Motherhood is a lot of work. (Almost) no one denies that.
But not all mothers are created equal. And onlookers can have a dim view of a parent who complains about the hard work of parenting while not doing a very good job. Especially when that onlooker has had to pick up their slack.
A brother turned to the "Am I The A**Hole" (AITAH) subReddit for feedback after a war of words with his sister.
Similar to AITA, the AITAH subReddit allows posters to ask for advice and post about ending romantic relationships—both things that are banned on AITA. However, there are no required voting acronyms—only suggested ones—and no official final judgment declared.
Direct_Strawberry_43 asked:
"AITAH for telling my sister that having children wasn’t a job but a responsibility?"
The original poster (OP) explained:
"I (27, male) have a sister who’s about 30. This past Monday she had a birthday party for her one child, and while we were there, my mother, my partner, and myself were talking about how exhausted we were from working."
"For context, my mother works almost all day cleaning houses, my partner just worked a nearly 30hr weekend due to the new 'Spider-Man' movie and I work two jobs, both in kitchens as a chef responsible for other people."
"As we were talking, my sister came in and said, 'yeah try raising these kids'. She has 3 girls (ages 11, 3, and 2). My mom looked at her and said, 'I did, I raised two little a**holes'. And the rest of us laughed."
"My sister looked at us and told her, 'yeah, but you don’t raise these ones'. I told my sister, 'you do know that mom raised one [of her kids], right? Besides how about you work like we do?'. My sister stood there and said angrily, 'my kids are my job'."
"And before my mom could stop me, I said, 'no one told you to keep popping them out, and the last I checked it took two dumba**es to make a kid. You CHOSE to have them, they’re a responsibility, not a job, so don’t claim otherwise'."
"She stormed off and my mom looked at me and said, 'why would you do that, you know she’s gonna b*tch about that later'. I asked her, 'wasn’t she going to anyway?'."
"After that the party went on and we went home. The next day my mom called me and said that my sister was b*tching about me and what I said, but we both said, 'she has no room to talk, you (my mom) always worked even when we were little, there’s never an excuse for her not working but laziness'."
"We talked a little more and then my partner and I talked about this more. She said that she agreed with me, but like my mom said, I just say sh*t and don’t think beforehand."
"Am I in the wrong about this?"
"Overall, I feel like what I told her was just pieces of truth she refuses to hear, but I guess I should get other opinions as well."
The OP later added:
"Well, that turned ugly quickly."
"Now, I left out pieces of information to see what the average response would be. The result: yeah people think I’m an a**hole in more ways than one."
"Giving you the barest of information about the situation and the people involved, yeah it was to be expected. Now let me give you some context for why I said what I said."
"My sister, in short, is a horrible person. She once left the boy she was with (supposed love of her life) to be with her first baby daddy. In doing so, she abandoned him and his young child with our mother in mom's already cramped apartment."
"Then only came back because she found out she was pregnant with my first niece, her first kid."
"About a year later, my first niece had to live with my mother, her fiancé, and myself when I was 16/17 about 10 years ago. Again, cramped apartment. I slept in the living room with my niece, changed her, fed her, and stayed up with her during late nights."
"I missed days of high school for her, because no one else could watch her. We raised her for probably about 2 years with her mom in and out of the picture."
"Then my sister decided 'no one was helping her' and uprooted herself and her daughter and left to live with her kid's father across the state. Where, in a twist no one saw coming, she left her child to her own devices."
"This is a small glimpse into the person that is my sister. Will this change y’all’s opinion? Probably not. But what the hell, figured I'd give it a try."
"The biggest issue is that as soon as you say something negative about motherhood/parenting, everyone turns so quickly."
"She chose to have all of her kids, not take care of them, then whine about how hard her life is. I love my nieces. But at the end of the day, she had ALL the power in deciding to keep having them when she couldn't handle just one kid."
"Also, people on this post acting like all families are nothing but love and respect. Life is not a Hallmark movie, families can hate one another and at the end of the day get along for the sake of being a family."
"I can appreciate women and what they go through to create human beings."
"But, when someone like my sister does absolutely nothing with their life, relies on handouts, has our mom pay for everything her children need including school clothes, lunches, and to pay for her eldest daughter’s karate lessons at a whopping $350/month+ random fees, because she'd rather spend her time finding her next 'forever love', use them for all they're worth, then dump them when she’s done?"
"She deserves no respect or appreciation whatsoever for how hard her 'job' of being an irresponsible, horrible mother is."
"I’m not misogynistic. I’m a rational thinking individual who sees past 'oh she’s a mom, so she gets to get away with everything'. I may not be much farther in my life than her, but I can pay my own bills and be proud of what I’ve accomplished in my life."
Some Redditors weighed in by using the AITA voting acronyms:
- NTA - Not The A**hole
- YTA - You're The A**hole
- NAH - No A**holes Here
- ESH - Everyone Sucks Here
- INFO - more information needed
Most Redditors decided the OP was wrong to say what he did.
"NTA, she shouldn’t have dished sh*t on you and not be able to take some back. You said nothing wrong. Kids ARE a responsibility, NOT a job. Responsibilities can be hard, difficult, time consuming, etc... but that doesn’t make it a JOB."
"You get compensation for a job, but not for simply doing what you SHOULD be doing as a parent. Parents who try and put down others' hardships by saying theirs will always be worse cause they're a parent are entitled a**holes.
"This isn’t the 'who has it worse' Olympics."
"You are also 100% right that she CHOSE this. Everyone knows kids are difficult, same with actual jobs. The difference is you need a job to live, you need a job to earn money, to gain professional experience, etc... You don’t NEED to have a kid, it’s a hardship that people CHOOSE, and because of that, it will forever be on them and they shouldn’t be complaining to people with their own hardships about how much worse they have it."
"People who act like parenting is unpaid labor clearly don’t understand what a JOB actually is: labor ≠ job. Simply DOING something doesn’t mean you get or even should get paid for it. It’s doing something for another person and also getting PAID for said something that makes it a job."
"Otherwise people would get paid for simply picking up after themselves or doing chores. Your sister is buggin and she needs to stop putting her regrets and insecurities on everyone else for the choices SHE made."
"I hate the argument 'those are your nieces, nephews, mother, sister, brother' as if that’s supposed to mean something. Even if you’re from a good family, the excuse that you need to let them step all over you because of whatever title they have in your family shouldn’t even be THOUGHT of. That should NEVER be a reason to do or not do something for or with someone." ~ Throwaway-wtaf
"I’m a stay-at-home mom and I tell people that despite all the weirdness, it’s a a lot like any other job in the caring professions. It’s got pros and cons compared to things like nursing, teaching, etc..."
"Pro is that I have complete control of my schedule. Cons are that I work almost every hour of the day for free and I can’t quit or I go to jail."
"But we’ve got to stop this mystic motherhood nonsense or dumb conversations like these are going to go on forever." ~ SpillThatTea2Me
"She literally told every single person that their multiple jobs are nowhere near the work of a mom, which it doesn't sound she's great at. She was wrong to compare the two. OP should have been more mature, but I’d be pissed if someone happily diminished my work." ~ thedoctormarvel
The initial post told one story.
The updates completely changed what this was all about. Sounds like there are years of resentment that's never been resolved.
