People say being a parent is a gift.
But the act of parenting can be very stressful.
All children have different requirements and needs.
Children are not a monolith.
And parents have to learn to adapt quickly, or there can be tremendous fallout.
Redditor Notsogoodreason wanted to discuss her experience and get some feedback, so naturally, she came to the “Am I The A**hole” (AITA) subreddit.
She asked:
“AITA for letting him eat what he cooked?”
The Original Poster (OP) explained:
“Myself (35 F[emale]) and my spouse (38 M[ale]) are the parents of a 5-year-old N[euro]D[ivergent] kid.”
“My husband refuses to educate himself on that topic.”
“At the same time, he has recently admitted how much he hates my tendencies to micromanage everything.”
“I can understand that.”
“Though I am the only one constantly assessing and anticipating our daughter’s mental state in order to be able to regulate her nervous system and prevent avoidable meltdowns.”
“Yet, in order to save our relationship, I am learning to keep my mouth shut.”
“Today, our daughter returned home really overstimulated, so I let her draw and played some calm music to let her unwind.”
“Later, my husband decided to play a video game, but our daughter wanted his attention, therefore he chose to show her the game.”
“The game has a lot of visual and flashing effects.”
“And as always, he turned the volume up.”
“They were doing so for approx. an hour while I was tidying our daughter’s bedroom.”
“When he decided to quit the game, our five-year-old started being really dysregulated and difficult (having a hard time), and he could not get her to bathe.”
“That’s when he came to me to take over and… I decided to say no.”
“Is it malicious to let him deal with the consequences when he perceives my recommendations as nagging?”
The OP was left to wonder:
“AITA for keeping him responsible for his choices?”
Redditors shared their thoughts on this matter and weighed in on some options to the question, AITA:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
Many Redditors declared that OP was NOT the A**hole.
“NTA. Our therapist is adamant that I stop stepping in while my husband is parenting.”
“I do it for exactly the same reasons you do: husband isn’t educating himself, and the results can be escalating disregulation from both parties and meltdowns.”
“He (my husband and yours) needs to learn to adjust his parenting style to the kid’s needs.”
“Do not expect a perfectly behaved adult in a ND child’s body.” ~ orangeflos
“I’m in the same boat.”
“My husband seems to learn everything the hard way and tends to spiral into ‘who can act the worst,’ which is absolutely terrible, and I have to sort everything and everyone out.”
“His fight or flight gets activated, and the default is ‘burn it all to the ground and walk away.'”
“We’re all learning how to regulate our emotions.”
“My 5-year-old and husband are having the hardest time with it.”
“He definitely has undiagnosed A[ttention]-D[eficit]/H[yperactivity] D[isorder] and is in denial about it.”
“A 5-year-old is just a spoiled 8-year-old, and I seem to be the most self-aware.”
“I’m just sad 8 ends up being more like an adult than she should be.”
“It is a stress I had, and I want her to be a kid.”
“I just wish therapy were more affordable and less taboo in my husband’s culture 😮💨.” ~ Charming-Court-6582
“Also teaching important lessons to the selfish child in the adult man’s body.”
“Why are so many of these stories about men who cannot participate in couple life?”
“Can’t cook, can’t clean, can’t manage their lives or finances, can only look after children for brief periods.” ~ krodders
“NTA – your daughter’s behavior is a direct result of your husband’s choice to play that video game that loudly for that long with her.”
“You could have called it ahead of time, except that he says you micromanage him when you point out the future consequences of his actions.”
“I’d have a conversation with him later when everyone is calm and make the following points…”
“When I see you starting down a path that will result in Jane being overstimulated, do you want me to stop you or say something?”
“If you do, I need to know what counts as micromanaging or nagging you.”
“Whether you do or do not want me to intervene, you are Jane’s father and should know at this point what will trigger her and cause this.”
“You should also know at this point how to help her calm down, and it should not be my job to follow behind you and clean up the mess you make – especially when you say I’m nagging if I try to warn you.”
“All of this happened because Jane wanted to spend time with you and you chose to play a video game instead of talking/playing/reading/watching TV/whatever with her.” ~ DisneyBuckeye
“NTA. Your husband has refused to learn what makes your child dysregulated, how to calm her, how to parent a child with neurodivergence differently, etc.”
“Letting him deal with the consequences of his actions is the only way he is going to learn.”
