'AITA for telling my husband taking the kids for the day isn’t help it's part of his job?'

"AITA for telling my husband taking the kids for the day isn’t 'help?'"

I’m a stay-at-home mom of two young kids. My husband works, sometimes long hours...so I am usually in charge of the day to day routines/schedules/activities, cooking meals, etc. It works out for us. He is taking this week off, and decided he would take the kids for today (all day). He told me I deserve a day to relax as this week is our “vaca” for the summer.

I ran some errands, and while out I spoke with my husband briefly about dinner. He asked if I would be home for dinner, to which I replied yes. When I got home, his first question was “what are we doing for dinner” and I told him I assumed he would have already figured that out, seeing as it’s getting close to bed time for the kids.

He said there was no food in the house and would go out to the store to grab groceries...at this point it’s getting late, so I told him to just order food. He did (begrudgingly) and asked why I was so irritated and why I couldn’t just do it, he said he “helped all day with the kids.”

When I told him it’s not help, he’s their dad and it’s part of his job, he lost it and told me I’m being an AH. Am I wrong for saying that? Am I the AH?

Commenters did not hold back one bit.

Kiwihoney wrote:

NTA. This idea that dads watching the kids equates to “babysitting” or “helping out mom” instead of dads simply doing their jobs as fathers has got to go. You are absolutely 💯 correct here. Time to have a serious sit down with your husband to talk about parental responsibilities and equity in the parental load.

Yes, you are a stay-at-home mom but you are working all day, just like he is. He should stay home with the kids alone all day for 5 days in a row while you go out of the house during his normal office hours. Give him a list of everything that you do during the weekdays (kid stuff of course but also cleaning, shopping, scheduling, activities, cooking dinner, etc).

At the end of those five days, sit down together and discuss what his days were like - I guarantee he will understand that you are truly working and he won’t be so glib with his whole “helping with the kids” routine. He needs to get some perspective, compassion and empathy.

Alternative_Tone_697 wrote:

As a father, I say NTA. My children are all grown now, but when they were young I took care of them as much as my wife. We both did laundry, dishes, and kept things moving throughout the day.

While my wife did most of the cooking, I definitely took my turn.

Once I was shopping with my children without my wife. Another man who was shopping with his wife and kids looked at me and asked, “You got stuck babysitting today?”

My response was that I NEVER babysit my children. I take care of them, I raise them and I am part of their lives. The grin on his face dropped away and me mumbled something like “I was only joking” as he walked away. Men in America need to step up and be active parents, not just bystanders in the lives of their children.

SnoopyIsCute wrote:

A friend told me why she got ended up divorcing her husband. She planned a huge birthday party for one of their kids, made the cake, cleaned and decorated the whole house.

She sent all the invitations, did all the RSVPs, grocery shopped and prepared the food, lit the grill to prepare the rest, got the kids bathed and dressed and all organized the parking situation on their large driveway as to not inconvenience any neighbors. Served everybody, took dishes, loaded the dishwasher as fast as she could.

She goes to the kitchen to get the cake, light the candles and starts to walk it out to the table where the crowd was gathered. Her husband asks "Aren't you going to take pictures of this?"

She called a divorce attorney the next day.

hubertburnette wrote:

You can solve this problem with words. He and you have different understandings of how parenting works. He thinks he's done with parenting by working. You don't think that. You both had really different expectations about what it would mean for him to take the kids. Neither of you ever talked about those expectations. You both assumed the other knew what you meant.

You need to be clear with each other about what you're hoping for/expecting/assuming. So much about our culture says that people in love are in a Vulcan mindmeld, and so talking explicitly about what we think we've agreed to is seen as bad.

It's good, it's loving, and it's caring. You care enough about each to try to be clear about what you're both thinking. NTA (but it's really, really close to E S H--you aren't free of responsibility for the miscommunication).

Elizabeth_Sparrow wrote:

NTA. He can’t tell you to relax for the day and also be mad that you didn’t handle dinner. It also doesn’t sound like you did much relaxing. You are also right that him spending time with his own children is not helping. It’s what he’s expected to do.

Sea-Poetry-950 wrote:

“Vaca week” and you get a few hours to yourself one day and still need to make dinner?! Yea, some men need to really step it up and realize they are parents, not babysitters.

SnoopyIsCute wrote:

NTA.

I really, really hate how society makes dads think they are superheroes for taking care of their children. It's NOT babysitting.

It's NOT helping. It's NOT a special treat. It's NOT heroic. It's their DUTY. You all have to sit down and discuss this in more depth but he's TA at this moment in time. Or, you can give it back to him and not have dinner planned when he shows up and say you assumed he would handle it since you "helped" take care of the kids all day. LOL