, and staying away may be the only way to get through to them. Why would anyone want to be around these boys at mealtime anyway? NTA.”-Grounded55
“NTA. Your sister is failing her kids miserably. Teaching them to eat other people’s food is OK is asking for trouble.”
“Ten years from now. My roommate keeps eating all the food I buy and keeps making a huge mess, WIBTA to get him evicted?”-Mera1506
“NTA. Your sister needs to teach her children better. If it was just a case of overeating, this would be a different story.”
“But it seems the kinds don’t even really eat all the food they take, they just have impulse and behavioral issues, and your sister is refusing to admit it.”-ModaGamer
People were actually shocked at how poorly OP’s nephews behaved:
“Your frustration is completely understandable. It’s also a bad lesson for your own children. Not just that they might act that way, but that you have to be a doormat and let others treat you poorly.”
“I want to set an example of polite but firm self-respect to my kids. Like no I don’t just keep serving people while they rob me and treat me like carp.”
“Also, your kids need to feel you care about their feelings and stand up for them.”
“I’d be okay with having the badly behaved nephews over if we could deal with their behavior, but if sister is going to object to you doing anything about it every time it’s probably just easier they aren’t there.”
“That said, I never would have allowed them to take anything of my family or my’s plate. I would have firmly told them, taken it back, etc.”
“And if they kept it going I’d tell them I wasn’t going to give them anything until they could behave/that they’d have to eat elsewhere if they were acting that way at the table.”
“But if your sister’s just going to fight this, it will cause more drama it sounds like.”-TheHatOnTheCat
“NTA. This behavior is unacceptable and it’s not about whether there’s “enough” food to go around or not, it’s about your sister’s refusal to teach and enforce BFM (basic fucking manners) as a parent.”
“I’ve phased out, limited time spent, or straight ghosted parent friends whose kids were unbearable to be around because of their poor parenting.”
“Since this is family, cutting them out isn’t an option. You addressed the problem directly and gave her plenty of time to attempt to correct the behavior. She refused. You held your ground. Good job.”-Abba_Zaba_
“NTA. A smart man once said something like: ‘Don’t allow your children to do something that makes other people hate them.'”
“The family got uninvited because the children are acting terribly and mommy encourages it, or at lest doesn’t feel the need to correct it.”
“Op isn’t an a** for no longer putting up with it. If i had to deal with this behaviour when invited to eat with OPs family i would ALWAYS have a VERY urgent dentist’s appointment (even fridays around 2000h) to avoid having to go.”
“I literally got into a fistfight with someone who messed with my food when i was hungry. I’m sure the other guests are miffed about having their food stolen as well.”
“Tell her to look into a mirror if she wants to know the reason for being banned.”-StoicDonkey
“NTA. You tried to intervene and you tried to communicate, and in the end, not having dinner with your sister’s kids anymore is really your only option.”
“And she’s in complete denial and way off base. It’s not about the food, it’s about how these boys are making everyone else feel when they act this way.”
“She’s also lazy AF, because all she would have to do is take their plates away and send them away from the table without eating. They’d learn REAL fast if that became the policy.”-PM_T*TS_OR_DONT
And most questioned OP’s sister’s parenting skills:
“NTA. My grandma used to do this until 6 year old me stabbed her in the hand with my fork. When she freaked out at me I got confused, how was I supposed to know a hand would suddenly appear between the fork and the food?”
“Anyway, I was tempted to call you the a**hole for even giving warnings, they are literally taking the food of your kids plate.”
“You should have put a stop to that the first time. It’s extremely stressful for a child to not know if they will get to eat enough and to have their whole family act as if others deserve to be fed more than them.”-theamazinglula
“Absolutely NTA! You gave your warnings. You’ve dealt with that shitty behavior prior to warnings. You are absolutely not the a**hole here!”
“I’d be horrified to see how her kids react to an all-you-can-eat buffet out in public! Allowing kids to behave like that without consequence is honestly setting them up for some extreme behavioral problems in the future, much like a kid I know.”
“To put it shortly: this kid was 5 and was allowed to smack stranger women’s butts (yes it happened to me while the mom watched!), actually hit, kick, and bite his mom/other people, and literally drag their dog around by the collar all without consequences/discipline!”
“But then the mom had the audacity to turn around and tell her friends ‘I don’t know why he’s like this, he won’t listen to me.’ This is because she’s let him do this since he was 3.”
“My point is: the way your sister allows her kids to steal food off of other’s plates/food from the table while she just sets and watches is pretty much setting them up for becoming very territorial over food when they get older.”
“Hopefully they’ll grow out of that, but only time will tell. Anyways, you’re not the a**hole!”-ThePaganRavenGoddess
“Lol NTA and you have better control than I do. The first time a little hand reached for my plate, I would’ve grabbed it and told them to keep to themselves.”
“Your sister needs to parent her children before they mess with someone who won’t tolerate it.”
“Example: I know someone who’s only meal was school lunch (poor and abusive household) and some guy decided to touch his food. The guy may or may not have left school with a broken nose.”-Nausicaalotus
“NTA so hard. Does your sister expect them to do this as adults? How old is too old to behave this way in her opinion?”
“My opinion is like maybe 3yo, max. Her 11yo–NEARLY A MIDDLE SCHOOLER– is scampering around the dining room grabbing bits of food off of people’s plates?”
“And thinking it’s okay? And feeling so justified in his actions that he sticks his tongue out at OP when he’s called out?”
“OP is concerned not only for their children and other guests, they’re concerned for THE NEPHEWS or else they’d have banned them a long time ago.”
“OP, you need to keep being honest with your sister about what’s going to happen to her kids as they grow.”
“This behavior is indicative of such deep impulse control and social awareness issues I could scream. They all need help, stat.”-JenniferHChrist
The act of going around and stealing from other people’s plates is poor manners at the best of times, but if the behavior doesn’t stop, it’s a recipe for a cancelled dinner.
OP and her sister have a lot to work through.
We wish them the best in doing so.