u/coppeliuseyes

You are only seeing and trying to address a single external symptom of what is a deeper, wider need. Trying to control what he eats, is only going to escalate the situation.

You've described a teenage boy who has so far in his teens shown two major hyperfixations. I am wondering if you look more closely, has there been a pattern of other, perhaps smaller or less noticeable fixations throughout that time?

You need to look at him as a whole person. What is his social media usage like? What is his real life social life like? Relationships? How does he interact with the family? What do you do together as a family? How have you, as a family, approached access to and attitudes towards food throughout his lifetime?

16 year old are going through a period of individualisation and a need to take control of their own lives and their own trajectories. They need to establish who they are outside of their family identity, they may switch from one extreme to another as they try to find themselves. They are unconsciously preparing themselves for independence and adulthood by taking control of whatever they can. They sometimes get it wrong, and it's our job as parents to support them in that.

If you give him an allowance, you can't control how he spends it. That's his money. He is beyond the age of "we decide what's on the menu, you choose how much to eat" when he has a level of financial independence. He is beyond the age of you controlling what he eats. If you cut his allowance and demand he eats what you cook, sure you might slightly curb the extreme spending on meat, but you're going to damage your relationship and his faith in you.

If you want to help him make better choices, you need to try to understand - without judgement - where these choices are coming from. Take a genuine interest in this passion of his. What are his goals exactly? Does he want to reach a certain weight? Be able to lift a certain weight? Does he have a competition he aspires to win? Where is his meal plan coming from? Who - if anyone - is his inspiration? What do they eat? What were they eating at 16?

Take a genuine interest in him and his goals and maybe you can help him to make better choices towards those goals. Maybe help him to budget his allowance for a reputable PT - they will expect him to eat vegetables.

If you come at this from a place of control and a mindset of "I'm the adult I make the rules" then you are only going to get resistance and make things worse.

When my daughter isn't grateful for the gifts she is given, she no longer gets the gift. That bike would be returned so fast, and tiktok would be gone.

I went through something similar, not quite to the extent you did, but my best friend basically ghosted me the second my daughter was born. I saw her once for an hour when she was 8 months old, and then she disappeared again. The people she used to complain about she was suddenly making loads of time for. And I comforted myself with the thought that maybe she just didn't like kids or know how to be around moms?

But then some of those friends she used to complain about started having babies. And she was showing up to their baby showers, going on zoo trips. I thought I had moved on from the friendship but this really hurt me.

Eventually I decided the bitterness wasn't serving me. A part of me wanted to confront her and ask her why she couldn't be there for me. But I knew it wasn't really worth the effort. The friendship wouldn't be saved and it would probably just hurt more. I removed her and those people from social media and threw my energy into the people that do support me. I still feel mildly annoyed when I think about her, but it's getting less and less each time.

I'm sorry you were betrayed like that. I'd suggest doing the same thing I did. Give yourself the space to feel your feelings, and then remove and move on.

I don't know what 3k and 4k are, it sounds American, but I think some kind of structured, group-based childcare where they are not their attachment figure's sole focus of attention is incredibly beneficial for their emotional and social development. That includes nannies.

Navigating peer relationships without a primary adult hovering over them, learning to regulate themselves when the adult can't drop everything to help them do just that (barring genuine emergencies), learning that different places have different rules and expectations and that your parents aren't the only people who set rules, learning how to be in a world they are not the centre of, are all important steps in a child's development.

I don't think these need to be academically-inclined settings. I sent my child to a forest school nursery where she spent most of her time watering plants, playing with nature, and using tools. But I do think young children benefit massively from well-designed group settings.

My parents are still alive, so I made my start in life without any inheritance. Parents helped out where they could and I was extremely grateful, but never expected it. I personally hope that by the time my parents pass they will have spent every penny living their lives to the fullest and have little left to leave.

There will be houses to inherit (assuming they don't need to sell them to pay for assisted living accommodation) but that's going to be a nightmare because I know at least one set of step-siblings are going to be arseholes about it. I intend to choose the path of least resistance even if that means the path of least inheritance.

All that is to say, I don't think inheritance is a given these days. Any child raised with compassion will not resent their parents for not being loaded.

Did you write this page?

Haha I feel like I used the words "respect" and "boundary" too many times for such a short comment.

No one is saying OP can't have rules or boundaries, but if your childcare provider (paid or not) isn't going to respect those boundaries you find another provider. You uphold the boundary by not giving someone the opportunity to disrespect them again. You can't complain that someone isn't respecting your boundaries if you're not even respecting them yourself.

Oh gosh there are hundreds. She has a ukelele that she used to call her "little lellow digdar" (little yellow guitar) and it broke my heart a little when she started referring to it as her ukelele. She can say pretty much everything correctly now, but she still calls her magnifying glass a "fagmine glass" and that's just what they're called in our house now. She has pronounced it correctly once, so I know she can, but I think in her heart of hearts it'll always be a fagmine glass.

Can I ask why you're worried about his height? Like, what specifically is worrying you? Are you worried he's not growing appropriately for his age? Or that he's going to be a short adult?

This poor baby is being abused. Whatever your local equivalent of CPS is needs to be called. To be so tiny and helpless and cornered by not 1 but 2 adults over 3 times his size and hit twice for a bodily function no child his age can control. Gosh that must be terrifying. That poor poor baby. He's been abandoned by his parents, only to be bullied by his informal carers. I can't even imagine.

To answer your question, no, toddlers can't be manipulative. They're not even aware other people have emotions, let alone know how to play on those emotions. And as for an appropriate way to handle the situation of a 1 year old pooping on the floor? You clean up the poop, and in a cheerful voice say "oh dear! Where did your diaper go? Come on sweetie let's get you cleaned up." And that's it. Nothing else to do.

I use the OGX clarifying shampoo, a solid hydrating conditioner and a keratin serum to wash. Squish in the Cantú curl cream then either plop or diffuse dry. I've tried multiple second day curl refreshers but none of them work. My hair is fine, I'm not sure on porosity or anything like that but I switched from a moisturising conditioner because it made my hair frizzier

INFO: what will you do based on the information she gives you? This family is toxic as hell, they bitch about partners, your bf's mom is poisoning him against you, he is trying to stop you from reaching out to your support network for help and advice about your relationship. These are major red flags and you still haven't left. So what, honestly, do you intend to do with the information this ex will give you? What are you hoping for?

Ragebait

I've reported this as a shit post because surely no one is THIS obtuse

If you're going to shitpost can you at least make it semi-readable?

Oh okay! Your "friend" is a very weird and shallow manchild and you are definitely NTA!

NTA. You didn't "nuke" your dad's family. There would have been no nuke to drop if he had have been an honest man instead of a lying scumbag.

I am so sorry that you had to suffer that rejection not once, but twice. I hope it comforts you to know, in some small way, that you at least didn't have to grow up living with a lying, aggressive man who destroys things belonging to the people he "loves" just so he can keep his dirty secrets.

You have done nothing wrong OP. Nothing at all. I am so sorry you've had to go through this.

Oh please, what a stretch. Accept your judgement. You are in the wrong.

I read this exact post almost word for word a couple of days ago. Few details changed, but it was the exact same situation. So loads of parents are stealing their 15yo daughter's gifts to give to their step-daughter, or this is fake.

It's so obvious that YTA that I have to wonder if this is ragebait