'She kept glaring at me while I was cooking': 16-year-old refuses to make breakfast for her 11-year-old sister who constantly disrespects her, mom who refuses to discipline the bratty daughter punishes the teenage daughter

Author image for Emmy Pratt
Emmy Pratt • Writer and Editor
Feb 11, 2025 8:00 PM EST

As a parent, it can be tricky to distinguish routine sibling squabbling from unseemly behavior that requires adult intervention. My sister and I would fight like cats and dogs when we were kids, but our conflicts rarely escalated to the point where our parents needed to punish one or both of us. "Stop going into my closet and borrowing my clothes without asking" is a pretty low-stakes debate that kids should learn to work through on their own. 

There's a difference between conflicts that don't have a clear answer and one sibling constantly putting the other sibling down. It's the parent's job to help maintain standards for behavior in their house. If one kid can say whatever they want about the other kid without any consequences, it will have highly detrimental consequences for both of them in the future. Nothing good comes out of being the tormentor or the tormented. 

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  • The 16-year-old in this story had enough of being the tormented kid. After her demanding and cruel 11-year-old sister asked her to make her breakfast, she refused. This action enraged their mother, who constantly brushed the younger sister's lousy behavior under the rug and made her teenage daughter deal with it herself. 

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    welcome to our beautiful chaos
    via Abbey Houston

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • 02

    AITA for making food for everyone but my younger sister?

    I (F16) have a younger sister (F11) with a very strong personality. She often speaks without thinking which causes us to bump heads. She's said that I smell, that my breath stinks, that I'm a goody-two-shoes, and other stuff that really hurts my feelings. Often when called out she just says "It just slipped out," or "I didn't mean it like that,"
    via u/Purple-Fun-3077
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    She gets upset when asked to do things she doesn't want to do and rolls her eyes, mumbles under her breath, or ignores people to voice her displeasure. I've asked her a question or spoken to her and gotten completely ignored until my mother tells her to respond. Or I'll
    via u/Purple-Fun-3077
  • 04
    ask her to do something for me like put my clothes in with hers and she'll refuse. Obviously she doesn't HAVE to do this, but if she's doing it anyway and I've done the same for her it would be nice, you know?
    via u/Purple-Fun-3077
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    What gets me the most, though, is that she's the first one to ask for someone to do something for her, buy her something, or give her something. But she always behaves like having to do anything for anyone else is the worst inconvenience in the history of ever.
    via u/Purple-Fun-3077
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    Cheezburger Image 10466887936
    via Andrej Lišakov (Unsplash+)

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

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    Don't get me wrong, I've tried calmly explaining why it's hurtful over text and in person. I've yelled and argued, but she's always got a laundry list of excuses. I said, "I can't win with you" and she said, "So why do you keep trying if you know you aren't going to win?" in this really
    via u/Purple-Fun-3077
  • 08
    snarky tone. I've told my mom, too, but she just said that you can't force people to change, which is valid, but I don't think it's fair for me to be disrespected because that's just how she is.
    via u/Purple-Fun-3077
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    Cheezburger Image 10466886144
    via LinkedIn Sales Solutions

