AITA for buying my daughter a bag of chips?
In the delicate dance of blending families, small acts often become the silent battlegrounds where love and frustration collide.
A parent's heart is tested not just by grand gestures, but by the quiet struggles over something as simple as a bag of potato chips—a symbol of fairness, respect, and belonging in a household still finding its rhythm.
What began as a minor annoyance spiraled into a poignant reflection of boundaries and understanding, revealing the fragile threads that hold a blended family together.
Amid the chaos of teenage appetites and sibling rivalry, the parent's quiet plea for harmony underscores the deeper yearning for acceptance and peace in a home that feels just a little too small for all their dreams.
I'm a parent in a blended family that has moved into my (slightly too small for us all) house last year. There is of course friction, and I'm not always perfect but this one has me second guessing myself.
My daughter has a specific type of potato chip she likes. She's picky, it's annoying, but really that's probably irrelevent.
Anyhow a few months ago I went to the grocery store, and among several other bags of chips, I bought a family sized bag of those. Her step brother ate it in one sitting that night. He's a teenage boy.
He's not fat. I don't really have a major problem with that. But then my daughter had nothing she liked while he proceeded to devour another type of chip the next day. Annoying, but NBD.
Next week I got 2 bags of those chips. Well, then the 2 bags were gone in 2 days. Third week I got 2 bags and told my daughter to keep one in her room. This has pretty much been the state of affairs ever since.
Well, my spouse found out my daughter was keeping special food in her room, and I said "yeah I told her to" and she got really really mad at me.
She said that I was treating her kids as lesser and that I wasn't making this their home too, and a bunch of other things. I honestly try to see her viewpoint but I just don't here.
I didn't tell the boy to stay out of my daughter's stuff, or take it away from him. I tried to sidestep the friction altogether.
I didn't take anything away, I just bought twice as much and let her keep half as her own.
I feel like the only other options are to either to put $70 of potato chips into my weekly budget, or to tell my daughter to deal with having nothing. Both those options suck.
On the flip side, people have been telling me for years I suck at understanding other's feelings....so... AITA?
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sp00kybutch - :- perfectly normal response to this problem. my parents let me keep stashes of things i liked in my room when my brother was going through the eat-everything-in-the-house phase.
IncessantLearner - :- NTA but I suggest talking to your spouse about household issues and agreeing on a way to handle them.
When you unilaterally make a change to the normal routine without discussion, of course there are going to be misunderstandings and hard feelings.
ReidGirly93 - :- Definitely NTA. You found a solution that worked for your daughter and your stepson. It doesn't sound like you descriminated anyone. Teenage boys are savages when it comes to food.
I'm the only girl and have four brothers and I always kept my snacks in my room or they would eat everything.
Your partner is being the AH for claiming you're favoring your daughter when you're trying your best to include her son instead of calling him out for eating your daughter's chips
Different_Ad5087 - :- Yeah no you’re fine. If anything you’re a pushover for not punishing him eating her chips and the fact your spouse only sees your child keeping her chips in her room as “favoritism” is batshit crazy lol
lurninandlurkin - :- NTA. Just started buying only the chips your daughter likes so he can't eat them first before moving to the ones he gets to himself.
Valentine1296 - :- NTA but if you want to defuse the tension you could ask if there's any special snacks your step kids like and then buy a special snack for each of them say once a week. It could help ease the tension and make everyone feel like things are more fair.
HorseygirlWH - :- I'm 61F and have 2 adult children and I would have done the same thing. Teenaged boys eat anything that is not nailed down.
If your daughter has one brand of favorite food (doesn't matter if chips or chocolate), she should be entitled to have some.
You buy 2 bags, one for each kid, but she keeps hers in her room to savor over a few days, and the 2nd bag is vacuumed up by the boy in one day. Does she have other kids? They should be allowed snacks too.
Note that hubby&I took in our teenaged niece&nephew and made sure they all had food they all liked, whether they were our 2 kids or the 2 new kids. You're NTA.
The parent attempted to solve a recurring conflict over a specific snack by managing supply—buying extra and allowing the daughter to store some privately.
This action, intended to prevent friction and ensure fairness for the daughter, was interpreted by the spouse as creating a hierarchy where the stepson was being excluded or treated as lesser in the shared household.
Was the decision to facilitate private storage of desired snacks an appropriate, pragmatic solution to managing picky eating habits and unequal consumption, or did it fundamentally undermine the goal of establishing a unified, equitable blended family environment?