AITA for not spending this Christmas in the hospital with my daughter?

A Reddit user faced backlash from her family after deciding not to spend Christmas in the hospital with her 16-year-old daughter. The daughter has a sensitive stomach and frequently lands in the ER after eating trigger foods, despite knowing they cause severe vomiting.

On Christmas Eve, despite warnings, she indulged in those foods again and ended up hospitalized. This time, the mother chose to stay home with the rest of the family instead of rushing to her daughter’s side, believing the situation was self-inflicted. Now, she’s wondering if she was too harsh. Invite people to read the original story below.

‘ AITA for not spending this Christmas in the hospital with my daughter?’

My (39F) daughter (16F) has had a sensitive stomach ever since she was a kid. There are certain foods that will upset her stomach to the point where she’s unable to stop throwing up. We’ve seen countless doctors, but so far nobody’s been able to give us a clear answer. The only advice we keep getting is to identify all trigger foods and cut them from her diet.

We have a pretty good idea of what those foods are: soda and other carbonated drinks, chips, cheetos, and other similar processed snacks, anything oily or fried and most sweets. Unfortunately, this is exacty the kind of stuff my daughter loves to eat the most. And as horrible as she feels after she has them, she still refuses to cut them out of her diet, which in turn led to her spending a lot of time in the hospital during the past few years.

When she was little, it was easier to keep all these foods away from her because I simply wouldn’t buy them. But now that she’s older, I can’t always be there to check what she eats. She eats the greasy pizza at her school’s cafeteria, she trades her lunch with her classmates, she goes out with her friends and stops to eat at KFC and so on. And it always ends with her in the ER, crying and shaking because she can’t stop throwing up.

This was the case on this Christmas eve as well, when our whole family gathered at our place. And of course, among the many dishes at our Christmas table were some of her main trigger foods, like chips, soda, chocolate and sweets. Now mind you, these were far from the only foods available to her.

We also had a variety of home-cooked, traditional dishes on the table, with ingredients that don’t upset her stomach, like vegetables, meat, dairy etc. All of them delicious and well-seasoned – my daughter herself says she really likes most of these dishes.

Despite this, my daughter chose to eat nothing but her trigger foods. I reminded her that they’d make her feel awful, but she said she didn’t care, because *Christmas is only once a year* and she *just wants to live a little*. Well, this ended with her violently throwing up in the ER a few hours later. She had to be hospitalized for a few days and only just got out of the hospital a few hours ago.

And unlike all the previous times when something like this happened, this time I chose to spend my Christmas relaxing at home with the rest of our family, and not in the hospital by my daughter’s side. I kept in touch with her through calls and texts, and told her that if she needed anything I’d ask a family member to bring it to her, but I made it clear that I would not be visiting her during her stay.

And well, my daughter didn’t take this too well. She cried every time we talked on the phone, begged me to come over, told me how horrible I was for ‘abandoning’ her there all alone and so on. Most of our family didn’t take my side in this either, and during the past few days I got called everything from ‘a little extreme’ to downright cruel and heartless. AITA, Reddit?

These are the responses from Reddit users:

SigSauerPower320 −  Not sure if I’m gonna be in the minority or get down voted (oh well), but I’m going with NTA. She’s 16 and for sure smart enough and mature enough to know better. As the clichè the saying is and as much as it’s over used on reddit….. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. This isn’t a case of a 7 year old that doesn’t really know any better.

This is a person that will legally be an adult in less than 2 years. She knows full well what she can and cannot eat and she made a person choice to eat things she shouldn’t. While it may seem cruel and heartless….. Maybe you leaving her there “by herself” (obviously, she’s not since there was plenty of staff there with her) will be the wakeup call she needs to stop eating the s**t that makes her get admitted into the hospital.

xInsomniCatx −  NTA she willingly did this to herself, she needs to recognize that actions have consequences, and you don’t need to be there every single time she decides to harm herself. And YES, this can be considered self-harm because she is willingly hurting herself by eating these foods. If anything I would have her start seeing a therapist to figure out what’s going on and why she keeps self-harming.

[Reddit User] −  This is going to be unpopular I’m sure but…ever taken your kid to a psychiatrist? There’s definitely some secondary gain going on here and the kid needs to find alternative, prosocial and adaptive behaviors to cope.

Responsible_Hope_831 −  NTA because of this “she said she didn’t care, because Christmas is only once a year and she just wants to live a little” but “She eats the greasy pizza at her school’s cafeteria, she trades her lunch with her classmates, she goes out with her friends and stops to eat at KFC and so on.

And it ALWAYS ends with her in the ER, crying and shaking because she can’t stop throwing up”. This is not a moment of poor judgment because she is a teenager and it’s Christmas, she does this regularly and doesn’t care how it affects her or others.

Now I say NTA because I understand it must de frustrating that your daughter doesn’t care of her own health, but you really should talk to her and figure it out why she has no care at all for her own wellbeing.

okayish_22 −  Good night. This is way above Reddit’s pay grade. Your daughter’s illness has obviously triggered disordered eating problems and psychological issues. This isn’t the place to figure out any of that. Get her and you the help you all need!

fraenzle −  NTA, 16 is old enough to understand to not eat yourself to the hospital

amethystalien6 −  INFO – I think is key to making a judgement. Do you have your daughter in therapy to help her manage her impulse control?

unlovelyladybartleby −  ESH. If she’s deliberately making herself sick, there is something going on there (small children can manage allergies so this is either calculated behavior or she has some sort of disorder she can’t manage without support).

The response to a teenager self harming shouldn’t be automatic rescue but it also shouldn’t be abandoning her in hospital for three days at Christmas. You both sound unpleasant to be around and both appear to need individual and family therapy.

bamf1701 −  I’m coming down on NTA on this one. Your daughter is old enough to know what the effects of her actions are and old enough to take responsibility for them. By your description, it isn’t like this is a one-off happening either, with her doing this after outings with friends. If this were the only time in the year, I think my answer might have been different, but she hasn’t exactly been the model of restraint or discipline during the year. And her actions have a cost for the whole family.

Straight-Singer-2912 −  Wow, this is tough. Actions do have consequences, but there’s a middle ground between “staying by her side and condoning her actions” and “not visiting at all” for what sounds like “a few days”.

Maybe you’d visit once or twice. Maybe your visits are only 5 minutes. But to not visit at all for 3 days… that IS extreme. She’s 16, her brain isn’t fully formed, and her executive function skills are still lacking.. Very gently, YTA. I would also suggest counseling. Maybe it will help your daughter learn to make better decisions, and perhaps think of the impact her multiple hospitalizations are having on your family.

Was the mother right to stay home for Christmas and let her daughter face the consequences of her choices, or should she have been there to support her no matter what? How would you balance tough love with parental responsibility? Share your thoughts below!