When you come across a lost kid, one of the easiest ways to keep them calm is to offer them something to eat. This lets you learn about their situation so that you can help.

That is what the young lady in this story did, and she gave the kid a snack she had with her.

Her mother, however, said that she should have bought the kid food instead of giving him something she had since it could give the kid the wrong idea.

Mom is being weird about this. Read through the full story and see what you think of how she handled this situation.

AITA: offering food instead of money for someone without cash?

For context, I’m (21F, yes my age is important) am currently in university.

It is great that she has people she can trust.

Since my classes end at 13:00 (1PM), I take the train home. It’s been my routine for 3 years now, and I’ve had no problems.

The same people have been working there and we have trust in each others, to the point where I can pay for something worth I don’t know 3 euros, I pay with 5 euros. and she will write on the paper and next day ill have 2 euros already paid on my food.

Let’s see what the issue is.

The problem started yesterday, and it took me a whole day to decide posting this because I genuinely have no idea if I’m on the wrong here.

My mom wanted to see some shops, so she came with me in the morning, and while I was in classes she was buying stuff. So far so good. When my class ended I called her and she met me so we could walk to the train station.

She brings food with her to school.

Since the train is only at 13:30, and the walk was 10 minutes, we sat down and waited. I usually bring food, like a sandwich or more often, a chocolate croissants (the ones inside a plastic wrapper).

While we were sitting, I saw a boy, he wasn’t older than 10, alone asking the lady of the cafeteria for a chocolate muffin. When the lady asked for the money, the boy was short in 4 euros.

It is great that she could help this kid.

I saw this and since I can’t pay with my card (the machine was broken) and I had already used my money to buy the ticket, I decided to offer the boy my croissant, and I showed him it was closed (aka I didn’t mess with it).

I asked him where his mom was, and I lead him to her. She was panicking and thanked me, and thanked me for giving him food, and even offered to pay me for it. I didn’t accept because well for started I brought it from home so I didn’t wasted any money.

If mom wanted it handled differently, she could have stepped in.

They went away, and when I came back to sit down (my mom was sat down the whole time), she got upset at me and kept pinching my leg, saying that I should have paid for it instead of giving food to an unknown person.

I told her I didn’t have any money with me and she said she has 10 euros. I got upset and said that, if she had money why didn’t SHE offered herself to pay for it??

This is a weird way to look at things.

She got mad and said AND I QUOTE:: “if you give free things you might give him the wrong idea”. At first I thought she mean like kidnapping, but NO she meant he might feel attracted to me…a 10 year old lost boy.

Now I know her idea is absolutely pathetic and wrong, but did I actually do something wrong? His mom was far away, as in I had to walk around and she was in the next station (its divided by rooms) and she had been apparently looking for him for 15minutes, her words. I just saw a boy hungry, and I wanted to help.

AITA?

She was just trying to help a kid in need. Mom is overthinking things. Even if her concern were valid, you can’t live your life not doing nice things for people because of how they might react.

Rad on and see what the people in the comments have to say about it

You can’t think of everything.

What if the kid had allergies.

This commenter makes a good point.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a woman who escalates her issue to the state when a third family is added to a shared neighborhood well.

Maybe mom has been traumatized in her past.

This commenter says that mom needs therapy.

Her mom is just being weird about it. She did the right thing.