In a recent post shared with r/AmITheAsshole (AITA), Reddit user ClearCoffee7140 asked, “AITA for letting my kids disturb my husband during an important work meeting after he said he would handle them for a day to prove how easy my job is?”
She explained that she shares two young sons (aged five and seven) with her husband, who works in an office. He has the ability to work from home some days, but doesn’t, as he says he finds the environment distracting.
The poster shared that while she also has a business which makes up about a third of their household income, she does hers at home, and it takes her about three hours a day.
Her youngest son, who is particularly high-energy, stays at home with her all day, while her older son comes home at around three. “Both of them are with me until around 8 pm or 9 pm, which is when my husband usually comes home,” she said.
The exhausting ritual took its toll
“A few days ago, I was really tired and I didn’t make dinner. When my husband came home I asked him if we could just order something,” the poster shared. Both parties were pretty short-tempered at the time.
“He said I should have at least ordered before he got home and he was hungry, I said I forgot and it’s not fair that food is always my problem,” she added.
“He said that I’m home all day and I even admit I don’t have much work to do, so I’m basically a stay-at-home mother and should at least take care of dinner.”
She tried to explain how difficult her day was and that he had “no idea” how much she did, but he wouldn’t hear it. So, when he offered to take care of the children while working from home to prove a point, the poster was more than happy to accept.
It went... as you’d expect
“I slept in, and when I woke up he was already frazzled from getting the older one ready for school. He ended up having to cancel a meeting to make breakfast, and was worried about that,” the poster shared.
“Then when he took another meeting later on, the boys went out to play in the yard and got super muddy and left footprints all over the house, which he then had to mop. I didn’t help at all.”
At this point, the poster said she was feeling pretty guilty, “but all I wanted was an apology.” She adds that she would have helped if asked.
Then, came the Meeting of Doom
In the afternoon, the poster’s husband had a meeting and told his young sons not to bother him for about an hour. But kids being kids, they broke into a pretty disruptive argument, and one of the boys went into their father’s room to argue their side.
“He was really loud and my husband’s video was also on. Then, he told the kid to leave him alone but he was upset and crying and wasn’t listening. After a few minutes, my husband went back to the meeting and apologised to the other people,” OP revealed.
She says her husband was furious with her afterwards and demanded to know why she didn’t help out. ” I said all you had to say was ‘please help,’” she ended.
Most commenters thought she did nothing wrong
“Anyone who belittles the work of parenting or caregiving gets no sympathy when they struggle at it themselves. Let this be a lesson to him not to underestimate that labour,” one commenter said.
“He deserved a little comeuppance. If he doesn’t come home until 8-9 pm, you are basically a single mother working part-time while taking full care of two small children and maintaining an entire household… with little to no help from him,” another wrote.
“Him saying you can see him struggling but you did nothing is the whole problem. He sees you struggling and does nothing to help take things off your plate, he piles more stuff onto it,” yet another Redditor said.
But what do you think?