Woman confronts mom over kids stealing 50 eggs meant for adult party guests. AITA?
"AITA for confronting a mom whose kids were stealing all the eggs I'd hidden for my friends?"
Ugh. This is so stupid but I'm still mad about it. Yesterday my girlfriend (32F) and I (35F) threw a little combination Easter-4/20 get-together for some friends in a large public park that included, as one element, an Easter egg hunt.
This is a big local park where people often do small private egg hunts for their families and friends, so the idea isn't totally out there. We bought around 100 plastic eggs, stuffed each one with 2-3 pieces of candy, and hid them within a smallish area of the park about 20 minutes before everyone else was due to arrive.
We figured because the weather was nice, we'd probably lose a few eggs due to kids walking by and stumbling on easy-to-find ones, but we bought enough that we could absorb some marginal losses. Some were pretty visible, others psychotically well-hidden, most were pretty much in the middle - you'd have to really be looking to spot them walking by.
While we were waiting for all of our friends to arrive, we noticed three kids running around the area where we'd hidden them, and they all had their arms FULL of eggs. Like 15-20 apiece easily.
Their mom was sort of trailing behind, not paying attention, and on the phone. It got to a point where we finally got her attention and she literally went, "Is it okay if they take these?"
My GF and I were both dumbfounded. Because, again, we figured we'd lose a few eggs to kids who grabbed one or two. But this was EGREGIOUS. They had easily 50 between them. There were 15 people coming. Yes, they were all adults, but adults also like to have silly fun too!
So we basically told her, uh, no? Please put them back? Her response was some version of "They're just kids! It's a kids' holiday!" I asked her if she usually lets her kids take candy from strangers off the ground in public parks, and said something along the lines of, "Weird parenting choice, but okay," and she got huffy and told the kids they were leaving and to put them back.
The kids threw some of the eggs on the ground but still left with probably 40 eggs in total. Again, that's... 80-120 pieces of candy that we bought. For our friends. And ourselves. Not for random children who didn't even bother to ask before taking it.
If they'd asked, we probably would've said sure, within reason! 2-3 apiece! NOT LITERALLY HALF OF THEM. Also, as they were leaving my girlfriend called after them, "Good luck finding the ones filled with fentanyl," which was very funny, but I don't think they heard.
Anyway, now I feel like an AH for calling her a bad parent in front of her kids and for ruining their fun, but I also have a real tendency to feel insanely guilty any time I stand up for myself (blame my own mom's stellar parenting for that!), so I just wanted a temperature check. This was objectively insane behavior, right? Or am I the AH?
Here were the top rated comments from readers in response to the OP’s post:
I wasn't sympathetic to you because it's in a public park however the fact mom knew what was going on when she said "Is it okay if they take these?" means NTA.
ArugulaBeginning7038 (OP)
For context, I live in a city where almost no one has outdoor green space of their own, which means that everyone is pretty much used to sharing public parks for uses like this.
If you live here and you're a prosocial person who understands how to share public spaces with strangers, this kind of thing isn't done. Would you go up to strangers having a cookout and just take a hot dog off their grill without asking because "it's a public park"?
“Lady there are edibles in those. Happy 4/20.” Like she didn’t plan an Easter egg hunt of her own, does she capitalize on the lack of green space to save herself the trouble.
ESH. Dumb move. Public park. But the mother should have stopped them right away. They actually could have had something bad in them. She should have insisted they put them all back. She's teaching them to be thieves.
ArugulaBeginning7038 (OP)
People host egg hunts in this park literally all the time. We passed 2-3 walking in. It's expected that if you're not with the party hosting, you walk by and don't disturb them.
ESH no I wouldn’t let my kids pick up random suff in a park. You suck for hiding candy in a public place frequented by kids, in plastic eggs during Easter. Kids were bound to find them and all the parents then had to explain to their kids that they couldn’t have them. You also have a responsibility to find every one of those so you wouldn’t leave trash behind.
You also didn’t think that animals could find these. Zero concern for a dog chocking on your cruddy eggs. Mom was just rude. You endangered animals and decided a public park was your private playground. Making you the biggest AH.
ArugulaBeginning7038 (OP)
Considering that we made sure all the remaining eggs were picked up and accounted for (this is a park where I volunteer frequently so I wouldn't leave trash lying around anyway), this is not my problem, but "adults should be attentive to what their charges are doing in a public park" extends to dog owners as well as human parents.
Dozens of people were hosting identical egg hunts in the same park on the same day, FYI, so I hope you have the same ire for all of them.
I wouldn’t put it past some people to do a public Easter egg hunt on 4/20 with edible candies inside, so she was really taking a risk letting her kids take your property. NTA.