Redditor AdditionFamiliar655 is a new mom and discovered she doesn’t like how her husband parents.
An unsettling discovery about the Original Poster’s (OP’s) husband’s parenting style drove the OP to some extremes which led her to the subReddit “Am I the A**hole?” (AITA).
Here she asked:
“AITA for ‘kidnapping’ my baby, causing my husband to have a panic attack?”
She went on to explain.
“I [29-year-old female] recently started working again after having my daughter [4 months]. Daycare is too expensive so my husband [35-year-old male] reluctantly agreed to stay home.”
“It’s important to know that he’s been unemployed since 2021. He receives benefits. It’s also important to know that he’s extremely lazy. He doesn’t cook, clean, or help out in any way.”
“I was nervous about leaving her home with her father but I had no choice. When I came back from work she was clean, and sleeping.”
“The next few times I came home he was either playing with her, feeding her, or out for a walk with her. I was happy.”
“A few days ago my neighbor told me that as soon as I leave the baby cries and she cries for hours. My neighbor said that she knocked on our door and he finally answered it. He was sleeping.”
“I concluded that he sleeps all day and right before I come home he pretends to care for her.”
“I decided to take the day off of work, i left home at my regular time. Waited 30 minutes and then went home.”
“Sure enough he was knocked out sleep with his stupid noise cancelling headphones on.”
“I went to my daughters room, scooped her up and took her to my friends house. I waited about 2hours and I finally called him to tell him that I was coming home early.”
“He called me back saying that he can’t find the baby. He told me that he was going to call the police but before he did I told him what I did.”
“He called me an a**hole and a lot of other words too. When I got home his mother was there “calming his nerves” because he has a panic attack.”
“She also called me an a**hole. My husband decided to sleep at her house.”
“Family members are telling me that I’m a terrible person. I know that it was extreme but I don’t know if I would consider myself to be an a**hole”
“*English isn’t my native language sorry about the grammar”
Redditors weighed in by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
- NAH – No A**holes Here
Redditors decided NTA.
“Sleeping with noise cancelling headphones as the only adult in the home caring for a 4M old?! Absolutely NTA” – Dense-Passion-2729
“NTA”
“He is not an appropriate caretaker for your child and if I were you I’d be reconsidering the relationship completely” – CrystalQueen3000
“Someone could have actually kidnapped your child. Or she could have got sick or choked or needed a nappy change.”
“He is neglecting your child. I cannot believe his mom (her grandmother) hasn’t torn him a new one over this.”
“Find a good childcare and leave him. I do not encourage divorce usually but I’m not sure I could ever trust that man again. Ditto his mom. NTA” – Heraonolympia123
“NTA also consider divorce – unemployed and won’t even look after his own kid? This guy’s a leech, you deserve better” – blue-nicorn
“This has nothing to do with whether or not you are the a**hole, but you are absolutely not, and the things that should come to your husband will get me banned for stating.”
“She is 4 months old, this is child abuse. Please leave him and get the two of you somewhere safe.” – AprilL4163
“NTA- maybe a little rough approach BUT to not take care of baby is not just neglect but really abuse.”
“In this age it is really important to have good caregiver. It is dangerous- not just psychologicaly but also physically.”
“Babies f.e. are more prone to dehydratation and it is shortcut to death in this age.” – ikar9
“NTA, but just FYI, this isn’t just a leave your husband because he sucks. You need to leave him before you loose your child. Neglect is abuse.”
“Your neighbor was nice and called you instead of CPS. But if you stay with your husband they can take your child from you as well.” – mandytheratmom
“NTA. Tell him to stay at his mother’s house. Your baby would get more attention at daycare.” – Screamingbobcats
“NTA and you’re lucky that your neighbour hasn’t called social on you. He is leaving your baby in her bed to scream, thinking that noone is coming for hours!”
“Chuck all his stuff out and him. He isn’t even changing her or feeding her He is sleeping while she screams her heart out. This is neglect and child abuse.”
