I’ll be honest, mafia movies have utterly and permanently tainted the term “family business” for me. Every time I hear it I just assume it’s a euphemism for an enterprise that sells concrete shoes.

But of course, there are countless legitimate family-owned businesses in the world, including LOTS of restaurants. And we all know that even the closest families experience huge conflicts and tensions sometimes. So what happens when a bunch of money and property are thrown into that tension? Reddit user mozzaboy256 knows all about that.

He took to r/AITA to make his case:

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Pretty bad situation overall. But there are elements of chance and elements of choice here, as well as lots of people who may be at cross-purposes. Let’s see how the people of Reddit made sense of it.

1. OP would occasionally respond to comments with further clarifications on his mindset.

2. Family or not, the free market is not a polite place.

3. What good are ownership decisions that ignore ability?

4. The question of loyalties came up a lot.

5. But surely we’re not here to CREATE conflict?

6. How did anyone expect this to go?

7. A little communication goes a long way.

8. There’s a distinction to be made between what someone has the “right” to do and what’s actually right to do.

9. It’s not a great time to tell someone not to work to secure their future.

10. There are a lot of unanswered questions.

11. You don’t know what you’ve got ’till it’s gone.

12. Work smarter, not harder?

13. “You run a little hot but it is what it is.”

14. The consensus was fairly clear.

15. Maybe there’s hope for a better future to come from this.

Personally, I’m kind of glad my family doesn’t have anything like this going on that I need to be worried about. Thanksgivings can already be awkward enough.

But what do you think of all this?

Tell us your opinion in the comments.