Every young person needs space to try, fail, and learn, especially with skills like cooking.

But when one teen accidentally burned dinner, her father didn’t see a teachable moment; he saw a mistake that needed to be punished.

Read on for the full story.

AITA for not paying my dad back?

Yesterday I (16F) was left at home with my little brother (12M) by my parents (45F & 46M).

They had gone somewhere to get wood and tools to fix our pool deck and put me to the task of making dinner.

This was her first time doing it without supervision.

However, this was the first time I’ve made dinner where parental help was excluded.

Neither of my parents pick up when they’re away — Mom is driving so she won’t pick up if I call, and my dad just sucks at picking up the phone and only does so when he wants to.

She was nervous from the start that she was going to mess it up.

This was also a completely new dish to me that I was cooking. I’ve made other small meals before, but not this one.

I’d seen my mother make it multiple times before, as it is a box meal. I was making Hamburger Helper, which we hadn’t had in a long time. I’d only seen my mom make it like… five times in my lifetime.

From the get-go, she struggled with following the recipe.

The instructions were confusing to me because I had always thought my mom boiled the noodles in a different pot before adding them to the dish. I’m used to boiling the noodles separately and not into the meal— it confused me a lot.

I wasn’t sure what to do, so after 10 minutes of staring at the instructions, I thought I had a good grip on it. I put the cooked meat back into the pan, added the required ingredients, and then poured in the noodles.

But still, disaster struck.

I let it come to a boil and then let it sit… and somehow the dish burned.

Don’t ask me how, because I have no idea how. I thought I followed all the instructions correctly.

Her mother was disappointed, but understanding.

When my parents got home, my mom was understanding. She said, “You have a tendency to turn the heat up too high. You have to turn it down sometimes,” basically saying she’s done that once or twice as well when she was a teenager and that she understood it, but requested I work on it.

I told her I would.

Her father, though…

My father, however, wasn’t very nice.

“You burned dinner?! You must’ve been on your phone!!”

And today he is saying I wasted 3 pounds of meat and that I have to pay him back for burning dinner.

A part of me understands him slightly, but the other part disagrees completely…

AITA for not wanting to pay him back, or am I in the wrong?

Sounds like a cooking mishap like this could have happened to anyone.

What did Reddit think?

This father completely missed a teachable moment for his daughter.

If the father’s intention was to be a complete and utter jerk, then he nailed it!

She should have a safe space to practice her skills without the fear of getting yelled at.

It’s completely unfair for her parents to expect perfection.

No one’s perfect — especially in the kitchen.

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.