In food competition, grandfather picks his own wife as winner over the grandkids: 'Weird' situation

A woman has taken to the Reddit page, known as "AITA" ("Am I the a--hole?"), to share a "weird" personal drama among family members after a fun food faceoff was not so much fun after all. 

Posting a question, the woman asked others if she was wrong "for calling out my father-in-law when he picked my MIL [mother-in-law] as the winner of a competition over my kids?"

The woman — going by the username "ScaleFlat338" — said on Thursday in her post that her in-laws held a "cooking decorating competition for the grandkids — my two daughters, [ages] 10 and 12, and my nieces, [ages] 12 and 13."

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She said that her mother-in-law also decorated "a cookie."

While the mother-in-law's cookie "was very impressive," the woman posting on Reddit said that she presumed her father-in-law "would pick one of the children as the winner."

A dessert-decorating contest in a family (not pictured) went a bit off the rails when a grandfather awarded his own wife, the kids' grandmother, the designation of "winner" of the contest — entitling her to a gift card. The mom of two of the kids pushed back against that decision. (iStock)

The prize, she said, "was a gift card," yet her father-in-law "picked my MIL as the winner."

The woman added, "I could see my girls were upset. [Then] my FIL called my younger daughter a bad sport."

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So, continued the woman, "I called my FIL out and told him it was weird to pick a grown woman over children and the kids really tried."

The father-in-law said it was all "just for fun, and I was being silly."

His response was that it was all "just for fun, and I was being silly."

At the end of it all, the mother-in-law "ended up feeling bad and said the kids could share the gift card."

While the mother-in-law's cookie "was very impressive," the woman posting her story said that she presumed her father-in-law "would pick one of the children as the winner." (iStock)

Now, the Reddit poster's husband "thinks I made a scene for no reason" and that the mother-in-law deserved the prize.

So, said the woman sharing her story, was she wrong for what she did?

More than 3,000 people reacted to the post in just a few hours, with more than 700 people posting comments about it.

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In the top ranked comment so far, which earned over 8,000 "upvotes," a poster wrote, "This is the most pathetic thing I think I've ever heard. A grown woman needed to beat a bunch of preteens?"

This commenter added, "MIL didn't specifically say, 'I'm not in the competition'? FIL didn't say, ‘This is just for kids’?"

"This is the most pathetic thing I think I've ever heard. A grown woman needed to beat a bunch of preteens?" wrote a commenter on Reddit. (iStock)

The person continued, "I mean, your daughters should learn to lose gracefully, yes. But I also think they should be empowered to call out obvious bulls---, such as ‘a man awarding his adult wife the prize in a fun competition for kids.’"

"You might want to keep an eye out for future weirdness."

Said the same commenter, "Are all your husband's family dynamics this badly screwed up? Because this is so bizarrely adrift of any normal grandparent/child interaction that I suspect it's the tip of a massively toxic iceberg."

Then came a warning to the woman who shared the family story.

"If your husband was brought up thinking this is normal and really believes his mother ‘deserved’ to win a cookie-decorating contest against her tween grandkids, you might want to keep an eye out for future weirdness."

"I'm all for teaching kids the value of losing gracefully, but that competition was far removed from fair sportsmanship," said one responder. (iStock)

Another responder summed it up as, "So your FIL and MIL hosted a fun competition for their grandkids, one of the adult hosts decided to join, shocker, was better than the kids — and then FIL decided to make a show out of how much better an adult is at decorating cookies than a kid."

This commenter went on, "Was that by any chance some weird lesson your MIL/FIL wanted to teach the kids?"

The person added, "I'm all for teaching kids the value of losing gracefully, but that competition was far removed from fair sportsmanship. If anything, you turned it into a lesson for your kids to call out BS when you see it."

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The same person noted, "There's a reason adults are generally not allowed in competitions aimed for kids."

Another person who weighed in on the drama online said, "They should have had a junior category. Now, they just basically bought themselves a present. Which is fine. But maybe don't do it when you have visitors."

"Subjective competitions in families, where someone chooses a winner, are not a great idea."

Fox News Digital reached out to a psychologist for insights. 

Kathy Nickerson, a California-based licensed clinical psychologist, told Fox News Digital about the drama, "I would ask the grandma and grandpa, ‘What do you want your grandkids to remember about this day? Do you want them to remember that they had a wonderful time decorating cookies with the family — or that Grandma is better than them?’"

"If we could go back in time," said one psychologist, "I would have encouraged [the mom] or her husband to talk to Grandma and Grandpa at the outset and say, 'Let's not do a competition.'" (iStock)

She added, "Subjective competitions in families, where someone subjectively chooses a winner, are not a great idea, in my opinion. More often than not, they end in hurt feelings and bad memories."

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Instead, she said, "have an objective competition. Run a race, play a card game — something where the winner is not chosen by a judge. And we should not have adults competing against kids, even when the kids are 10, 12, 13. How many adults do we see entering kids' soccer games and playing? How many adults enter grade-school spelling bees? How many adults compete against kids in an Easter egg hunt?"

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She said, "That is just not fair."

Nickerson said the mom in the situation "had every right" to "be upset" and that she's not in the wrong for feeling that way. 

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"If we could go back in time, I would have encouraged her (or her husband) to talk to Grandma and Grandpa at the outset and say, 'Let's not do a competition.'"

As far as how to treat the children in this scenario, Nickeron said, "Give them lots of love, and then talk to Grandma and Grandpa privately. Explain all of the above, and stress, 'Do you guys want to show you're superior, or do you want to be loved by these kids? If what you want is love and happy memories, you don't compete against them.'"