Man Refuses To Look After His Son While His Girlfriend Is At Work Because He 'Intends To Relax & Have Fun'
There is usually little time for relaxation when you're a parent of young children.
Evgeny Atamanenko / Shutterstock; Reddit After one man received a generous payout from his job, he decided to quit and spend his remaining days relaxing at home. At the same time, however, his girlfriend is returning to work after taking maternity leave and needs someone to look after their young son during the day.
The man is refusing to do, intending on enjoying relaxation and having fun at home, prompting his frustrated girlfriend to insist that he pay for their son’s daycare himself since he will not look after him during the day.
The man refused to look after his son when his girlfriend returns to work since so he can spent time ‘relaxing’ and ‘having fun.’
Sharing her story to the AITA subreddit, the 25-year-old woman revealed that she works in IT and will soon be returning back to work from maternity leave after she and her 30-year-old boyfriend had a baby boy. Her boyfriend, who also used to work in IT, was employed at what used to be a startup company that went public a couple of years ago, which resulted in him earning a seven-figure payout.
Photo: Dusan Petkovic / Shutterstock
“He has by now invested most of the money and has decided to quit his job and live off dividend income, for a while at least if not permanently,” the woman wrote.
Before the payout, the woman and her boyfriend intended on sending their son to daycare while they both worked during the day. Although, now that the man is staying home, the woman suggested that they could save daycare costs if he looked after their son instead.
However, the man has plans of his own that do not involve childcare. “My boyfriend refused, saying that he intends to relax and have fun now that he no longer needs to work, instead of being stuck with childcare most of the day,” the woman revealed.
According to her, daycare costs where the woman and her boyfriend live can cost up to $40,000 annually. “Unlike him, I don't have such a huge nest egg and 15-20K in annual savings would go a lot farther for me,” she wrote.
Since her boyfriend refuses to watch their son, the woman suggested that he pay for it all himself.
“He refused again, saying that we had agreed to split our finances equally (which is true) and said that I was going against my word by not willing to contribute to daycare costs,” she wrote. “However I believe my reasons for doing so are justified as explained before.”
The woman asked other Redditors if she was wrong for her beliefs.
Most Redditors sided with the woman, claiming that her boyfriend was a parent now and could not refuse to take care of his own child.
“He is a parent now. He is capable of watching your son during the day, he just does not want to,” one user pointed out. “Putting your son in child care is 100% a luxury that benefits him alone. If he wants to sit around and relax all day, he should pay for it.”
“There's a huge difference between ‘I need a break of a few weeks’ and ‘I’m planning to hang around indefinitely doing whatever I want, working on whatever projects I want,’” another user noted.
Photo: Novak.Elcic / Shutterstock
However, others believed that the woman was wrong since she and her boyfriend agreed to split daycare bills evenly.
“You decided to pay for expenses equally. It doesn't matter that he got a huge payout and decided to quit his job,” one user commented.
“He retires early, is collecting an income, and rather than let him have his time to do whatever he is going to do, she is volunteering him to be a SAHD [stay-at-home dad] now so she can save money,” another user wrote.
While the man has the right to quit his job and very likely worked hard for his payout, being a parent of a young child does not necessarily mean that you can kick back and relax for the rest of your life.
As a parent, the man should be doing everything he can to raise his son to be happy and healthy, even if it means looking after him for a little while while his girlfriend works.
Families who pay for childcare spend an average of 17.8% of their income on the services. It is important that parents have discussions about the most practical way they can afford childcare expenses, even if it means one parent would have to look after their child at home sometimes.
Megan Quinn is a writer at YourTango who covers entertainment and news, self, love, and relationships.