AITA for telling my husband not to buy my niece an ice cream?

A woman told her husband not to buy ice cream for her niece because the niece’s mother had already said no until after lunch. However, her daughter got ice cream, causing tension when the niece overheard and became upset.

The sister blamed the husband, but the OP admitted it was her call to avoid upsetting her sister. Now the sister is angry, despite everyone getting dessert after lunch. read the original story below…

‘ AITA for telling my husband not to buy my niece an ice cream?’

Earlier in the day my niece asked her mum (my sister) if she could have an ice cream. My sister said she couldn’t have one until after lunch. We still hadn’t had lunch when my daughter saw an ice cream shop and asked my husband for one.

My niece didn’t hear her ask as she was up ahead with my son and my husband did offer to get ice cream for all of the kids but I told him not to as from past experience I assumed my sister would be upset at him for undermining her parenting. So he took only our daughter to get ice cream.

She’s only 4 so she made a bit of a mess and my dad asked her about the stain on her dress and she told him that she and her dad had ice cream which my niece overheard which obviously didn’t go down well as my niece was told there would be no ice cream until after lunch.

My sister originally was blaming my husband for my niece crying so I told her I told him not to buy her one so now she’s angry at me and making wild accusations like me not wanting things to be fair between our kids. My husband did end up taking everyone for dessert after lunch but my sister still isn’t acting normal with me.. AITA?

Here’s how people reacted to the post:

knittingmaniac420 −  OMG, I am feeling so old. Thank you to all of you who suggested simply saying to ALL of the whole group of kids “we’ll all get ice cream after lunch.” What is wrong with parents these days? Have all of these basic parenting frameworks for managing a group of small children just flown out the window?

With every parent wanting to be Disneyland dad or mom? And only focused on the wants and needs of their own kid at every moment at all times? God help us. It would have been very simple to stay happy and positive and simply say, to every child, “let’s all have ice cream after lunch! Yay!”. Problem solved.

Miserable_Dentist_70 −  Simple enough to say to your daughter “Ice cream after lunch”. I would never, ever buy something like this for one kid and not all of the kids present. No reason your four year old needs ice cream before lunch. YTA, you should have told your husband not to buy ice cream at all.

CatteNappe −  YTA. You could have held to the “no ice cream until after lunch” rule for everybody. You could have bent sis’ “ruling” and included niece in the treat. Instead you chose the worst possible option. Any thinking person would know it will not end well if one kid in a group gets a treat and the other(s) are denied.

SomeoneYouDontKnow70 −  NTA. You’re right that your husband buying ice cream for your niece would have undermined your sister. Your husband is TA for not exercising a little common sense when you explained your rationale for not buying your niece ice cream.

The correct call would have been for him to wait until after lunch to get everyone ice cream. I don’t know why he had to respond by effectively undermining both of you. Your sister is also TA for blaming you for something that was your husband’s fault.

UnethicalFood −  ESH: You, your sister, and your husband failed to communicate with each other, and put children in their early formative years in a position that they can not adquately parse as anything but unfair. Now you and your sister are sulking like the children you are trying to raise instead of resolving the issue like adults.

angrybabyfish −  YTA for getting one kid get ice cream and not the other, even when they were both with you. The logical solution would’ve been to have ALL of the kids wait until after lunch. Sounds like your sister was gonna find something to b**ch about regardless, so was denying the child ice cream even worth all the fuss?

Putting a smile on a baby’s face would have at least been worth the inevitable scolding. If your sister is that worked up over it, she should’ve made sure her kid had lunch before letting her leave with you. Had you gotten the ice cream anyway and then asked if you were the AH for going against your sister, I’d say absolutely not.

anneg1312 −  This is such unnecessarily & stupidly manufactured complexity. No ice cream til after lunch… not ogre level rule and easily honored/enforced. YTA.

grammarlysucksass −  YTA. Obviously this was going to upset the niece- I’m not saying you always have to enforce other parents’ rules on other kids, but from a practical perspective, I don’t see why you couldn’t just have waited until after lunch.

Making things equal ice cream wise seems common sense to me. No ice cream until after lunch is also a super sensible rule to protect your kids’ teeth.
That said, your sister is being way too overdramatic- all this needed was a simple chat, not her getting angry.

You enforced her rule after all (albeit in a silly way), and she needs to realise that her kid crying about ice cream really isn’t something to fight about.

Ok-Photo-1972 −  YTA for singling your niece out. Your daughter could have waited. This is so mean to do to a child.

StacyB125 −  YTA. Either all kids get ice cream or all kids wait until after lunch. You can’t go on a family outing together and do crap like this. It’s bad parenting and bad aunting too. You act like no one could have predicted your niece would find out your that kid had ice cream and that she was left out.

You said yourself that four year olds are notoriously messy with ice cream. It was a crappy thing to do. Your husband is an AH too.

Was the OP right to prioritize her sister’s parenting boundaries, or did it create unnecessary tension? What do you think? Share your thoughts below!