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

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    Today, I was making breakfast for myself. There are babies in the house (not my siblings, but we're staying with a family friend until we can find our own place), so our host asked me to make them some too. I did, and my sister said, "I want some. Can you make me some?" I told her no, but that she had two working legs and was more than welcome to make some herself.
    via u/Purple-Fun-3077
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    My mom said that I'd better make everyone some food while I'm making some for myself, and I said I'm more than happy to make anyone food that wants some, but I'm not making any for my sister because I don't do things for people that disrespect me. She rolled her eyes at me and
    via u/Purple-Fun-3077
  • 12
    was clearly very upset that I didn't make her any food, but I ignored her and made everyone else's plate and sat down to eat mine. She kept glaring at me while I was cooking, and now I'm wondering if I was a little too harsh on her and shouldn't have excluded her like that. So, AITA for making everyone food but my younger sister?
    via u/Purple-Fun-3077
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    EDIT because I feel it's important: She doesn't JUST disrespect me. She rarely listens to my mother and kinda just does whatever she wants to do. It's well known that she's hard headed.
    via u/Purple-Fun-3077
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    EDIT 2: My mom agreed with me not making anything for her. After I told her I wasn't doing things for disrespectful people, she nodded and said, "That's valid".
    via u/Purple-Fun-3077
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    EDIT 3: Because people are asking, our father passed away 7 years ago. He was very active and involved in our lives.
    via u/Purple-Fun-3077
  • 16
    sp4rk1ejumpropequeen NTA, your sister is 11, and she doesn't have an excuse to act like a brat toward you, especially if you have done things for her in the past, she obviously doesn't understand right from wrong and i guess that understandable because shes a child but still. i think your parents should've taught her better. while it would've been mature of you to make her breakfast, i can see why you didn't.
    via u/sp4rk1ejumpropequeen
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    HotCrossed MomJokes It's frustrating when parents don't address bad behavior. Your sister needs to learn about respect and consequences. Hopefully, this experience will teach her that actions have reactions, especially with family dynamics.
    via u/HotCrossedMomJokes
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    Crooked-Bird-20 I hope so too. The mom is falling down on the job here. "You can't force people to change"? You CAN force an 11-year-old to change, especially when they're your kid (which makes it HER JOB), and especially when what needs changing is simple bratty behavior. You do it by enforcing negative consequences for the behavior, whatever they may be (and there are plenty of options!!*) That's not changing a child's inner nature. It's just changing a child's perception that they're more imp
    via u/Crooked-Bird-20
  • 19
    It seems to me like (much of) society decided spanking was ab ive and a huge subset of parents just threw up their hands and went "Oh, I guess we're not supposed to punish kids anymore!" and started creating monsters. There are options. Speaking sharply to the kid is the first one. Speaking more sharply and at more length can be a good second one. The Look can be used with these early options as well. Sustained, insistent eye contact (like telling the kid to do the thing, or stop doing the thing
    via u/Crooked-Bird-20
  • 20
    perfectly appropriate to pick up a small kid every now and then and take them somewhere (like, say, the car) they've refused to go; that's not violence. After these options, it's mostly removing privileges. That's not mean either as long as they're actually privileges and the response is proportional to whatever the kid did. This is actually what OP did in the post!! Having your sister cook for you is a privilege, if you diss her all the time you're pretty likely to lose that, just like you'll l
    via u/Crooked-Bird-20
  • 21
    StAlvis NTA My mom said that I'd better make everyone some food while I'm making some for myself "No thanks, but feel free to step up and act like a parent and do it yourself."
    via u/StAlvis
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    sissyjones I don't understand how some parents just mentally check out from parenting. That child is 11 years old and treats her whole family like trash and the mom just nods along. What the h_l?!
    via u/sissyjones
  • 23
    radialomens 11 is way too young for mom to act like there's no changing her. That's her job as a parent. "That's our son, in a diaper and can't read, just like the day he was born. No sense trying to change a person."
    via u/radialomens
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    pessimist_kitty Mom said "you can't force people to change" but that's literally her job as a parent. To teach your kids to be better people
    via u/pessimist_kitty
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    shikakaaaaaaa Completely ignore your feral sister until she comes around, if ever. If your mom complains you are ignoring feral sister then you tell your mom that she refuses to teach feral daughter that there are repercussions to behaving so poorly and that is her choice but you will for sure be teaching feral sister that there are repercussions to behaving poorly with you. And tell your mom she is right and that "you can't force people to change" but you for sure can force yourself to change a
    via u/shikakaaaaaaa
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    BayAreaPupMom 11 is old enough to know how to be a contributing member of the household. Your sister appears to experience no consequences for not following through. At her age, she is not necessarily old enough to remember unprompted or without occasional reminders, but if asked to do a simple chore or task, there shouldn't be so much drama. This example is probably the first time she's had an actual consequence to her behavior. I suggest it not be the last example of a consequence. NTA
    via u/BayAreaPupMom
  • 27
    CmdrHoratio Novastar Man, your little sister's in her annoying little shphase, which will not last forever, just the next 10 years or so. Jokes aside, NTA, because while she's just a kid, she has to learn how to behave and mind her manners. It's your parents' job to teach her those, though.
    via u/CmdrHoratioNovastar

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family drama breakfast cooking kids sibling rivalry sisters teenagers siblings bad parenting bad parents parenting raising teens sibling sister little sister family
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