We often receive accounts from our readers describing how their family members don’t understand or respect the severity of their food allergies. To say that convincing family is half the battle of managing the disease is an understatement for many.
That brings us to this installment of our popular You Be the Judge series where we present a food allergy-related scenario and ask you to weigh in and share your opinions with our readership.
This story comes from a reddit post entitled “AITA for lying to my step daughter that the soup she loves is lactose and gluten free for 6 months?” by redditor u/HatNo7106.
We often refer to the “AITA” subreddit (i.e., group) where this story is posted. AITA is short for “Am I the A-Hole,” providing a medium for people to question their own behavior and ask readers to vote.
Here’s her story:
So my [15-year-old] step daughter lives with us every each week and for the past year she has been a nightmare when it comes to food. First she became vegan, which I have no problems with, I just make her food sans animal products but that didn’t stick and that’s normal too. Now she is holistic and she started having allergies from everything. Salted Nuts, lactose, processed foods, gluten, red meat, mustard, mushrooms and anything a loser instagram influencer is making money telling people is dangerous. I had enough when she started demanding that I separate her cookware even in the dish washer. Separate her food in the fridge and freezer. Take out all my salted nuts and sugars etc and throwing them in the trash because she complained about stomach pain that she attributed to contamination from the pantry. I told her that she should either eat outside or do her own cooking and cleaning from now on. She started raging saying that I was treating her differently from the rest of the family and I am the evil stepmother. My husband started yelling at me. I asked him to take her to do an allergy screening and seek mental help for eating disorders and surprise surprise she had no allergies but her answer was that this doesn’t matter, what matters is what she believed. “Her stomach ache was actually a real thing”.
So yes I can’t have anything in my house now and I have to make her food in almost a separate kitchen. I had enough. I started putting gluten and lactose in almost everything she ate especially the chicken soup that she loves so much. She has been eating this for the past 6 months until her mom dropped her off one day and stayed for coffee, talking about how actually their health has been better since her daughter l’s new kitchen rules. I just said really? She feels better? The daughter yelled at me yes I don’t have stomach issues anymore. I just calmly said great I wonder what changed because you have been eating the same food as the rest of us over the past months especially the chicken soup you love so much. She started yelling and throwing things off the shelfs and her mother started yelling at me too and they left. My husband was angry at me and called what I did reckless because she is refusing to live with us now and I said great if you want her to live with you then you can move the hell out too.
They have filed a lawsuit against me but it will get dropped the minute the judge looked at the case. My husband is still angry at me but I will not change my mind that if he wants his daughter he should move out to be with her and I would actually understand if he chose his daughter over me.
Now she demands that I apologize and divide the kitchen to two areas if she “ever” to live with us again because she has been having stomach problems since I started feeding her normal food. I urged my husband and his ex to seek mental help for her bot told them she is not welcome to my home.
I am a nurse and I work almost 60 hours a week. Making time to make food and clean is a luxury for me and I will be damned if I start to abide by the rules of a superficial teenager with mental issues’ delusions.
There’s a lot to unpack here: step family dynamics, a teenage daughter convinced she has allergy/gastro issues, and a stressed out step mom.
As of this writing, the post has received over 17,000 upvotes — meaning readers found the story of interest — and over 4,000 comments.
So now we turn to you, our readers, who’ve seen it all regarding food allergies, and ask you to be the judge. Was the stepmom right to claim she was preparing the food to comply with the restrictions when she wasn’t? Could she have handled this better in some way? How would you have handled it?
Let us know in the comments section below.
I have a concern that reporting this story as though it is just a story about someone deliberately giving someone allergens actually causes harm to the food allergy community. The step-daughter, according to the story, appears to have mental illness. The family as a whole, does not appear to be working with her in a productive way. All of this culminates in the step-mother taking it into her own hands to disprove a perceived allergy, and presumably thereby prove mental illness. None of this story is what should happen from start to finish. It is not a story of someone with food allergies being deliberately harmed by another person, which is something that does in fact happen. It is a story about trying to figure out if someone in fact has allergies in all kinds of ways other than healthy ones. This should not be a story that the public audience “judges.” If anything, the participants in this story should all be encouraged to obtain counseling and help.
I don’t think this has anything to do with allergens, and the way this was handled was very poor for all parties involved. The entire family needs to be educated on the severity of real allergies and that you don’t say something is an allergy when it isn’t. It is ok to have food preferences and choices, for whatever reason. If the girl really has an eating disorder, then she needs more help, and not someone feeding her the foods she doesn’t want to eat on the sly. If she is staying healthy eating by her choices then others need to respect that without anyone having to say it is an allergy. No one should ever feed someone something or prepare someone else’s food without disclosing what is in it, especially when requested to do so. My family hated the time in my life that I was a vegetarian but my Dad respected my choice and would tell my Mom to stop pushing me to eat things I didn’t want to. Eventually I went back to meat, but it was all my choice. I have two children with severe life threatening food allergies, and one of my biggest fears is someone feeding them something without disclosing all ingredients, and they die; because my daughter ate a nibble of something with peanut butter, was administered 3 doses of epi-pen in a timely fashion, and nearly died, and they said she likely won’t survive another ingestion reaction even with epi-pens. I think the step-Mom needs to accept the girls food choices regardless of what she thinks, and provide the food requested. I think the girl may need some education about her food choices and how to convey them in a healthy manner. They all,need to work together and stop fighting about it, because if it really is an eating disorder forcing it or trying manipulate it will only make it worse. They really should all have some family counseling.
Basic respect that everyone needs to practice all around – food allergies or not.
This is the wrong forum for this article. This article is about family dynamics and mental health issues. This has nothing to do with actual food allergies and if anything harms peoples viewpoint and perception of how serious real food allergies are. Please don’t post articles like this in the future.
Sorry, Nahjeen… we disagree. The “You Be the Judge” series allows readers to express opinions on interesting scenarios, which in turn sparks conversations here and on social media regarding how food is addressed (or not) in social situations.
Agreed Nahjeen, serious food allergies are a life or death situation. This family dynamic obviously lacks the need for life saving medication or understands the actual reality of living with severe food allergies and how this is not to be taken lightly. If I attempted to feed my allergic child as this step mom did, my child would react severely and likely die.