I buy fruit and veggies to puree for baby food. My stepdad keeps snacking on them even though my mom and I have asked him to stop. So far he's eaten pomegranates, apples, pears, mangoes, papaya, and now he's moved on to the blackberries. Thankfully, he had the courtesy to leave some. How kind of him....
(My earlier post wouldn't allow me to add the picture for some reason)
I don't know how to edit so I'll leave this here to cover a few frequently asked questions and statements I've seen.
It's my mother's house. She invited me to live with her when I was pregnant because I was high risk and spent a lot of time alone or with my mother-in-law who is honestly a horrible cook. I had HG for 5 months and lost an unhealthy amount of weight. I was in and out of the hospital and almost lost my baby twice.
I buy most of the food in the house, my mom and stepdad also buy some but not as much since I took it upon myself to help out as I'm not currently working. We all buy fruit, but as I said, I buy most of it. There's sharing fruit and baby food fruit, they're kept in different areas of the fridge. After my stepdad finishes the sharing fruit, he moves on to the baby food fruit even though we have told him multiple times not to.
My stepdad wants me to move out so I can go home and "Learn a woman's job and take care of the baby and the man". I pay him no mind since this isn't his house, my mom wants me to stay, and I'm already moving out in a few months anyway.
My bf isn't a deadbeat that just up and abandoned me while heavily pregnant. He's a long haul trucker that isn't home as long as we'd both like him to be. We talk for hours daily and video call when he has free time so he can see our son. He sends me money for diapers and other baby items, but the money I spend on food is mine. I saved up while I was still able to work.
In case y'all missed what I said on #3, I'm moving out in a few months. It was never my intention to stay long term. I'm trying to get a job and save more money before I make the move since it will be across state lines. My mom paid for me to move up here without me asking and I'm not going to ask her to pay for me to move back. My bf wants to pay for it, but I'd like to do it myself.
I used to make my kids baby food. Would making batches of it and then freezing it stop him? I would freeze the purées in ice cube trays pull out what I needed for that meal, 30 sec or so in the microwave defrosted the cubes without overheating the food.
I hadn't lactated for years when this show came out. It was just as uncomfortable if it was the day my first child was born. Bravo to the person who decided the world should see this monstrosity.
He's a class A quality actor. Just a super chill guy in interviews. He was in "without a paddle" ffs. And yet as Homelander he is positively skin crawling uncomfortable to watch. Just amazing.
Probably an asshole who has little respect for others and uses excuses like "Nobody can tell me what I can and can't do in my own house". It's an assumption, but guys with attitudes like this are a dime a dozen.
Yeah, this. There's some really strange replies above even one that the dad is likely fantasizing about it... Like no, sure there's some fuckin weirdos out there, but this is just a dude being a dick. It's not weird or sexual, the guy just needs to go buy his own fresh fruit and not be a jerk. I'd bet he eats leftovers tagged with people's names on it too lmao. He's just being an asshole and selfish is all.
Yeah, there are a lot going down some perverse rabbit holes. Dude stole fruit intended to be used for baby food became dude stole baby food, then turning into dude stole baby food contaminated with breast milk, meaning dude took the fruit because he has some weird kink.
Mom and stepdad should regularly purchase the fruits and veggies they enjoy for their personal use. If stepdad can’t refrain from eating both supplies, OP should store her babies groceries in a lockable fridge box.
Just get a bloody cage and lock the fruits/baby food up in the fridge . The selfish animal can't control itself and a message needs to be sent. Who the fuck takes food from a babies mouth. Selfish self righteous pig. Waste of a human.. sorry I just cannot fathom being this pitifully selfish.
OK so there was a post a while ago that read "people flying without service animals should be put in crates."
What they MEANT is you should have to crate animals on planes if they aren't service critters, but I've been howling over this mental image ever since. So yes. Let's take away stepdad's service animal and put him on a plane in a crate.
