Me (26F) and my partner (28M) have 5 daughters: 7, 6, 4, 3 and 5 months,” wrote the anonymous mom on the sub-Reddit forum Am I The A**hole.
“For a long time there’s been an issue with him getting up to help with the kids of a morning: he thinks he should be able to sleep in on his days off work, while I think he should get up when the kids and I do, or we should at least be alternating who lies in a bit. We’ve been seeing a therapist who has mentioned he should be helping more in the mornings.”
Despite the nudge from their therapist, her partner did not wake up one morning when they were meant to spend the day at the zoo with both sets of parents and their five daughters.
“My alarm went off at 6.30am and I got up, while my partner kept sleeping. I decided I wasn’t going to wake him this time and continued getting the kids ready. At 8am he was still sleeping, so I loaded the kids in the car and we set off. We arrived at the zoo at 9.30am, and his family asked where he was. I mentioned he was still in bed and chose not to come.”
Another pointed out how wrong it was for him to call his own mom to complain. “My fave part of this is where he was upset that he missed out on the trip do he called his mum to blame his wife as though there was nothing he could have done to prevent this,” they commented.
Moms carrying the burden of raising children, whether it’s emotional labor or the actual fundamentals of preparing them for the day, has become a sore spot for many couples in recent years. Naturally it’s been a problem for decades, but it seems many moms are speaking up about the inequity of it all.