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The original was posted on /r/AmItheAsshole by /u/AngrySalad3231 on 2023-08-01 20:48:21.

I (22F) am currently babysitting my niece (3F). She’ll be staying with me for a few days, so I took her to the grocery store to pick out some foods I know she’ll eat. When I went to pick up the yogurt she normally likes, she excitedly pointed out how there was a Disney branded yogurt on the shelf with Elsa on it. I should note here that she wasn’t whining about it, she didn’t even really ask for it, she just said “ooh there’s an Elsa one!” I asked her if she wanted to get that one, and told her I would buy it as long as she promised to try the yogurt. She agreed, and I thought that was the end of it.

However, as this happened, an older woman who was walking past mumbled something under her breath, and all I caught from it was the phrase “spoiled brat.” I’m not super confrontational, and normally I would’ve just let this go, but something about this rubbed me the wrong way. I turned to the woman and demanded she tell me what she meant by her comment. She tried to brush it off and walk away, but I was persistent. We went back and forth a few times, her telling me that kids don’t need to get whatever they want all the time, and “that’s the problem with the world today.” In response I told her that was insane, that it’s just yogurt, similar in price to the one I’d buy anyway, and that children are allowed to get things they enjoy occasionally. The store was getting kind of busy at this point, and as this woman noticed other people watching us, she started to get visibly upset and eventually walked away.

Part of me thinks I made too big of a deal of something really small, and normally I wouldn’t have. I think I was so upset because my niece is pretty shy, rarely asks for things she wants, and is really the opposite of a spoiled brat. I didn’t like hearing someone talk about her that way, and I felt the need to stand up for her. But at the same time, had I just let the comment go, my niece wouldn’t have been affected (I doubt she even heard it), and I wouldn’t have upset the woman by drawing attention to her. AITA?

Edit: fixed some grammatical errors for clarity.