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The original was posted on /r/AmItheAsshole by /u/ImportanceWorldly270 on 2023-10-06 01:17:29.

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I (F59) have two sons, 30 and 21. The younger one is in the autistic spectrum. He is high functioning, but there are a few circumstances he has a hard time dealing with, and one of those is going alone in public, the other one is cooking, He cannot cook and he refuses to learn because he is afraid of using the stove.

Lately he has been toying with the idea of moving out and living as an independent adult. (For context, per my country’s law, my husband and I are his legal guardians, despite being 21, because he is disabled). Now I think he can handle most of the independent adult life, he has a remote job that pays well, and he is pretty good at keeping his space clean. But it worries me that he doesn’t cook and he can’t go out in public alone.

So, my husband and I told him he could move out with two conditions: he needed to learn how to cook, and he needed to learn how to go alone in public. That was a couple of weeks ago, we stopped cooking his meals and told him he needed to go alone everywhere he wanted to go. It’s not going well, he hasn’t even tried, he simply doordash everything or eats stuff that doesn’t require cooking on the stove, and avoids going out in public, he has been locked in his room since.

Now, my older son came for a visit this weekend. Apparently my younger son wanted to go to the zoo, but he knew his dad and I wouldn’t take him, so he called his brother. I told my older son not to take his brother to the zoo, if he wanted to be an independent adult he should be able to handle going to the zoo by himself.

My older son said we were being absurd, that his brother was not going to magically learn to go out in public alone, and then he took his brother to the zoo. When he dropped his brother back, we got into an argument over this. He said that by stopping taking him to places and cooking for him, I’m punishing his brother for suggesting he wanted to move out. I told him this is not a punishment, any independent adult needs to know how to cook and how to go out in public alone. He says he agrees but that we need to take baby steps here to help his brother be able to do these things, instead of just stopping doing it for him out of sudden.

I don’t think I’m being unreasonable here and my husband agrees, but my older son is acting as if we are assholes. So, reddit, AITA?