Aunt lets brother's kids 'go hungry'; brother says, 'how dare you.'
When this woman feels attacked by her brother because of her babysitting style, she asks Reddit:
'AITA for letting my brother's kids go hungry for a little?'
(F) My brother started a job that will need him to travel for up to a few weeks at a time. He's widowed and has two kids. The job is great for him and the kids, but obviously kids have to go to school. On the other hand I do wfh and live literally 3 blocks away from him so I don't mind taking care of the kids since it's nice to see them.
I'm on the autism spectrum and have adhd so I need things to be a certain way otherwise it won't work for me. I have to cook certain things on certain days or else it will all fall apart. I quite literally have my meals planned out 3 weeks ahead.
The issue I bring up is that I basically let the kids skip lunch and dinner since they didn't like what I made on our first day together. I didn't get angry at them or anything I just told them they didn't have to eat if they didn't want to so they went and played on their tablets both times.
They were pretty hungry at around 10 so we reheated the saved dinner that they didn't eat and they picked at it a bit. The second day same thing happened but they ate all of the lunch I made. After that they pretty much just ate whatever I already cooked. Minus a few things that they just didn't like such as pumpkin.
After my brother got back I told him that he should let me buy them fast food or something (he explicitly told me no since he knows I spoil them) so they don't feel hungry. He got pretty mad when I explained what happened. He called me an asshole for letting his kids go hungry. AITA?
Let's find out.
badkitty637 writes:
I think your missing something. Op must eat certain meals on certain days, no other options. The kids don't have any choice, it MUST be that dinner if they like it or not. If its something they don't like they don't get to eat. The op's disorder will not allow for any deviation from the routine or 'everything falls apart'. OP YTA.
formidableopponent writes:
NTA. I don't know what decade you grew up in but you're right OP is volunteering to watch the kids. If their sibling doesn't like how they do it they can feel free to spend hundreds of dollars every month paying someone to do it the way they like it.
And OP handled the situation super well. They stayed within their siblings request of no fast food. They reheated food late at night when the kids got hungry. The kids were in no way mistreated.
dixielandinsanity writes:
You explained this perfectly. I'm adding on that kids test to see what they can get away with. All kids do it. OP established how this issue will he handled and didn't have any problems with the other meals. NTA