“This isn’t ignorance.”
“It’s him actively working against you and then passing off the issues when his way doesn’t work.”
“If you don’t follow my advice, you don’t get my help when things go wrong.” ~ purplepeopletreater
“NTA, he needs to understand why you do what you do.”
“But also, at 5, I hope you’re starting to teach her techniques to self-regulate.”
“Obviously, at 5, they can’t do that much on their own, but you don’t want to be constantly managing forever.”
“I also have a neurodivergent kid, and it has taken a lot of effort and persistence, but they are 8 now and really showing growth in advocating for themself and better regulating their own needs.”
“It has freed me of a lot of constant worry and stress and also given them a lot of pride in their own ability.” ~ Various-Grape-6525
“NTA. The kid is half his, it’s his job to educate himself on what her specific needs are.”
“Or indeed, ANY parenting advice would tell him that high stimulation activities like that before bed aren’t suitable for any child, much less an ND one.”
“The only advice I’d offer is to tread carefully when/if he brings up how challenging bath time was.”
“Despite being in the wrong, I doubt the lesson will land with him if it comes from a place of ‘told you so’, even if you know that’s the case 😏.” ~ Excellent-Willow-981
“NTA. Is this real?”
“A parent who doesn’t work with their child’s abilities is actually a form of abuse and setting her up to fail.”
“WTF is wrong with him?”
“I’m sorry, but your husband sounds like a bigger child than your unregulated, neurospicy actual child, who is developing and needs help and guardrails.” ~ Comeback_321
“Definitely NTA.”
“It’s F[*ck] A{round] F[ind] O[ut] time!”
“I have two autistic grandsons (they, their two sisters, and their parents live with me), and their dad is the absolute worst when it comes to time management.”
“And if you remind him they need to be places, he gets really mad and says he doesn’t need to be micromanaged.”
“My daughter took the two girls out of town for a few days, so I’ve been stepping back and letting him take the lead on everything.”
“The boys were late to school this morning!”
“It is an A[pplied] B[ehavior] A[nalysis] therapy, so insurance is really anal retentive about being late.”
“But the only way that man is gonna understand how vital time and behavior management is would be for him to drop the ball a couple of times.” ~ PhotographNo7832
“NTA. I am a father, and a gamer myself.”
“He can do better than this.”
“There are a number of games and gaming experiences you can share with your child that won’t overstimulate a small child. “
“Age-appropriate content understanding is key.”
“You gotta build up to games your husband is likely to play, and a kid watching vs a kid playing are two different types of cognitive processes.”
“Gaming and gamifying tasks are a great way to help a neurodivergent kid develop, when approached properly (this was literally why MathBlasters was so effective).”
“Your husband can literally go from a lazy, non-present father into a paragon of your daughter’s development if he just opens up this can of worms.”
“Good luck getting him to see that.”
“In the short run, it’s a bit of work, but in the long term, your husband might gain a long-lasting rapport with his daughter, and also have a dedicated healer (depending on what games he’s playing).”
“Side note: for using a metaphor as the title, you are kind of an AH.” ~ thefaceinthepalm
“NTA, he is equally her parent.”
“He will become more efficient and engaged with practice.”
“I strongly recommend you plan for them to have long stretches of time alone, like a Dad-Daughter Saturday where they go out and do things or do home things together, just the two of them.”
“I think you’ll notice once he takes ownership of the role, he will be more present when you are together as a family as well, not automatically defaulting to you to parent.” ~ FairyCompetent
“NTA, I think your husband is in denial.”
“I think he’s one of those people who believe that if they pretend the problem doesn’t exist, somehow the problem will go away.”
“He refuses to learn and does things that have negative outcomes, because to do otherwise means he must first accept reality.”
“Accepting that reality is the exact thing he’s trying to avoid.” ~ Deep-Okra1461
“NTA. He wants to call it micromanaging when you warn him, then hand the fallout back to you when he overstimulates her, and that’s not parenting, that’s just making you the cleanup crew.”
“Honestly, he needed to sit in that moment and deal with it, because your daughter is 5, not a tiny, inconvenient roommate.” ~ babydollafter
Reddit is 1000% with you, OP.
It’s time for your husband to step up.
You can’t do this all alone.
And you can’t be expected to clean up his messes.
Stand firm.