'AITA for secretly writing short stories for my son after my wife forbade me?'
"AITA for writing short stories for my son after my wife said no?"
Fabulous-Purple-7214 writes:
Our son recently developed a real love for reading. Anything he can get his hands on, he reads—even newspapers—and my wife and I were excited and proud. She started picking up children’s books for him, and he enjoyed them for a bit. Then he asked for something a bit more mature.
After thinking it over, I agreed to get him more advanced books, but nothing adult. Over the next few months, I gave him a mix of books I’d enjoyed, like Jurassic Park and The Lost World. He devoured them and even wanted to watch the movies, which he loved. He discovered the video game, and of course, I bought it for him. We ended up playing together a lot.
He liked when I read to him at bedtime, so I started making up stories set in the Jurassic Park world, just off the top of my head. I’m not a writer, but I started writing these short stories during my breaks at work. He loved them, and we had our own father-son dinosaur/book relationship.
My wife started to feel left out. He wasn’t interested in the books she was picking out, and that made her sad. She wanted to be a part of the reading too. I realized that my son and I had all these things together—golf, running, me teaching him to weld, and now reading. So we started doing more things as a family—hiking, arcades, libraries, and bedtime reading. I also helped her pick out books and dino-related things he would like.
This worked for about a week, until one night, he seemed annoyed. My wife asked him what was wrong, and he said that reading time should just be for me and him because her stories were “terrible” compared to mine.
I scolded him for being disrespectful, and my wife and I had a conversation. She said maybe reading together wasn’t working. I told her that he didn’t mean what he said and that we’d keep reading together. I spoke with him, explaining why what he said was hurtful, and he seemed to understand and apologized.
The next week, she saw me reading to him from my phone. I told her that I’d been writing stories at work, not realizing she didn’t know about it. She seemed jealous and was uncomfortable with it.
At most, it was science-y terms I remembered from college that a child would find believable about made-up dinosaur bioengineering, based on the fact that he didn't understand it. She told me she didn’t want me writing stories for him anymore and that she would take over from now on.
I wasn’t excited about it, but I agreed. He didn’t like her stories but didn’t say anything mean about them. On the way to school, he asked if I could write for him again. I said no, but he asked if we could keep it a secret. He begged, and I agreed. I began writing stories on paper and hiding them for him, which he’d read and then throw away afterward.
But he kept one of the stories, and my wife found it when she was putting away his clothes. She confronted me, saying I had betrayed her trust. I explained that he enjoyed the stories and I just wanted to keep writing for him. Even after we talked, things still felt sour between us.
Here are the top rated comments from the post.
tulip0523 says:
ESH - you are TA for lying to your wife and teaching your child to keep secrets from his mom. Not for writing and continuing, you should have never agreed to stop. Your wife needs to find her own thing to share with him. And her relationship cannot be at the expense of yours.
New-Credit-9661 says:
ESH. She is jealous of yours and his relationship. She is TA for telling you to stop doing something both he and you enjoy. You are TA for continuing to do it behind her back after agreeing to stop. Solution. You two collaborate on stories together and read them together.
Spike-2021 says:
ESH - your wife for "not allowing" you to write stories for your son who clearly enjoys them very much. And you for lying about it. Apologize for lying but tell her you will write stories that your son enjoys. He can keep them and share them with his children or maybe you could publish them. Your wife...I don't get her issue at all.
ElleArr26 says:
Take some parenting classes. Both of you. ESH except kid.
What do you think?