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The original was posted on /r/AmItheAsshole by /u/Mission_Situation197 on 2023-08-04 11:17:14.
Back in June, I was one of the chaperones for the 6th grade graduation party at our local elementary school. The attendees included ~100 students, the 6th grade teachers, and a handful of parent and staff volunteers.
Two of the sixth-graders were a pair of twin sisters, whom I’ll call Maddie and Katie. The girls are both average height for their age (5’0), but their build differs by quite a bit. Maddie is ~ average sized (90-95 lbs), while Katie is a little heavy (115-120 lbs). The girls’ mother was also in attendance.
Everyone was having a great time, but when food was served, tension started to rise. The twins’ mother kept commenting about Katie’s eating habits. First she said, “No, don’t eat the whole cupcake. Cut it in half.” Katie did as her mother requested, and when she started to eat the remaining half of the cupcake, her mom immediately told her to wipe off the icing first. Maddie was permitted to eat a whole cupcake with all the icing, without their mother saying anything.
Then a while later, when the twins went with a group of friends to get pizza, the twins’ mother said to Katie in a rather loud whisper, “You’re getting ANOTHER slice of pizza?” After that, when the kids were getting potato salad, the twins’ mother walked over & tried to take the serving spoon away from Katie.
Near the end of the party, ice cream was being served. The twins’ mother rather forcefully said to Katie, “No, you can’t have any. It’s fattening and unhealthy, and you’ve already eaten more than enough today.” Then she turned to Maddie and said, “You can have ice cream, you’re skinny enough.” This conversation was loud enough that at least a dozen other kids were able to hear it.
Katie protested that it wasn’t fair that everyone could have ice cream except for her. The twins’ mother responded, “You can have ice cream when you lose at least ten pounds.”
Enough was enough. I immediately confronted the twins’ mother and VERY loudly said that she was “bullying and humiliating her child,” that “if Katie developed an eating disorder it would be her fault,” and that, “mean, rude, judgmental people like you are the reason so many people end up needing therapy.”
Later that evening, my husband told me that I should not have gotten involved, because the situation was none of my business. Or at the very least, I should not have confronted their mother publicly and “undermined her parental authority” in front of her own kids and so many other children. I disagreed. Since she was so publicly criticizing and humiliating Katie, I believe it was fitting that I stood up for Katie in an equally public manner.
AITA for getting involved in a situation that was none of my business?