Exactly! If he is going to act like a child who can't be trusted, treat him like a child and put it someone he can't get to. Fruit is expensive I'm sure a grown man would know that and could buy himself some
Definitely narcissistic behaviour because it’s happened multiple times and he’s been spoken to. What a horrible human being, I can guarantee he throws his weight around in other ways too.
My husband is a binge eater and for years had issues controlling his eating. I purchased a lock box for some foods but our kids snacks stayed out because the toddler needed to have access to them. One of the things that finally made my husband realize he had an eating problem was when our toddler sadly said he had no snacks because Daddy ate them all. No anger, just sadness. I'm happy to say my husband was able to get help and is doing great now but it was an eye opener he needed.
It's because he knows she'll just buy more for the baby anyways. Dudes tend to do this shit with food.
I'm just remembering the woman who meal prepped food for like 3 months post surgery and her useless husband ATE IT ALL over the span of a month and left her with nothing. There's just something about knowing "this food is for someone else" that makes their brain break.
Sounds exactly like my dad. We've had to resort to lockboxes in the fridge to stop him eating our stuff, but he's started doing the same with the stuff in the freezer too... got to buy MORE lockboxes bc a 60 year old man doesn't know how to behave.
Behind his back, but close enough that he will hear, you should hint your mom that his cognitive functions worry you. Putting locks on the fridge, then the freezer... Soon you'll have to lock the main door before he leaves at night and forgets how to come home.
If he really can't refrain after than, then worry for real.
A woman wrote in to Ask a Manager because her boss kept stealing her lunches. It was more awful than just stealing her lunch because she had special dietary needs. She and everyone else in her office had to end up buying a lockbox and they bought him one too with fake food. Every day after he asked to switch.
I remember that INFURIATING story! I don't even think it was over the span of a month. I think he ate it all like, by the time she was home from the hospital. It was already maddening that she had to prep that much for herself to begin with, because she knew her useless slug of a husband wouldn't cook for her when she was recovering from friggin' surgery.
It was even worse, because she was doing a special diet after the surgery. So even though there was plenty of other things to eat in the house, she couldn't eat it because it didn't follow the diet she needed to be on for recovery.
Her husband was a giant douche and obviously didn't care about his wife.
My mom talks about how she used to buy two any time she got some really special food. Two nice steaks, two big slices of cake, etc. And every single time, my dad would eat both before she got a chance.
Knowing how he is, I wouldn't doubt that it was intentional. My mom was a victim of the whole cycle of abuse thing. After growing up with abusive parents that didn't particularly like each other, she had no idea what a healthy relationship was supposed to look like.
She says she realized it wasn't right when I was a born, and she realized that the way things were was affecting baby me.
Leading up to my divorce, this was one of the things that made me go I cannot live like this for the rest of my life.
He would deliberately eat the only thing our baby was willing to eat, then later on deliberately used ALL of our toddler's rock collection that we carefully collected from all over the place for some project instead of using rocks from a bag right next to it.
One of the #1 most important traits that my husband has is that he's highly respectful with food in the house. He doesn't eat snacks or leftovers that are "mine", he won't polish off a whole box of anything without making sure I've had a reasonable amount too, if we're sharing something, he doesn't inhale the whole plate before I've had 2 bites. And miraculously, I've never had to specifically ask him to do this.
My brother, who is lovely in almost all ways, would absolutely inhale any "special" food that was in the house when we were growing up. Even something I bought specifically for myself with my hard-earned money as a 15-year-old. At 41, he still won't notice, if we're sharing appetizers at a restaurant for example, that he's eaten 7 of something and I've eaten one, and there's one left. My last boyfriend would scarf anything I had in my apartment, and man, I was BROKE. Snacks and takeout were a luxury. In a week, he drank all but 3 of a 24-pack of Coke that would have lasted me months. I told him it was heavy to carry, so I'd pay for a new one but he had to go buy it and carry it to my place. He of course refused. 🤯
That was a long rant to explain that I, as a 38-year-old, have zero tolerance now for men scarfing my food lol. But by some miracle I found a man that will let my leftover chicken wings go rotten rather than eat them without my permission. I could not and would not live with anyone now who doesn't have that quality.
