A dad having a heart-t-heart with his sister-in-law.
Every new parent is bombarded with advice from friends, family and experts on handling everything from feeding to sleeping to screen time. But, in the end, their decisions will often hinge on whether the advice works for their children.
No matter how great the advice or how long people have followed it, every child from the dawn of time is different.
A 30-year-old stay-at-home dad has been taking a lot of heat from his 39-year-old sister-in-law because he’s the primary caregiver and doesn’t feed his kids three meals a day. Instead, he prefers to let his 4-year-old and 18-month-old children graze on snacks every three hours or so.
The sister-in-law said she was “stunned” that he is the primary caregiver because she has a more “traditional” view of marriage. The sister-in-law’s constant judgment of his marriage and how he feeds his kids have become a huge burden, so he shared the story on the Reddit AITA subforum looking for advice.
The dad starts the post by saying that the sister-in-law believes the mom is more important in the home than the dad should be the provider. “So I always felt like she was more critical of me as a parent. Maybe not in clear ways before now, but her attitude made me feel like she was watching closely to see if I was good enough,” he wrote.
A stay-at-home dad.via Canva
“The way my wife and I feed our kids is different to how my SIL and my brother feed their kids,” the dad continued. “SIL believes in 3 meals a day no matter what the age and nothing more or less. She believes that is the way it has been done for centuries and it works. My wife and I approach it differently.”
The sister-in-law blames the family’s feeding routine on the fact that he’s a stay-at-home father doing the primary caregiving. She says he needs to change his child’s habits because they will cause problems in preschool and kindergarten.
The dad contacted his brother to get the sister-in-law to stop commenting, but nothing changed. The situation came to a head when the family was grocery shopping together.
“She brought it up out of nowhere because she saw the bag I keep the lunch boxes in. She didn’t even see them eat anything but needed to say something,” the dad wrote. “She told me I should practice better eating habits and I told her she should practice keeping her opinions to herself because she doesn’t get a say in how my kids eat and she doesn’t get to open her big mouth about it every time she sees me now. She stormed off outraged and there have been multiple texts from her and my brother since. He’s mostly just telling me what she’s saying but she is big mad.”
So, the dad asked the forum whether he was in the wrong for telling off his sister-in-law.
A toddler having a snack. via Canva
The responses were overwhelmingly supportive of his actions. One commenter said he should have responded by giving his sister-in-law a taste of her medicine. “Now, if you really want to go there just tell her if she’s so into traditional norms, then perhaps she shouldn’t, as a woman speak to you that way since you are a man and would like to be shown respect as one, and in fact you are disappointed she is choosing to belittle you since it’s not her place,” SingYouLikeASong suggested.
“It just seems to me that SIL feels personally attacked by a man filling familial responsibilities traditionally done by women and from the looks of it, doing a good job of it, too. It's her problem, and she's trying to make it yours by nitpicking at your every action,” Kittenscute added.
“You need to do what works for you and she’s overstepping. You never asked her opinion and she should not have given it,” Nemesis0408 wrote.
Should young children graze or eat only at meal times?
The commenters overwhelmingly agreed that the sister-in-law acted inappropriately and deserved to be told off. However, was she right about how the kids should be fed? According to Natalia, a registered dietitian and child nutritionist, yes.
Natalia says that regular meal times are critical and that children should only snack at scheduled times. “Research shows that the timing of meals and snacks is as important as what we feed our kids,” Natalia writes at Feeding Bytes. “Structure in mealtimes is a foundation of balanced eating habits. But, as many parents will agree, the structure also happens to be the hardest thing to establish.”
Ultimately, the dad was right to tell his sister to stay out of his business, but she did have a point regarding how he fed his kids. This situation would have been a lot better for everyone involved if she had approached her brother-in-law in a kind and loving way instead of as a critic.
A couple holding a pregnany woman's belly.via 
A pregnant woman sitting on a chair.via