Parents don’t always agree on what lessons their kids should take away from everyday life.

When one father’s son traded a little effort for a snack at a local convenience store, he thought it was perfectly fine, but his wife saw it as a dangerous precedent that could lead their son down the wrong path.

You’ll want to read on for this one.

AITAH for telling my wife my son did nothing wrong

My son and his friends (11–12 years) went to the dollar store. One of them has his own bank card, and they were trying to buy some chips.

His card kept getting declined because he didn’t have anything in there.

So the employee ended up making them a deal.

The cashier told them to put a few baskets of stuff away, and they could have the chips for free.

But not everyone saw this as a positive thing.

My wife went crazy over this, telling him that it’s basically stealing.

She said someone has to pay for those chips, and that it was wildly inappropriate in 2025 for a kid to do some work at a dollar store and get chips in return.

This father doesn’t understand what the big deal is all about.

Now my son is crying in his room, and my wife is mad at me because I told her that it was perfectly fine.

And now his wife’s mad at him.

She’s upset because I didn’t agree with her viewpoint and back her up.

I used to do the same thing at the local gas station 30 years ago.

So AITA here?

Sounds like these kids did exactly what the cashier told them to do.

What did Reddit have to say?

The kids may not have paid for the chips, but they earned them with their labor.

Apparently other gas station clerks have done the exact same thing.

Even if his son technically did nothing wrong, there still may be a good teaching moment here.

This user seems to think his wife is making a mountain out of a molehill.

Kids don’t learn by doing everything perfectly in life, so this mother could stand to be a little less rigid with her parenting.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.