I am hosting the family for Christmas Eve and I have always done a cookie table instead of a dessert. Overall I love to bake and there are usually around 15 different types of cookies.
My son recently got married and I have a two step grandkids now. They are 8 and 10. They are allergic to peanuts, if it gets on their skin they fine but if they eat it they get a bad rash and swell up.
They don’t really listen to anyone and it has caused issue before. My plan for this year was to keep the cookies with peanut butter on one table and the other cookies on another. Evertthign was going to be labeled also. I wasn’t going to cook them at the same time either to avoid cross contamination.
I told my son the plan and he didn’t have an issue with it, he said he would talk to the kids. My dil called me up and wasn’t happy with the plan. She told me I can’t have anything with peanut butter at the event. I told her no becuase a lot of people like these cookies. I already made a few batches
He continued to argue and I told her to just watch the kids and at 8/10 they should know well enough not to eat what they are allergic too. She called me a dick over it and that I will be tempting them since they are cookies
My son contacted me after saying i should have more tact even if he agreed it should be fine. He said the kids already know not to eat their allergin and they don’t have issue at school with this
Edit: common questions I have seen
Yes the school allows nuts.
No, the kids don’t have an airborn reactions to nuts ( confused why people think this)
What type of swelling: their face gets red and their face is puffy. No they have never had their throat close ( she told me this when I first met them and asked about it)
Yes everything will be labeled
Cross contamination shouldn’t be a problem at all. I am cleaning between cookies and their allergie isn’t steong enough to be effected by that in the first place ( mom has never been worried about cross continuation anywhere, we have gone to many restaurants that serve peanuts and she never mentions it)
Didn’t even come up as a reason, she claimed I would be temping them
Are their nuts in their house: yes my son eats them…
The kids are old enough to know. They should be taught to always ask before eating foods. Your DIL is ridiculous.
NTA
Separate tables for the cookies is fine. The kids are old enough to know not to eat the cookies with peanut butter. Just went to a party and that’s what they did. The ones with nuts were labeled. Guess what no reactions and the kids were younger than your grandkids.
They’re separate and labeled. It’s not your fault the kids don’t listen or care.
Edit-Not searching comments to constantly respond.
I stand by my comment. According to post and edit it’s NOT a cross contamination concern. It’s more DILs kids might be tempted to eat the cookies. It’s not OPs problem if DIL can’t keep her kids from eating stuff they aren’t supposed to. They are old enough to know better. They aren’t toddlers.
OP made legitimate measures/offers to keep the cookies separate. Her son originally agreed they would work.
my 4 year old with multiple anaphylactic allergies would be fine with this set up. If they can’t stay safe with this, that’s bad parenting.
NTA. You don’t get to demand NO ONE gets to eat your kids’ allergen. If they can’t control themselves at age 8 and 10 the parents have failed.
Someone with an allergin
NTA
They will be fine, you have it on a separate table. They should know not to eat from that table or they will blow up like a balloon
They isn’t eat their allergin at school ( yes school will have peanut butter cookies). They know peanut butter hurts them
They will be okay, if it was a toddler that’s a different story but this is 8 and 10.
They are good
NTA, I think your plan and your expectations are pretty reasonable. If your DIL feels uncomfortable bringing her kids as a result of this, she doesn’t have to come. But expecting every party she ever goes to to be peanut-free is not reasonable in my eyes. It sounds like she wants the world to be ‘free of temptation’ which is silly. The kids obviously need to be taught to avoid foods with their allergens, and I agree with you that, especially with supervision, they are probably old enough to partake in this gathering safely. They will have to avoid / turn down some of the treats at the party, that’s it.
I think the separation of the cookies and the labeling are adequate measures for you to take, as the host of this event. You could take it one step further and have the cookies with nuts be in containers (paper boxes or tins) so that they are somewhat out of view and so someone has to be more intentional to take one, just to make it really obvious that if the kids eat them it won’t have been due to confusion, negligence (on your part), etc. but only through their own actions.
Your DIL is setting those kids up for a trip to the ER or worse because she refuses to parent them so that they are responsible about what they eat. SHE is the dick here.
They are certainly old enough to be responsible about what they eat and don’t eat.
While I don’t think you’re an AH I do think this could go wrong fast. If someone touches something and the kids get it on their hands and then eat a “safe” cookie it could be enough to cause a reaction.
INFO: Why not make the peanut butter cookies and wrap them up for people to take home and consume? Give out at the end of the night.
Compromise and give a stash of peanut butter cookies wrapped in gift bags to all of those people who can eat peanut butter as they leave.
i don’t understand why you’d still make peanut cookies if you now have children in your family allergic to peanut butter. it seems like it would be a lot easier for everyone to just use another ingredient or replace them with other cookies.
NTA if the allergy isn’t airborne based. If she isn’t teaching them to avoid their allergen at their ages they have bigger problems than your cookies. You could be accommodating and not make those cookies but I understand your thinking if they’re a favorite and it doesn’t make you an asshole
NTA. I dunno wtf is up with the commenters saying that you are in fact tempting children with their allergen.
At 8 years old, I knew what I was and wasn’t allergic to. I simply didn’t eat the stuff I wasn’t meant to.
If the kids eat cookies they know are basically poisonous to them, they’re no different from kids that eat paste tbh XD
Survival of the fittest, if a simple cookie you know would make you sick is tempting enough to risk eating.
Also fr, bad mom for not, you know, mothering her kids?
I have a cousin who’s allergic to eggs, nuts and a few other things. From the time he could talk he would politely ask “can I eat this because I’m allergic” to literally anything handed to him. This is a parenting issue. NTA