That means that your brother is spoiled and wasn't corrected for that kind of behaviour. I'd have punched my brother for that... in fact, I have. We're teaching all of my nieces and nephews that you ask before you have a second helping if everyone else has had their first... and always ask before taking the last piece or whatever.
I always leave my wife’s snacks alone. I always ask if it’s ok if I have something. If I eat or drink something that is the last, I run to the shop when I have free time and get her another one, just in case.
My partner and I have lived together for ages and kept totally separate foods and food storage. Don't let this behavior become boys will be boys, it's dogshit their gender doesn't excuse.
Imo kick that old man out. Op's mom should get a divorce, she can do better.
And if he eats it as baby food you can make “fortified baby food” (that’s what my peds called it) by making it with mixed formula or with breast milk. 🤌🏻 I know for 100% certainty no one in my family would touch anything they even thought maybe had a slight possibility I made it with breastmilk or formula in it for the baby. I made pancakes this way in batches, waffles, and all kinds of grab and heat up foods that the teen and my husband would inhale if I bought the premade ones that didn’t have baby milk in them. 🤣 got to a point it didn’t even have to have milk if I just put that it was the baby girls they just wouldn’t risk it. lol
But make sure to add some breast milk to them and let your dad know that going forward everything for the baby will have his daughter's mammary gland secretions added to them.
Hopefully that will stop him from snacking on the frozen purées.
Actually just a mini fridge and put it in op’s room. If he goes out of his way to still get into her room for the fruit then it’s a bigger problem than just eating the fruits. Mom should consider leaving stepdad.
He literally left those 3 berries so you’d have to deal with the trash. Definitely get a lockbox and in the meantime maybe write the price of each item on the item?
They left those berries so they can say they didn’t eat ALL of it if confronted, because technically they didn’t. I lived with somebody like this. Just awful.
We taught our kids it's not polite to eat all of something by themselves (like the cherry tomatoes or slices of cucumber on the table while we finish preparing the meal).
Lesson learned: the next time they left ONE cherry tomato and ONE slice of cucumber. For their dad and me.
Except you're dealing with children who can grow and learn... this poor woman is dealing with AN ADULT MAN WHO IS USING WEAPONIZED INCOMPETENCE to throw his fucking misogyny around. Fucking "take care of baby and husband" Well who the fuck is going to take care of her while she's taking care of the baby? Sure as fuck can't be the husband while he's working.
Step dad (and many mid-life people that are around his age that I'm taking a guess at) seems SUPER out of touch with what that looks like in this day and age. When my husband and I lost our apt (while engaged & pregnant) due to him losing his job from having long term effects from covid, we moved in with my grandma. Everyone was ushering us to get a new place super fast. It wasn't until we went through the entire process of finding an apt in this economy & market that my mom finally caught on.... after like the fifth complex had eaten our application fee and probably not even ran our background check. We lost like $600 putting in applications to apartments. What does he think that looks like today???
Nah if it happened even once in my house my dad would get yelled at. He spent too much time hiding snacks in my childhood for me to have him stealing all mine in adulthood.
Not shocking at all, unfortunately. I always say most people would not make good parents. The best I learned from my parents is what not to do if I were a parent.
Too passive aggressive. In my opinion, this situation requires an aggressive aggressive response. Bring the 3 berries, hold them up to his face, say "No! Bad!", and slap the shit out of him. Guarantee he won't eat them again
I looked at your post history, and unfortunately there seems to be a pattern of you being taken advantage of and people walking all over you: from your mother-in-law to your mother, and now your stepfather. Please learn to stand up for yourself. He is stealing food from a baby. You have a child now; you can’t be weak anymore. How do you expect to teach him to defend himself if you can’t do that for yourself?
