Blended families are beautiful.

Two people coming together in love, and uniting their children under one roof?

What could be better than that?

What they can also be, though, is chaotic.

And the dad in this story has found that out the hard way.

Read on to find out how his attempts at equality between the kids was labelled favoritism by his wife, and how he reacted.

AITA for buying my daughter a bag of chips?

I’m a parent in a blended family that moved into my (slightly too small for us all) house last year.

There is of course friction, and I’m not always perfect, but this one has me second guessing myself.

My daughter has a specific type of potato chip she likes.

She’s picky and it’s annoying, but really that’s probably irrelevant.

Anyhow a few months ago I went to the grocery store, and among several other bags of chips, I bought a family sized bag of those.

Let’s see how this nice gesture took a turn for the worse.

Her step brother ate it in one sitting that night.

He’s a teenage boy. He’s not fat.

I don’t really have a major problem with that.

But then my daughter had nothing she liked, while he proceeded to devour another type of chip the next day.

Annoying, but no big deal.

Read on to find out how he facilitated the issue.

Next week I got two bags of those chips. Well, then the two bags were gone in two days.

Third week I got two bags and told my daughter to keep one in her room.

This has pretty much been the state of affairs ever since.

But this solution caused even more problems.

Well, my spouse found out my daughter was keeping special food in her room, and I said “yeah I told her to” and she got really really mad at me.

She said that I was treating her kids as lesser, and that I wasn’t making this their home too, and a bunch of other things.

I honestly try to see her viewpoint but I just don’t here.

Let’s see how he is interpreting the situation.

I didn’t tell the boy to stay out of my daughter’s stuff, or take it away from him.

I tried to sidestep the friction altogether.

I didn’t take anything away, I just bought twice as much and let her keep half as her own.

I feel like the only other options are to either to put $70 of potato chips into my weekly budget, or to tell my daughter to deal with having nothing.

Both those options suck.

AITA?

It’s one thing hiding treats away for your kid, but it’s another thing encouraging her to keep something that was purchased for her aside for herself.

This dad is doing his best in tricky circumstances.

Let’s see what folks over on Reddit thought about this.

This person knew from experience that he was doing the right thing.

While others suggested tighter rules were in order.

And others suggested boundaries to make this blended family blend a little better.

It might look like favoritism, but what this dad is actually doing is making sure that the kids get their own fair share.

The kids are entitled to a bag of chips each, and by encouraging the daughter to take hers to her room, she doesn’t have to eat them on her step-brother’s ravenous schedule.

He’s doing the right thing.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check this one out about a man who created a points system for his inheritance, and a family friend ends up getting almost all of it.