There’s no perfect formula for raising well-rounded kids, but too much structure can sometimes leave them spinning.

One future in-law took it upon herself to critique the family’s busy calendar, but her offhand remarks stirred up more chaos than clarity.

Read on for the full story!

AITA for snapping back at my brother’s fiancée for criticizing my parenting?

I (35f) have 3 children (10m, 8f, and 5m) with my husband (36m).

My younger brother (29m) is marrying “Piya” (27f) in May.

They’ve been dating for a few years.

The two traditionally have butted heads from time to time.

While we’ve never been close, we get along okay, although I’ve never loved how she often oversteps with my kids.

(e.g.: giving them dessert before dinner when my husband and I have said no, “joking” about how stuffy we are as parents, constantly referring to herself as “the cool aunt”, etc.).

She thinks Piya may be projecting her own experiences onto her family’s life.

Something important to note is that she works in fashion, which her parents often judge (comparing her to her siblings who have jobs that are considered much more “successful” in our community), so she has a bit of a complex about it.

Last night we were all having dinner at my parents’ place. The topic turned to my kids’ school/extracurriculars.

My older son plays soccer, piano, and does karate. My daughter does classical dance, art classes, and swimming. My younger son does classical singing and basketball.

They all have extra math classes once a week.

But Piya isn’t the only one projecting.

I regretted my parents not putting me in any activities when I was younger and don’t want my kids to feel the same.

My husband thinks it’ll teach them time management, and hopefully some of these hobbies stick (right now, they enjoy everything but this could change), boosting their college applications when that time comes.

And obviously, we expect them to excel in school.

All 3 can do well in their classes without effort, but we don’t want them to coast by and burn out like we did, so we are firm on them actually studying, doing homework, etc.

So one day Piya says something that really gets under this mother’s skin.

So anyway, my daughter is talking about which classes she has which day, and Piya says something like, “Wow, I can’t believe you keep them so busy. They’re just kids.”

My husband is like, “Yeah, it’s important to be well-rounded.”

Then later, my son is talking about how much he studied for a math test, and Piya goes, “It can’t have been that important though, you’re 10! You should tell your parents to let you relax.”

So she fires back, but may have overshot it a bit.

At this point, I get a little ticked, so I’m like, “We want them to build good habits so that they can actually be successful in the future. When you have kids, if you want to raise them to fail, that’s up to you.”

At this, she got really upset and left the room.

I guess she thought I was implying that she was a failure (which was not my intention).

Now the rest of the family has been dragged into the drama.

My brother was pretty mad and thought I was being unnecessarily harsh and that I should’ve known how sensitive she is about this topic.

My parents agreed, saying that I didn’t need to take what she said so seriously.

My husband disagrees and says that she doesn’t have any place to tell us how to raise our kids, and maybe this will stop her from constantly giving us her two cents on something she doesn’t have any experience with.

She feels badly for hurting Piya, but in her mind, she kinda deserved it.

I don’t know, I feel bad for upsetting her because I never meant to insult her profession with my comment.

But at the same time, I do kind of feel like she had it coming for her constant criticisms of our parenting.

AITA?

Parenting is hard enough without outside opinions, but maybe Piya has a point.

What did Reddit think?

This commenter thinks the situation goes much deeper than this mom is willing to admit.

It’s okay to have regrets, but it’s how you handle them that really matters.

She knew how much her comment would sting and chose to say it anyway.

She could also use a big reminder that success comes in many different forms.

No one should be expected to do it all — especially a kid!

If you liked this post, you might want to read this story about a teacher who taught the school’s administration a lesson after they made a sick kid take a final exam.