AITA for not telling a vegan mom that the candy she stole from my kids and was eating, wasn’t vegan?

A Redditor shared a Halloween conflict involving their vegan neighbor, who took a “candy tax” from their kids after trick-or-treating and unknowingly ate non-vegan candy. When the Redditor revealed this fact later, the neighbor was furious and has been avoiding them since. Read the full story below and decide if their response was justified or too petty.

‘ AITA for not telling a vegan mom that the candy she stole from my kids and was eating, wasn’t vegan?’

This happened on Halloween and the day following. My neighbor, 38F (super vegan) has 2 kids. I (26F) also have 2 kids. My apartment complex didn’t do traditional tick or treating on Halloween.

Residents were advised to set out prepackaged individual candy bags on their patios/front door areas if they wanted to participate- but the traditional “knock on door, physically hand strangers candy” was not permitted. So, Halloween comes and the kids are all dressed up and each building has a scheduled time where the kids go door to door.

I ended up having to work late so my neighbor offered to walk my kids around with hers at our buildings scheduled time. About 45 minutes later my kids came home with a small bucket of candy (6 little goodie bags each from individual apartments that participated) everything was fine, and my kids didn’t say anything weird had happened.

They were just excited to eat candy once they got home lol. The next day I took my kids to the park directly across from our apartment complex. My neighbor was there with her kids as well. The kids were playing and she took out one of those individual goodie bags with candy in it from her purse and started to loudly rummage in it.

She ate several pieces of candy and my daughter eventually noticed, ran up and asked if she could have a piece and my neighbor responded “nope, this is my tax candy, remember that This was my reward for taking you trick or treating last night”. I was a little weirded out by that statement and asked what she meant.

She said that since she Is the one who had to take the kids out, she took FIVE bags from each of my kids as a “tax.” Her son then chimes in and said “you only took two bags from us!” she responded with “but I’m your mom, I was doing OP a favor so they get a higher candy tax”.

I was thinking about how to respond when I noticed that she was holding a starburst candy and decided to just smile and nod and go back to watching my kids. I let her continue To finish off the bag of candy and then said “hey, aren’t you vegan? You know a lot of those candies are made with animal products right. “

I explained what gelatin was and how a LOT of those candies are made with it. She was horrified, googles it and then told her kids that they were leaving. She said something about how she was going to be sick and stormed off.

Now she’s giving me dirty looks every time we see her and won’t let her kids play if she shows up at the park and we are there. My husband thinks I’m an a**hole cause I should have either- not said anything about the gelatin, or said something right away when I noticed.

I don’t think it’s my job to tell a vegan what is and isn’t vegan though, and she deserved it for stealing candy from little kids.

Here’s what people had to say to OP:

[Reddit User] −  NTA gelatin is like the first thing you figure out isn’t vegan anyways and I say this as someone who did try veganism. It’s takes 0 effort to google that and also 0 effort to not be a d**k to kids.

ElectricMoccoson −  NTA – Ignoring the fact that this candy-tax is just a sugar coated way of theiving candy from children, it’s not your responsibility to inform someone if something is vegan or not. If this mom didn’t know how gelatin is made, that’s her issue and not yours.

[Reddit User] −  NTA. You would be if she had an allergy to something and didn’t tell her, but this was just good petty revenge. She’s the a**hole. Literally taking candy from babies? What kind of person is this?? She took almost have of your kids’ candy. That’s insane. It would have been bad enough to take a bag from each child,

but two from hers and five from yours? No. What a horrible person. Also, I was a vegan for seven years and don’t know how she wouldn’t know gelatin is typically an animal product. Lmao good job OP. This was 100% deserved.

ResponsibilityGold88 −  Not only is that lady a terrible adult (stealing children’s Halloween candy? How low can you go?) bit she’s also a terrible vegan. Seriously what kind of vegan doesn’t know not to eat gelatin? NTA

Elliesmith995 −  What. The actual. F**k. She took HALF your kids candy, when she was doing something she would have been doing any way? Because you, as a parent, were not there to tell her that she wasn’t entitled to HALF your kids candy for walking around with her kids?

Look, I’m a parent. I “mom tax” my kids so much that when they ask for a treat, they will either ask for ‘extra’ and offer it to me, or specify “but with no mom tax!”. However.
She is not their mom. I don’t ever take HALF my kids candy for any holiday.

Nor would I ask my children’s friends (or neighbors children) for compensation for something that *I would already be doing.* If I wanted candy that badly; my legs are not currently broken and I can drive myself to the store to get some.. FURTHERMORE.

If you’re on a strict diet for health reasons, how do you not know what you can and can’t eat?? I’ve been gluten free for about 3 years, I absolutely can and will Google anything before I put it in my body. I know exactly how much I can tolerate before I exhibit x y z symptoms.

I know exactly what brands to buy, all safe options at the restaurants I frequent, I literally plan my entire life around avoiding **one** stupid ingredient. If she was vegan for health reasons, you did her a favor by pointing it out at all and not letting her eat the whole sack.

Unless it was your kids idea to give her the candy with absolutely zero prompting from your neighbor (hey, some kids can be sweet) then **absolutely NTA.** She deserves a wakeup call.

bluebell435 −  r/pettyrevenge. NTA. I am a vegetarian. I remember learning that Starburst had gelatin. While it was very disappointing, it wasn’t anyone else’s job to educate me. I think she’s kind of the AH for claiming to be vegan without learning what that meant (and also for stealing candy from children. Come on, it’s $10 a bag in the store).. Edit: fixed subreddit name

Heerreewego −  NTA. My parents took a “candy tax” growing up but it was always a few pieces which was not a substantial amount of our haul. But to rub it into the kids face or to take candy for someone else’s kids then rub it in the parent’s face. Yeah, not cool. I commend you for that smooth move!

OneDumbPony −  NTA, but I have a strong feeling this story isn’t real because many vegans are vegans for the animals and will religiously check almost everything they eat. Its widely known by most people that many candies have gelatin.

HauntedCoffeeCup −  Serious Vegans know what’s in everything they eat. I don’t believe this story.

butt5000 −  NTA – you were simply watching out for her dietary choices. At 38 she should know how to read labels.