A Dad Is Fuming Over Having to Care for His Sick Child at Night & Reddit Is Actually On His Side
A couple is clashing over nighttime parenting duties and Reddit has chosen sides. The mom took to the “AITA” forum to share their story, beginning with the background that both parents work full-time — but with slightly different schedules. She tends to work weekends, with one day off during the week.
“For September and October I will probably work 2-3 weekends each month,” she wrote. “I know this puts a lot of extra childcare on my husband and he’s let me know numerous times that he doesn’t like this aspect of my job because it limits his free time so much. When I have to work weekends I take a day off during the week, but I use that day for errands and housework.”
This past weekend, she got off of work exhausted. She had the day off the next day and, after getting their son ready for bed, the mom crashed at 8:30pm. At around 2am, she was awoken by their son’s coughing. It turned out that he had a light fever and she struggled to get him back to sleep. So, she woke her husband up. “[I] told him he needs to get up and help with our son because he won’t go back to sleep and I have zero energy,” she explained. “He grumbled about it a little, but he did get up so I could get some more rest.”
The next morning, her husband told her he was upset. “He said I knew I had today off and I could have done more to help with our son so that he didn’t have to stay up with him all night and then go to work. I told him he could take the day off and we could all stay home together and he reminded me that he has clients flying in from out of state that he’s meeting with today.”
She felt bad, but also was torn because she too felt exhausted after having to work during the weekend. “Of course, [our son] fell asleep pretty much as soon as my husband left for work,” the Reddit user wrote. “I texted my husband that he finally got to sleep and he replied ‘Why the hell would you even tell me that? But at least you 2 can get some rest now.’ He hasn’t replied to any of my other texts.”
This is a tricky one. While, yes, it would have been considerate for the mom to have taken into account that she would be able to sleep in that morning and he wouldn’t, his response feels pretty snappy. Maybe she could have been more thoughtful with waking him up in the middle of the night and maybe he could have approached his frustration in a different way.
Reddit has pretty overwhelmingly taken the dad’s side in this situation. “100% YTA,” one user wrote. “If you have a sick kid that can’t sleep at night, AND you have the following day off, you should have been the one to stay up with the kid, not your husband especially when you knew he also has to go to work. If you slept on the couch with your son while he watched TV during the night, and your son was tired and didn’t go to bed till the morning, you could have slept in during the day while your husband worked.”
Others reinforced that it was definitely not necessary for her to have sent him that text the next morning. “Your husband is right, why in the world would you text him that your kid went to bed as soon as he left? Were you trying to make him feel worse? Yikes. You owe him a big apology imo.”
Still, there were a few people who stepped in and took the mom’s side. “Unpopular opinion, NTA. It sounds like both parents work full time. On mom’s days off she does chores all day. OP mentioned that dad’s days off are for ‘free time.’ Everyone is siding with dad because she had the day off the next day but mom doesn’t get any days off. If he had an important work thing he could have mentioned it to OP, at that point she could have taken over.”
Another added: “In a closed conversation with no other info yeah, she should have stayed up, but wtf dude…Seriously OP: When DO you get time off for yourself?”
What do you think? Are you taking anyone’s side here?
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