“Just imagine how bad it is if your neighbour has had to go and check to see if the baby is OK Cos she is crying for so long.”
“Imagine what else he is doing when he is fed up ahe is crying so much….”
“I’d be taking her to gwt checked for other signs of abuse if I was you.” – VelvetMoMo
”You need to read that back like it was your daughter posting about her husband in a few years time…. what will you tell her??”
“You will tell her she has saddled herself with a c*cklodging loser and she deserves better. You you need to leave him, he will not change, he is useless, he will make promises, they are lies.”
“You had to stage a kidnapping of your own child to prove a point ffs. Come on, you and your daughter deserve so much better” – Rainbowbright31
“NTA.”
“So you managed to get inside the house and grab your child and he never noticed you?”
“What if something happened to your kid while he had his noise cancelling headphones?!” – ElderberryOwn666
“Holy sh*t. There may have been a better way to handle this but NTA. I would be LIVID and I don’t think this is something I would recover from.”
“You have two children under your roof. Ugh. I’m so sorry.” – lbeedoubleu
“Totally NTA. Come on, just knocked down asleep, with phones? Wth? Its on purpose, letting the kid cry loud enough so the neighbor listens to it.”
“My daughter is also 4 months, and if it was with me, I would do the same or even worse.”
“If the family says anything, be truthful, tell them he deserved it, cause as soon as you go out, he sleeps and let the kid cry untill he feel like waking and pretending to you how great he is.”
“And even if they say you are ah, never mind. You are correct, we protect our kids, and sometimes, actions like this are necessary.”
“Maybe time to think about the relationship, and put him to work in the house, cleaning and even, maybe, installing some cameras.” – Ydnam_Mandy
“NTA at all”
“He’s only acting snotty because he knows you caught him out.”
“For those blaming OP in the comments for having a baby/not MaKiNG SuRe her grown-a** deadbeat husband was ready to care for a baby-”
“Accidental pregnancies happen, believe it or not, and it may have been the case here. Regardless, the circumstances of the baby’s conception DO NOT MATTER!”
“Why the HELL is the mental load of making sure her “husband” is capable of being an adult, being thrown on OP?”
“He’s a grown man, he should have basic common sense not to wear noise cancelling earphones when he is the sole carer for an infant at that time.”
“Why on EARTH is OP being shamed for HIS being an utter failure of a father? Someone has to work, because he doesn’t! He does absolutely nothing!” – PotatoPixie90210
“NTA but causing such a panic wasn’t a good thing because if the police had been called out, there could have been some serious issues, not the least of which is ‘wasting police time/resources’.”
“That said, he was straight up neglecting your child.”
“There could have been a better way to bring his attention to this fact but he needed to understand that when he isn’t paying attention to the baby, ANYTHING can happen.”
“A little story…my youngest used to go to the neighbor’s house down the road all the time in summer and she’d always leave our huge, living room windows wide open leaving our house completely available to theft (she was about 11).”
“No matter how many times I told her she had to secure both the doors AND windows, she just wouldn’t do it, it wasn’t important enough to her to remember.”
“One day I got home from work, she’s gone, windows wide open (you can literally walk through them into my living room, might as well have left the door wide open) so, I called down to the neighbor and told her our house had been robbed and they took her guitar among other things.”
“She came tearing down the street in a panic and rushed in all upset and crying, saw me sitting on the couch like nothing was wrong and was extremely confused.”
“Went to find her guitar and of course, it was where it belonged in her room.”
“To say she was mad is an understatement but when she calmed down I asked her, ‘What if it had happened?’”
”That made her really stop and think. She always remembered after that to fully secure the house.”
“I gave the ‘gift’ of the experience of being robbed without any of the actual consequences. That’s similar to what you did.”
“So, while I think you may have gone a touch too far (because he almost called the police), he needed the lesson to hopefully get the message across.”
“He needs to be fully involved, not just when you’re watching.” – IamIrene
Neglect from a parent is never ok.