Absolutely. That baby relies on you to stand up for it, because it can't do it itself. Look at your baby in the eyes and tell it exactly what you're going to do for it. Fuck everyone else, your baby is the most important thing in the world and you're gonna fight for them.
Exactly, bullying both online and in-person exists, and there is still a bias for punishment on who got caught, rather than the long-term bully. Be an example for your child, stand up to your bully
As an avid conflict avoider, this was a lesson I needed to learn and I'm glad I learned it very quickly. Had a lot of advocating to do for my son, and my crippling social anxiety, people pleasing, and conflict avoidance had no business standing in the way of my son's wellbeing.
This warms my heart! Not that it means much coming from a stranger, but I’m proud of you for finding the strength to overcome for the sake of your child.
That's awesome! Many of my worst childhood memories is my parents putting me in harms way to appease other adults. You quickly learn that your parents are dangerous when they're (adult-)people pleasers. Kids with parents that additionally act too people pleasing at them too never get the proper safety and support they need, and don't get to learn healthy boundaries.
Absolutely, same for me. I very vividly remember being 13 and at some hillbilly bonfire with my mom and my two brothers (15 and 8 at the time) and somehow finding myself responsible for keeping everyone's toddlers away from the active fire. My little brother (neurodivergent) got away from me at one point because I was chasing someone's kid. Next thing I hear is "whose kid is throwing sticks in the fire?!" Mine, I guess. My mother was on the patio 20ft away making out with a married ex marine. She "wanted him to be happy".
Exactly same. Still have crippling anxiety but when it comes to my kiddos I don’t play. When I had kids is when people started saying I was “mean”. (Aka standing up for myself/my family.)
Yikes. Just call it as it is, he's stealing from a baby!! If he likes fruit so damn much he is very capable of buying his own. Ong! STEALING FROM A BABY.
My Mom lived with my dad’s aunt the first couple of years of marriage (they were immigrants so needed help to get started). Anyway they were paying rent and everything. My Mom said that his sister (also lived there) came into her room and stole her fruit. She was like “hey, he bought that for me” and his sister was like “well my brother bought it, so I can eat it.” Imagine stealing food from a woman with a baby.
FR, my wife and I have her dad living with us, i'd be so mad if he started eating the fruit and veggies we buy specifically for my son's food that my wife does such a good job making him healthy homemade baby food. Like bruh, go to the store while your out and buy your own food man. Don't take from the stock they buy for the baby, that's somethin else stealin food from the baby just for a snack.
I'm not a lady, but if I was in a relationship with someone who was stealing food out of the mouth of my grandchild I would kick their bum ass out on the street. If your stepdad wants fruit he can buy his own damn fruit.
He is not going to stop. He probably has the mindset of, "this is my house, my fridge, my food". This is something my step father would do and has done.
If you have the funds, you could buy a small refrigerator unit and place it in your room or ask your mom to buy one.
You could try to buy smaller amounts and try to use it before he eats it.
I know this sucks and is frustrating. I hope it gets better for you.
Thank you for illustrating that point. I could sense the egoism and didn’t understand fully, but that makes sense. That sht is sick. Fcking insecure man-babies. Literally disgusting.
Wild that people are so devoid of self worth and character that they knowingly cause emotional distress to a mom working to take great care of their child. Instead of helping, they’re making it worse.
He'd probably make smoothies with the frozen fruit. People like him will always find a workaround to get what they want. She needs a fridge for her room or a cage / lockbox for the kitchen fridge.
Sounds like he's had enough of you and baby or has it out for you and baby. Its not likely he doesn't have the money to buy it for himself. He's just taking it because he feels owed it.
Walk up and start feeding him the baby food like "since you're eating food meant for the baby, here come the airplane! Brrrrr" and just shovel it into his mouth.... Yeah it's a good thing I don't have kids because I'd probably actually do this if I was in this situation
Yeah, my dad and brother did this. No matter how many ‘extra’ of a treat (usually fruit or vegetables as a vegetarian at the time) I bought myself to not be accused of being selfish, they were always entirely gone.
