I wish I could attach a photo, but my grandma had a gate installed blocking the kitchen off from the rest of the house. This isn’t just any gate, it’s floor to ceiling. It’s under lock and key and only my grandma has the key. A little backstory.. My grandpa is 80, and not in great health. He’s had a sweet tooth my whole life. Ice cream, cookies, popsicles, you name it. He’s in the situation he’s in health wise because of himself, I get that, but to lock him out of his own kitchen just seems so fucked. The man’s 80, been retired 20 years, and deserves all the sweets he wants. I feel like I need to break him out. Literally feels like he’s jailed.. I hate it
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I wish I could attach a photo, but my grandma had a gate installed blocking the kitchen off from the rest of the house. This isn’t just any gate, it’s floor to ceiling. It’s under lock and key and only my grandma has the key. A little backstory.. My grandpa is 80, and not in great health. He’s had a sweet tooth my whole life. Ice cream, cookies, popsicles, you name it. He’s in the situation he’s in health wise because of himself, I get that, but to lock him out of his own kitchen just seems so fucked. The man’s 80, been retired 20 years, and deserves all the sweets he wants. I feel like I need to break him out. Literally feels like he’s jailed.. I hate it
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NTA. Honestly, the man has lived his life. It isn’t about longevity or quantity of life but quality. Let him eat sweets!
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> I told my grandma she was being cruel to my grandpa. I feel as if she’ll see me as an asshole for the comment I made, but I feel justified
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Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.
I’m going to be honest with you. Soft YTA.
A decision like this is made to improve and extend quality of life. In all likelihood, he’s been warned by doctors for years, and he’s continued to ignore the warnings. This is being done from a place of love. You may not understand today, but you will someday.
Not your house? Not your rules. Consider carefully if you’d prefer your grandfather to eat himself into a health crisis and be dead now, or deal with not being in the kitchen and be dead later.
Info: WHY do they need to keep him away from sweets?
INFO: is he dying (like given less than a year to live) or just elderly?
What kind of health issues does your grandpa have?
One day, if you are lucky enough to live long enough, you will understand
Do you want your grandpa to lose his feet, legs, or perhaps his dick?
SOFT YTA . It’s easy to say “let him enjoy life” when you’re not the one watching him slowly wreck his health, sometimes love means enforcing hard boundaries
YTA. You are not in charge here. Are you a doctor? Do you specialize in issues with the elderly? You may not be aware of a shit load of reasons why gramps can’t gorge on garbage junk food. Is he diabetic? Have food issues? Problems with overeating causing stomach distress? Choking issues? Issues with medication? Is he starting to show signs of dementia?
There may be a dozen reasons why they lock the kitchen. If he isn’t starving, then MYOB.
INFO: what are you, 12?
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INFO: are your grandpa’s health issues making life worse for grandpa or are they making life worse for grandma, too? Like, is he immobile?
ESH.
Op I get it I felt the same way when my grandpa had to stop driving. My family refused to fix his car. I let him drive me somewhere in my car and he stopped in the middle of a large intersection to turn left. he just expected everyone else to stop and wait for us almost getting us T-boned by a semi.
One of the scariest moments of my life.
Now I watch my dad get older and he literally reversed on the highway because he missed an exit. I understand the decision they made with my grandpa all those years ago.
On the flip side grandma could find a better way to stop him from the sweets. Just a thought she can stop buying them?
YTA. Sometimes we have to do what’s best for our loved ones. It may seem
Cruel but it’s making his life better. You’re very young and have probably never been a caregiver of an elderly person. Just lay off grandma. She’s doing best she can.
I think we need more info- does grandpa have dementia or diabetes? Has he had doctors telling him for years to avoid certain foods for his health? Is he at risk of causing himself harm by his actions?
The man is 80. Let him eat cake, but real this time.
He’s 80. Let him live and if he eats himself to death via sweets, so be it.
INFO how does your grandpa feel about this arrangement?
ESH I don’t think that you’re wrong that it’s cruel and dehumanizing, and I wonder why you would even bring sweets and things into the house, knowing that someone who lives there can’t control themselves and will ignore their own health in favour of getting their treat.
However, again, if your Grandpa won’t control himself and is happy to ignore his own health, I’m not surprised the people around him want to stop him putting himself back in hospital. I can’t imagine how terrible it is to watch the person you love ignore everything but their own greed and try to eat themselves into an early grave.
YTA. You didn’t include your age, which is telling.
INFO. If it’s just to make him eat healthy, then yeah, that’s controlling. But there might be more going on here than you know. For example, if he has dementia, some folks can’t be in the kitchen unsupervised because they’ll burn the house down.
It’s honestly not your business, OP. Your grandmother is trying to keep your grandfather alive and well as best she can so she can have him in her life as long as possible.
Because this is AITA, I have to deem something, and I deem YTA.
…..I think everyone should eat cake when they want to. But for some people sugar is an addiction and could lead to an early death. I would like to have an alive grandfather and it seems like your grandmother does too. If this was an alcohol cabinet you wouldn’t be on reddit saying how badly you want to break him out and bring him a drink. Maybe instead of breaking him out, you find some good sugarless sweets for him to consume? So very gently, but YTA.
It might not just be access to sweet things that’s the issue. How is he with using the stove?
Your gramps has an eating disorder. He’s eating food that hurts him even though it is killing him. Your grandmother is trying to keep him from killing himself. If your grandfather was this upset about it he would leave her. If he doesn’t have the mental capacity to leave her then she is protecting someone with diminished mental capacity from killing themselves.
This isn’t like she’s doing it to a kid that has no free will. She’s either doing it too a full grown man who can stand up for himself off killings himself with god is that important to him or she’s protecting someone she loves who is in a state of cognitive decline.
The gate probably doesn’t feel good. Why don’t you go talk to your grandma and tell her you’re concerned about the negative emotional effects of the gate and come up with other options that don’t feel so horrid. Not keeping sweets in the house at all or putting them in a single cabinet that has a lock. Keeping him fully out of the kitchen isn’t the greatest so offer help her come up with a solution.