Have you ever been at a gathering where someone orders food for everyone—well, except for you? It's one thing to be casually left out, but imagine it happening during an ICU visit when your sibling's life is on the line. Suddenly, being the only one without fries might start to feel a lot less funny, and a tad hurtful.
For today's Original Poster (OP), it wasn't just a minor inconvenience. No, it actually sparked a full-blown family feud. And it all began with food.
More info: Reddit
Food is usually the one thing that brings families together—but in this case, it was the genesis of a family feud
Image credits: Andrea Piacquadio / Pexels (not the actual photo)
The author's youngest brother repeatedly brought food for other family members during their brother's ICU stay, but intentionally excluded the OP and her sister
Image credits: BeigeSugar
Image credits: Valeriya Kobzar / Pexels (not the actual photo)
At the celebration of life, her brother ordered an additional gluten-free pizza and charged it to the author's bill without asking
Image credits: BeigeSugar
The OP asked him to pay for the extra $20 pizza he added to her bill, and that led to him shoving her and storming off
It started when the OP hardly left the side of her brother in the ICU. During that difficult period, their youngest brother would come around. He would bring Starbucks and Culvers for everyone except the OP and their younger sister.
According to what she heard, the OP's brother specifically didn't want to buy anything for them, and had requested that they shouldn't know he was ordering for others. It's not exactly the sibling love you dream of in a family crisis; however, this was the genesis.
After their brother passed, the OP decided to organize a casual celebration of life at a pub. She put money on a bar tab and ordered pizzas for everyone. Her brother arrived with his girlfriend who is gluten-intolerant, and the OP did well to order a gluten-free pizza for her.
Shortly after, the OP's brother ordered a second gluten-free pizza with different toppings, and then slapped it right onto her bill without mentioning it to her.
Now, the OP didn't have a lot of money, and so she was upset when she found out. But considering the fact that her brother had also intentionally left her out when ordering food for everyone at the hospital, she was even more upset.
She asked him to cover the second pizza, which cost $20, and that was when things exploded. The OP's brother got annoyed, stormed off, and thereafter accused the OP of disrespecting his girlfriend. The two have not spoken since the incident.
Image credits: Anna Tarazevich / Pexels (not the actual photo)
In family dynamics, the youngest child is usually viewed as spoiled or entitled; this is a trait often projected upon them due to special treatment by the parents. And as Very Well Mind states, "younger siblings may grow entitled because they get spoiled; sometimes, parents treat younger siblings more permissively."
This may lead them to believe that the same leniency will continue into their adult life, as evidenced by the story, especially during times of stress or crisis.
The brother, used to being the "baby" of the family, as the OP would later state in the comments, probably felt his action—adding a $20 pizza to his sister's bill—was acceptable without consideration of how it would affect anyone else.
Furthermore, as Choosing Therapy has pointed out, entitlement also happens because "parents make rules for the oldest children and bend the rules for the youngest" such that younger siblings may have difficulty accepting responsibility or discipline for their actions.
According to them, this often leads to a person shying away from taking responsibility for their actions, ultimately resulting in conflict in familial relations, and this happened in the case of the OP's brother—the expectation that his sister should just pay the surplus cost and getting angry when asked to take responsibility for what he ordered.
Wanting to know if she was a jerk for being upset and refusing to cover her brother's extra pizza order, the OP turned to netizens. They largely expressed support for the OP, stating that she wasn't in the wrong.
What would you have done in this situation? Would you have covered the extra pizza or stood your ground like the OP?
Netizens rallied around the author and declared that she is not the jerk; however, they affirmed her brother is a jerk with entitlement issues
Image credits: iMin Technology / Pexels (not the actual photo)
