'AITA for making my stepdaughter do more housework and taking away her phone?' + 2 MAJOR UPDATES

"AITA for making my 16 year old stepdaughter do more work around the house?"

There's no school and she doesn't have a job, so my stepdaughter has no responsibilities at the moment. For context, her dad was a single dad until he met me when she was 10, and now we have two more children together. Her dad is a GP so he works pretty much constantly and I'm left looking after 2 children by myself for the majority of the day, both 5 and 2 years old respectively.

Apart from cooking the daily family meal twice a week max, looking after the children 2x a week when we go grocery shopping and helping me put away said grocery shopping, my stepdaughter does nothing to help when I'm clearly in over my head and she's old enough to be taught a little responsibility.

When I was her age, I was working two jobs and looked after my little sister and helped out around the house without being asked. She has to be asked to do every little thing apart from the things mentioned so far and almost always does them begrudgingly.

To teach her a better work ethic, I put together a chart full of chores she has to do every day. Until she's done them, she's banned from using her devices - both her phone and her ipad, and I also take away whatever book she's reading at the moment. She can have them back when all the chores are done.

A typical day for the past week has involved her doing 5 chores of her choice from a list. The choices are, as examples: vacuum all of upstairs or downstairs, wash the floor, cook dinner, fold the laundry, do the dishes, dust any surfaces, tidy your siblings rooms, walk the dogs, pick up dog poop from the garden etc.

This was all working out fine until my husband caught onto what was going on, and he accused me of being lazy and punishing her for no reason and overstepping boundaries. I don't agree at all, the household is running much more smoothly with her help and I have more time to spend educating my 5 year old since school is out and I need to make sure he doesn't fall behind. AITA?

What do you think? AITA? This is what top commenters had to say:

RoamingAmber said:

While a 16-year-old should absolutely have responsibilities around the house, and nothing on your list sounds excessive, I must admit that I’m a little concerned about the way this post is worded and the tone it conveys. It sounds like you’re less concerned about your 16-year-old having a good work ethic and age appropriate responsibilities, and more like you want free labor for you and “your” kids.

If that attitude is leaking into your interactions with your stepdaughter and with your husband, I’m not surprised you’re getting pushback. It sounds like it’s time for you and your husband to sit down and address the actual issues here.

I’d be open to changing my opinion with more info, but so far YTA for the fact that you blew right by coparenting to get your way - further, the post suggests that you “hid” this all from your husband.

getstrongandlean said:

YTA, I don't think you are teaching her "better work ethic" by taking away her devices. You are using her as a free live in maid so that you don't have to do housework

5 chores is not a lot, if the chores are small like tidying up her room, putting away the dishes etc. But vacuuming, washing floors, cooking dinner for 5 people, folding laundry for 5 people , cleaning her siblings room sounds like big chores. You are offloading off heavy work to her while spending time with your kids.

If you need more support then talk to your husband., don't dump more chores on your step-daughter. I just saw your comment " While it's true that I don't consider her as much a child of mine as my real children, I do still care about her so I don't think that's the issue" . Wow, its clear that you see her differently and feeling that you spending time with your kids is more important than her education

JerseySommer said:

YTA. "I'm spending my time educating my 5 year old so he doesn't fall behind." And I'm just wondering how you expect the 16 year old preparing for college in a few years from falling behind when you are using her as a servant to free yourself?

Do you really think kindergarten or first grade is more difficult to catch up on than junior in high school? Especially because you take away the tools she needs to learn.

Just because you helped out doesn't mean you get to force her to ESPECIALLY because you made a unilateral decision and excluded her father from the situation.

Parenting is a joint effort, you massively overstepped.

andyfurnival said:

YTA you started with you had 2 children, false you have 3. Maturing children into responsible adults is important, however I feel you have classic Cinderella step mother syndrome.

tcsweetgurl said:

YTA. Evil stepmother.

And Lovelyladykaty said:

YTA — not for making her do chores, but so clearly valuing spending time with your bio child over your stepdaughter. She shouldn’t have to tidy her siblings rooms or cook dinner. Stop treating her like Cinderella. She should be responsible for her own laundry and room, and help with communal spaces upkeep but your list is ridiculous.

She later shared this "major upate":

My stepdaughter found this post and showed it to my husband last night. I'm sure to you, this is a perfectly happy ending, but you do understand that it's tearing a goddamn family away from their father, right? By the way things are looking, this isn't something he's willing to work past. I'm going to stay with my mother until the dust settles.

She later shared this second update:

Since the discovery of my last post my husband and I have had plenty of screaming matches, and finally an honest sit down discussion trying to resolve the issues. After much discussion, we decided to stay together for the meantime, but I'm on very strict probation. The rules and understandings we came to are as follows:

1.) If I need paid help in the house, he will pay for it.

2.) My stepdaughter will NOT under any circumstances be punished by me in any way. He is the sole disciplinarian and any and all punishments must be enforced by him alone. I'm not allowed to forbid her from using any devices and if I have any issues with her behaviour, I am to voice them to him but he will decide what to do about them.

3.) My stepdaughter will do roughly an hour's worth of chores on all weekdays, and any big chores such as cooking and cleaning whole floors are to be a joint effort. I am to teach her how to cook and help her in the kitchen at all times.

4.) She will not under any circumstances clean her siblings rooms, and I have to teach our 5yo and 2yo to clean up after themselves. He mentioned he was shocked to learn that they couldn't already.

5.) If any of the above rules are broken even a little bit my me, I'm out of both of their lives.

I guess everything worked out. I am on very thin ice obviously and my stepdaughter hasn't even looked at me since this whole thing was unearthed, but I do actually want to build a relationship with her. I feel like after this she will never feel more than tolerance for me, but I brought that on myself. This will be the final update on the situation.