Man Wonders If He's Wrong For Expecting His Newly Laid Off Wife To Take Care Of Their Baby In The Mornings
He argues that she has more flexibility than he does.
Alena Ozerova / Shutterstock Parents often have to reach a reasonable compromise when it comes to working and childcare.
Certain tasks involving the children are often given to the parent who is more readily available.
One father is facing a disagreement with his wife over who should mind their young son in the mornings.
The man believes that his wife should care for their baby in the mornings, as she was recently laid off from her job.
Sharing his story to the subreddit thread, r/AmItheA–-hole, the father asked other Redditors if he was wrong for wanting to pass the childcare duty to his wife from now on in the mornings.
He began his post by revealing that his wife was laid off from her office job the previous week.
For the next couple of weeks, she planned on going into the office to do some final preparations and to gather research for her job hunt.
“She is still technically working for the next two weeks but has no actual work stuff to do,” he wrote.
The man shared that he works from home, and when his wife left for work in the mornings, he would look after their one-year-old son until their nanny came back from dropping off their four-year-old daughter at school.
“I have a morning meeting at 9:30 every day and our four-year-old takes a while to get ready and get to school so there's been plenty of days where I'm on my meeting with the video off muted and minding our one-year-old for five to 10 minutes,” he wrote.
One morning, the man asked his wife if she could look after their son before he hopped on his morning meeting.
“She was a bit upset that I was changing our usual schedule,” he revealed. “I pointed out that it made sense given that she now has more flexibility.”
He and his wife argued back and forth for a bit, with the man claiming that the person who “doesn’t have any work commitments” should be the one to mind the children.
He added that watching their son while he was in his meeting would not affect his wife’s schedule since she would not be going into the office until 10 am to wrap things up.
“She's always IMO [in my opinion] felt a need to act like she's the busier of the two of us which is fine if it's a typical workday,” the man wrote. “Currently though, it's a bit of a stretch to act like she's busier than me.”
Most Redditors sided with the father and agreed that his wife should take over childcare duties in the mornings now.
“It doesn't seem unreasonable to ask her to take some turns doing it given you say you've always done it and she doesn't have a work commitment,” one user commented. “It's not like you're turning around and saying she has to stay at home to look after the kids all of a sudden or anything like that.”
“You’re always allowed to ask. Someone has to watch the child. Right now you’re the only one with a long-term job,” another user pointed out. “If she’s going to work to find a new job, they [his wife’s job] obviously don’t care what she does anymore.”
“If my unemployed spouse were hanging around the house, I would definitely ask them to watch the baby. That does not need any notification,” another user added.
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However, others believed that the man and his wife should’ve taken the time to agree on a new morning schedule.
“I’m confused about why they don’t start the new schedule after her job is officially over. She received notice of the layoff but she’s still working,” one user wrote. “Just let her finish off the two weeks and then have a conversation about how to restructure all the chores and childcare.”
“If the wife has some flexibility it would have been nice if she offered to help out in the mornings before her last day at work (and definitely for the ones after), but asking to change things up the morning of is a sucky thing for OP [original poster] to do,” another user believed.
Hopefully, the man and his wife can reach an amicable solution in regard to their new morning routine.
Megan Quinn is a writer at YourTango who covers entertainment and news, self, love, and relationships.