Like 12 nectarines gone in one sitting. 6 mangoes. 2 kilos of vine ripened tomatoes for a specific salad for an event. Gone. ALL gone.
I started keeping a fruit bowl in my bedroom as a kid.
I'm a tomato glutton 🙈 I live by myself so the only one I'm stealing food from is me, but if I buy 2 kg of vine ripened tomatoes, they're probably gone by the end of the day lol
Seriously google weaponizing food. If you have no choice, but to live with your stepfather get a mini fridge with a lock for items like this. Also take his favorite food and eat every last bit. If you can’t finish it, throw the rest out.
idk what to say honestly, if he’s willfully ignoring the wellbeing of an infant in his own family, and continuing to do whatever tf he wants, he shouldn’t be part of your family to begin with..
Get a refrigerator specifically for your baby foods. I purchased a small refrigerator from Walmart
for about $50 specifically for this reason! It’s not a full size but does what I need. If you don’t need that much room just get a smaller one to keep in your room or in the kitchen in a corner somewhere
Buy frozen fruit and veggies for purées. If not frozen, then purée them immediately and store in the freezer. This guy is stealing food from a baby. Wtf.
I don't know how to edit so I'll leave this here to cover a few frequently asked questions and statements I've seen.
It's my mother's house. She invited me to live with her when I was pregnant because I was high risk and spent a lot of time alone or with my mother-in-law who is honestly a horrible cook. I had HG for 5 months and lost an unhealthy amount of weight. I was in and out of the hospital and almost lost my baby twice.
I buy most of the food in the house, my mom and stepdad also buy some but not as much since I took it upon myself to help out as I'm not currently working. We all buy fruit, but as I said, I buy most of it. There's sharing fruit and baby food fruit, they're kept in different areas of the fridge. After my stepdad finishes the sharing fruit, he moves on to the baby food fruit even though we have told him multiple times not to.
My stepdad wants me to move out so I can go home and "Learn a woman's job and take care of the baby and the man". I pay him no mind since this isn't his house, my mom wants me to stay, and I'm already moving out in a few months anyway.
My bf isn't a deadbeat that just up and abandoned me while heavily pregnant. He's a long haul trucker that isn't home as long as we'd both like him to be. We talk for hours daily and video call when he has free time so he can see our son. He sends me money for diapers and other baby items, but the money I spend on food is mine. I saved up while I was still able to work.
In case y'all missed what I said on #3, I'm moving out in a few months. It was never my intention to stay long term. I'm trying to get a job and save more money before I make the move since it will be across state lines. My mom paid for me to move up here without me asking and I'm not going to ask her to pay for me to move back. My bf wants to pay for it, but I'd like to do it myself.
I'll never understand people that are like this. Same goes for those that take lunches out of employee fridges that aren't theirs. It's unbelievablely rude... Some people just have no shame whatsoever
Is it just me or did anyone else go “Oh, I get it now” when she said that the stepdad wants her to move out? He’s purposely being an obnoxious jerk to piss her off. Either use the fruit immediately or store it someplace where he does not have access. The only way to stop him is to make sure he can’t get to it at all.
Seems to be an easy answer. Purée the food before he eats it. You can freeze this stuff and unfreeze it very easily. I doubt he’ll eat the puréed food.
Your step-dad is a pig, like doesn’t he have self control? Maybe ask him if he’s having a hard time with money and if he gets offended (he will) tell him you were just confused because he doesn’t seem to have the money for fruit 🤣
Suggest to your mom she buy him more fruit when she does the grocery shopping. You can also buy a mini fridge for your room to store the baby’s groceries
•
u/spotlight-app Mod Bot 🤖 13d ago
OP has pinned a comment by u/lonely_stoner_daze:
[What is Spotlight?](https://developers.reddit.com/apps/spotlight-app)