Everyone comes from a unique household and is raised with a specific set of morals and values.
While some people hold onto tradition, others makes small, or perhaps even big changes to how they wish to live their adult lives, and how they wish to raise their own children.
It can be a challenging process to develop our own sense of life rules, especially when someone we love jeopardizes them.
Growing up, we all develop our own unique set of morals and values that are often inspired by the lessons imparted upon us by our parents and/or guardians.
Sometimes it's hard to understand where others are coming from, and when we make friends and form romantic relationships with those from different walks of life, it can be challenging.
What's normal for one family may seem bizarre to another, and when households merge to create one, there can be tension.
Whether it's a "no rules, parents are your best friends" relationship, a strict and heavily religious one, or something else in between, everyone chooses their own path to parenting.
While I'm sure we can all agree there are many wrong ways to go about it, there are also many parenting decisions that are seldom definitively right or wrong. They're just different.
Most parents love their children and want what's best for them. Yet, not all parents have the same version of what's truly best and how to help their children achieve it.
Sometimes it's about education or extracurricular activities, and other times it's about gender roles and expectations. There are so many things to consider when raising children.
This wife and mother took to Reddit's popular r/AmITheAsshole page to plead her case to the jury of commentators.
She started by explaining that her family is somewhat blended — she and her husband have a biological daughter and her husband has a son from a previous relationship.
The woman explained that her stepson would only occasionally visit. That is, until he turned 14 "when he decided he wanted to live with us so now he lives with us full time and sometimes goes to stay with his mum weekends."
After moving in, this mom noticed that her husband treated his son differently than he treated his daughter.
As this mom explained on Reddit, "I've been noticing more and more that my husband has a pretty sexist attitude to raising the kids."
She went on to share, "Some examples: only our daughter has to help with chores such as washing dishes, doing laundry, grocery shopping etc., while SS (Step Son) gets to watch tv, play PlayStation etc and is only really responsible for walking the dog once every morning."
This annoyed wife also expressed how her husband added fuel to the fire.
"Also, after eating our evening meal, husband makes daughter clear all the plates, including taking her brother’s plate and then they both sit there and wait for us female folk to do the dishes."
Finally, she adds:
"On top of this our daughter is in school all day and never has less than 2hrs of homework per night whereas my SS is only doing part time school (12 hrs per week) and has zero homework. My husband will also yell at our daughter for saying words like 'butt' or 'pee' and tells her 'women shouldn’t talk like that' but he says absolutely nothing when SS is cussing constantly and has been since he was 11 yo."
She'd been letting her anger build up without telling the husband anything. Until, she couldn't keep her silence anymore: "This morning I had enough and told him he needs to stop this sexist bs and it got into a heated argument."
The woman's mother-in-law actually ended up somehow getting involved in the couple's disagreement, and even called her up to "tell [her] off".
"I should know that he 'was raised with traditional beliefs' and that I should understand this too 'given my own background' (we were both raised in large, very male dominant families of mostly brothers on both sides)."
She had talked to her husband many times about wanting to raise their children outside of the gender roles that she grew up with.
As she explained online, "I would not raise our daughter with those (what I consider) outdated gender stereotypes and my husband was on board," but now that their kids are teenagers, he's broken their mutual understanding of how to raise their children.
So the woman asked the people of Reddit, was she an asshole for speaking up and speaking out against her husband on this matter?
The comments were overwhelmingly in support of the mom. Many people even suggested the parents attend couple's therapy.
One person replied, saying, "I could not imagine letting my husband treat my daughter like the maid and our son like a prince. I would seriously be on my way to divorce."
Another person commented, "Why isn’t he taking on responsibilities? Your husband is putting both of the kids at a disadvantage. SS isn’t learning the basic skills of being a functioning adult. Your daughter may have long term effects from this treatment. "
Let us know what you think of this situation in the comments and who you think is at fault for this tense situation!
h/t: Reddit
