AITA For making my son pay for a new pizza when he didn’t save any for the rest of the family?

A 45-year-old mother of two discusses her son’s struggle with understanding that food ordered is meant for the whole family. After ordering a pizza for her son, she asked him to save some for his sister and husband. When her daughter returned home to find the pizza gone, she was upset since she hadn’t eaten all day.

The mother deducted the cost of a new pizza from her son’s account, leading to a disagreement over whether this was fair. read the original story below…

‘ AITA For making my son pay for a new pizza when he didn’t save any for the rest of the family?’

I 45F, have two kids: 14M and 17F. My son has High Functioning ASD, and honestly most people cannot tell, but it comes out in certain aspects of his relationships such as thinking about others, compassion, etc. My son also eats a lot of food- way more than someone for his age.

He is not overweight in any way so the doctors have not considered this a problem. Here comes the problem- for years when we have ordered food, he has neglected to realize that the food we order is for the whole family, not just him. My husband and I have both spoken to him about this multiple times and usually he just gives half-hearted apologies.

We are working on this with his therapist, among other issues he has. On Friday, my daughter had work after school so she drove herself there while my son took the bus home. He said he was hungry so I ordered a pizza and told him to save some for his father and sister. I only took a slice.

Usually my daughter does not eat much (1-2 slices) and same thing with my husband. That would’ve left him with 5 slices of a LARGE pizza. About 2 hours later, my daughter comes home and sees the pizza box empty and starts balling.

She usually is not one to complain about food and will usually just make her own food but she did not have time to eat before work today and during lunch she was making up a test, so she did not eat since breakfast. I was furious at my son and deducted the money for a new pizza plus a generous tip to the delivery driver from my son’s bank account.

My son saw and now he is pissed. My daughter thought it was the right thing to do, especially when this is about the 3rd time it had happened to her. My son’s reasoning is that he doesn’t work so his only sources of income are for his birthday and Christmas, so my daughter should’ve paid since she has a job.

My husband and I both are on board with what I did, but idk, is my son right? AITA?

These are the responses from Reddit users:

Little_Loki918 −  NTA. Having Autism is not an excuse for eating the entire dinner and leaving none for the rest of the family, even after being explicitly told not to do so. Having autism is also not a shield against the natural consequences of his actions. He ate the entire large pizza that was the entire family’s dinner, and you had to order another one.

It was only fair that he paid for it. In the future, perhaps it’s best to affirmatively set aside the food for your husband and daughter and yourself (labeled so there can be no confusion) and then let him eat. Also, there are some diseases that either lead to extreme hunger or prevent the full cues from registering in your brain/body.

Kindly_Area_4380 −  Regardless of his diagnosis, there should be consequences to his actions. How big was the pizza? Growing kids may have out of bounds metabolism. We have a pizza place that does personal pizzas. Maybe that’s a better solution or a large for the family and a small that is his.. NTA

ieya404 −  I ordered a pizza and told him to save some for his father and sister. He knew he wasn’t supposed to eat the whole thing – that’s a very clear instruction to leave some (which would logically have to be at least two pieces since it’s for two people).

NTA. Sucks for him in this particular instance, but maybe he’ll pay more attention in future when he’s told to leave some for other people.

plsuh −  NTA. My son’s reasoning is that he doesn’t work so his only sources of income are for his birthday and Christmas, so my daughter should’ve paid since she has a job.
This is invalid reasoning. Neurodivergent or not, he can see that this leads to the conclusion that if you have no income it is ok to take what you want from someone who has an income — which is theft.

My son does not have much money to begin with and he is neurodivergent which makes it difficult for him to consider others. When enough consequences hit him he will start to take others into consideration. Many neurodivergent people have difficulties in empathizing other people; fair enough.

He may not get how his sister feels, but once he makes the connection that being an inconsiderate h** costs him real money he will get the picture. It is your job **as his parent** to set the boundaries and consequences so that he can understand right and wrong. Not enforcing a consequence that hurts leads to a failure to launch.

He may need different ways to reason through things or alternative consequences; work with his care team to get it right. What you absolutely don’t want to be is That Parent who is always excusing her child’s behavior, “because he’s neurodivergent.”

EffableFornent −  Nta. This is a perfect natural consequence. If he was still hungry, he could have made himself some food, but he choose to eat everyone else’s.
He pays for that. Why on earth should his sister buy him dinner?

It’s not about him being autistic, as he clearly knows what the deal is… He’s just a s**fish teenager, and needs to learn that being s**fish has consequences.

Pretzelmamma −  This is nothing to do with ASD, this is to do with your son being an e**itled AH. . my daughter should’ve paid. He ate her portion and expects her to pay for it? Usually when you point out to someone with ASD that they’ve behaved badly they are apologetic, he just didn’t care until there were consequences and even then he’s sorry for himself not his sister.

BadWolf_Corporation −  My son’s reasoning is that he doesn’t work so his only sources of income are for his birthday and Christmas, so my daughter should’ve paid since she has a job. Your daughter isn’t the one who ate everyone else’s food.

TemperatureTight465 −  Nta. He knows what he’s doing. You’ve explained it; you explained it in the moment. He just doesnt think it’s reasonable and there haven’t been sufficient consequences to stop him thus far (And I’m autistic, so y’all can miss me with the excuses. Too many autistic men get away with doing whatever they want to women because they blame their ASD.)

FuzzyMom2005 −  NTA. At 14, ASD or not, he has to learn that actions have consequences. So, he thinks his sister should pay for his greediness. That’s a big ‘no’.

Constant-Can7329 −  My cousin has autism, and literally does the same thing with food. Actually it’s much worse, and his mother makes excuses for the behavior instead of holding him accountable.  A few years ago there was a huge Thanksgiving dinner for our entire family. In every universe you would assume there would be leftovers.

Her son ate 4 plates stacked up with food, 3 massive bowls of soup, an entire pan of bread, and made himself an entire other plate of food stacked up for later. There was literally nothing left. The sheer volume of food that young man consumed was just unbelievable. No one was able to take even a small amount of their favorite Thanksgiving food home.

Now we have two Thanksgiving dinners. One with their family and one without. My Aunt will not ever hold her son accountable. It’s just pure gluttony at everyone’s expense. I hear about him doing it all the time, but she just makes an excuse and everyone around her has to suffer.

Point being that it has developed into a t**ic situation that is still ongoing. Resentment and disdain has built up within my extended family toward her family with little to no chance of resolution. OP did the right thing. NTA.

Balancing discipline and understanding can be tricky, especially when it involves family dynamics. What do you think? Share your thoughts below!