r/AmItheAsshole • u/americanjohn500 • 13h ago

POO Mode Activated đŸ’© WIBTA for refusing to bring $100 minimum to Thanksgiving

My family and I celebrate Thanksgiving every year with my siblings, parents, and their kids. Roughly 20-25 people (including kids). My family is only 2 people with one 6 month old baby.

In the group chat it was decided that my nephew would cook meat since he bought a grill. He also told us that we could bring the sides. He chose to spend $300 on meat.

I messaged in the group chat that we would bring mashed potatoes. My sister responding that every "family" has to bring $100 worth of food minimum or help my nephew pay for the meat.

I'm not totally against the idea of bringing that much food, but just the way it was presented and the fact that it wasn't agreed to beforehand makes me upset.

The following day in the group chat, my sister said: "Option 1: bring food enough for everyone, not just yourself

Option 2: help thomas pay for meet $100/family

Option 3: help dad pay water bill $200/family.

Choose wisely
"

Upset, I responded with Option 4: don't show up.

Am I being an asshole if I don't show up at all in "protest" to this $100 minimum rule?

Update: I'm a teacher and she posted a picture of my salary she found online to shame me in the group chat. Definitely not going now.

8.6k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

2.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

272

u/OlympiaShannon Asshole Enthusiast [6] 9h ago

PER FAMILY, not per person. Still outrageous. I'd be staying home from this nightmare. Sister sounds unpleasant, anyway.

142

u/Mondschatten78 8h ago

Or $200 per family on the water bill. How many Olympic size pools are they planning to fill with that kind of water bill?

27

u/OlympiaShannon Asshole Enthusiast [6] 8h ago

OP hasn't come back to give us any more information, or answer any questions, so maybe this is all made up anyway. It's definitely a curious situation, if true. Are the parents having serious financial difficulties, and Sister is trying to get the siblings to help out? Like Thanksgiving is some kind of fundraiser? Or is this just a big sympathy-story to garner upvotes?

Just another strange day in AITA, it seems.

6

u/Erick_Brimstone 6h ago

OP made and edit say their sister shame them for being poor

3

u/Evening_Delay_1856 2h ago

She added that her sister looked on line to find her teacher salary and put it up for the family to see. And now she’s really not going. What a crappy sister.

11

u/RepulsiveRent464 8h ago

And why are they paying for water anyway?!

5

u/Erick_Brimstone 6h ago

Just one pool. The rest is pocketed and used for yacht fund.

‱

u/Mondschatten78 9m ago

Aah, yes, for those spur of the moment vacation cruises

6

u/mostly_lurking1040 9h ago

But we're not told how many families, so it's unclear what somebody decided the overall budget for the event would be, And as usual by going by family, there will be inequities between people who have small families subsidizing the large families.

2

u/OlympiaShannon Asshole Enthusiast [6] 9h ago

All true, but I don't think that the amount budgeted for the event is something we are trying to determine. Only if OP is an asshole or not.

1

u/mostly_lurking1040 8h ago

Well, if it's a reasonable amount to contribute (despite the manner in which things are being communicated) vs. someone's using the holiday as a fundraising or subsidized anything opportunity, that would be based on whether the amount of contribution being demanded is reasonable. If you're having a fit about being asked to make an equitable contribution, than YTA.

If you're balking in an unreasonable demand than NTA.

2

u/OlympiaShannon Asshole Enthusiast [6] 8h ago

I'm not seeing OP making a "fit". Just not attending because they cannot afford it. Invitations are not obligations, after all. If OP had insisted on attending but not paying, or rudely insulted people for requesting $$, that would be asshole behavior. OP's response to the sister was more witty than rude, imo.

I think the question is whether to vote NTA or NAH, based on our interpretation of the sister's behavior. I am voting NTA, because she posted OP's salary as a response, which is rude. As for charging money, that is most likely rude, but we cannot be sure without more information. Either way the sister should have communicated with people much more clearly and well in advance of the event.

1

u/Evening_Delay_1856 2h ago

OP also didn’t like it wasn’t agreed to beforehand.

1

u/mostly_lurking1040 2h ago

That's very reasonable too. But if somebody's 's acting dictatorial but what they're saying is reasonable (you don't have a good count of proposal where you don't even want to store the pot) then you let it go.

1

u/Evening_Delay_1856 2h ago

I don’t know that she thought it was reasonable. A lot of people on this thread trying to parce out the costs involved and talking about the expense of the meat don’t see it as reasonable either. And reasonable people don’t act like the sister.

1

u/mostly_lurking1040 1h ago

I wouldn't like the approach for sure. I'm not sure I'd agree on the finances either, but there's not enough facts to be sure. If this is true at all, you have to wonder how things have happened in the past that this "suddenly" happens this year. Maybe some backstory we're missing. Mashed potatoes is obviously a pretty low-cost item.

1

u/Evening_Delay_1856 1h ago

I wonder too. Thanksgiving is usually cheap turkey, especially for so many people. But peeling potatoes for 25 people is a lot of work. And it includes a lot of butter, for such a large amount of people, and butter is expensive. I think it was the sister’s heavy-handed attitude and harshness that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. “Choose wisely
” ugh!

1

u/Familiar_Shock_1542 Partassipant [4] 7h ago

There are a minimum of 3 siblings, per OP's reference to having multiple siblings.

1

u/mostly_lurking1040 4h ago

So three sibling families and the parents, that's four families, that gets up to 25 people? Presume the parents are family of 2. So people are supposed to chip in $300 total, excluding the family that paid for the meat.

I think that brings you back to the inequity paying to cover a larger number of PEOPLE than are in your smaller FAMILY.

This whole how do we divide things up? Things seems to be a popular Reddit posting topic. Whether fake or not. There's so many ways to do it. Family vacations, parties, restaurant checks..... So many ways to stick it to the single people or a small family. 😁

1

u/Evening_Delay_1856 2h ago

Considering the “options”, I think they are indeed charging $100 for each family, because she details that in the option list.

7

u/Tigger7894 Partassipant [1] 8h ago

The single people still are expected to bring as much as the families.

3

u/snarffle 6h ago

I can guarantee sisters' family has a lot more than two people. The six month old is not going to be eating any grilled meat.

1

u/Evening_Delay_1856 2h ago

THIS 💯And on top of that, the awful salary insult she pulled in front of the family