Mom withholds allowance from son who 'won't do girl chores'; ex-husband is pissed.

Parenting is all about guiding your kids along the way to adulthood, and teaching them the basic principles of responsibility that will help them down the road. Learning the meaning of hard work and money is essential, and people who learn this in childhood are set up for a much happier and healthier adulthood.

In a popular post on the AITA subreddit, a mom asked if she was wrong for taking money out of her son's allowance after he refused to do his chores. She wrote:

"AITA for taking money out of my son’s allowance?"

I (41F) have 3 sons (twins who are 12, and a 10-year-old). All of my sons started doing chores around 8 and started getting allowances for their chores at 10 years old. Chores are only mandatory 5 days out of the week, I don’t care what time a day they choose to get them done.

As long as they are done by the end of the day. I made it clear to my boys once they started earning money that they would be getting 10 dollars a day for every day they complete their chore. If they fail to do so, then 10 dollars would be deducted. It has been that way for 2 years for my eldest boys and a couple of months for the youngest.

Allowance is always paid out every Wednesday, and I encourage them to save enough to take with them on the weekend to their dad's in case they go somewhere fun or see something cool that they might want but dad might not be okay with spending money on. This system has worked swimmingly for us since it started, the boys have always complied with completing their chores.

However, one of my 12-year-olds refused to do his chore of the week (sweeping downstairs and wiping down surfaces) for 3 days. The first 2 days he did so without problem, but when his friend asked him to play Fortnite with him, my son asked for 15 minutes to complete his chore before he got onto the PlayStation. His friend asked what chore he had to do, so my son told him.

In response, my son’s friend said “it’s a good thing my parents don’t make me do girl chores.” I spoke with my son and explained to him that knowing how to clean was not specific to any gender, that it was a life skill everyone needed to know. I also told him that I understood that other families functioned differently; however, in our family, everyone did an equal share.

Even after speaking with him the first day, he decided to not do his chore, he still chose not to do his chores, so like agreed I took 10 dollars out of his allowance for each day he didn’t do, which allotted to him only having 20 dollars in his allowance; whereas his brothers had 50. The problem comes where my son was so upset about the lack of money in his allowance that he called his dad about it very upset.

My ex-husband then proceeded to call me and tell me that I’m in the wrong for only giving him $20 and to imagine how it makes him feel that his brothers got more than he did. I explained to him that our other sons actually did their chores for all 5 days, so they were rewarded accordingly.

I assured him that if he had decided to start giving the boys an allowance then he can run allowances however he wanted, but this was ultimately the system I had come up with. My ex-husband told me that I am being insensitive and humiliating our son. AITA?

People were quick to share their thoughts about the situation.

PlentyHopeful263 wrote:

NTA. Do the job, get paid. Don't do it, don't get paid. It's pretty simple.

Longjumping-Gur-6581 wrote:

NTA. It’s the real world, you don’t do your job, you don’t get paid and I actually think $10 a day is pretty generous for allowance.

excitedorca wrote:

NTA. You’re not taking money out of your son’s allowance, you’re not paying him for services not rendered. The sexist, misogynistic reasons behind not completing the chores need to be corrected and that won’t happen by rewarding it.

According_Ad6364 wrote:

NTA, if he had done his chores like he was supposed to, he would’ve gotten the full amount. Why should he be rewarded for doing nothing when his brothers did what was asked for their money? That wouldn’t be fair to them.

mlb64 wrote:

NTA. It is a great life lesson that people who do the work get paid, people who don’t don’t. Up to your son which path he chooses to take. Mild semantic, you are not taking $10 away for days they don’t work, you are just not paying them.

If you were taking away, he would owe you $10 (2 days of work for $20 3 days of no work costing $30 leaves him $10 in the hole—you might consider that in the future $15 for working, cost of $5 for housing, food, etc. to let them earn up to $75 against always owing $25, not working means dipping into savings. Learn it while it is painless at 12 vs. moving back home at 30.

Final point, their dad’s complaint is why we have so many kids with the mile wide sense of entitlement. So what if you refuse to do the work, you get the same allowance. Of course, your son would probably prefer losing the allowance over “no video games or non-school related phone/tablet/computer until the chores are done.”

OP is definitely NTA, it just seems her ex wants to enable their son in ways that will hurt him down the road.