A dad has justifiably made a whole Reddit community very, very angry. His wife took to the AITA forum to share a story that recently went down, which involved her husband neglecting their child in favor of bolstering his YouTube channel.
Apparently, his channel has 14,000 followers and he’s a big fan of live streaming. “He keeps saying that his followers are good for his mental health and that engaging with them weekly makes him become better at socializing and communicating,” the Reddit user explained. They have a 7-month-old child now and the husband keeps complaining that he doesn’t have enough time to live stream. One day, the wife went to the grocery store and asked her husband to look after their daughter.
“I was gone for 4hrs but kept calling him to see if everything was OK. He’d tell me she was alright and that she was sleeping,” she wrote. “I started getting this weird feeling something was wrong because she must’ve had been hungry or needed a diaper change. He argued that everything was fine.” She decided to trust her instinct and hurried home — where she discovered her daughter with a full diaper and an empty bottle. Her husband was in his office with the door closed, and she knew he must be live streaming.
“I was beyond seething, I barged into the office and saw him sitting,” she recounted. “I blew up while he was trying to turn his mic off and telling me to stop but I didn’t stop. I berated him for leaving our daughter unattended and with no milk nor diaper change. He freaked out on me saying I just ended his entire channel and destroyed his fan base for interrupting his live stream and embarrassing and scandalized him like that.”
He called her “unhinged.” She decided to take their daughter and leave the house to stay with her family. Now, her husband is asking her to come back and telling her he misses his child.
Reddit users are pouring into the forum to tell the mom that she should reassess her marriage to her husband after his behavior. The story is; the whole trouble first started when her husband found out that they were having a girl. She could tell he was disappointed by the news, as he had planned on having a son.
After Lily was born, her dad chose to do activities like football, rugby and boxing with her. This doesn’t bother the mom, who sees how much her daughter enjoys those sporty pursuits. Lately, though, things have taken an “uncomfortable” turn. “Whenever she cries, he tells her to ‘grow up’ and that ‘crying is for babies,’” the Reddit user wrote. “Obviously this wouldn’t be right if she was a boy either, but I feel like he’s trying to force anything ‘feminine’ out of her.”
Lily has begun to take an interest in makeup and nail polish and likes to paint her mom’s nails. “Yesterday at dinner Lily asked my husband if she could paint daddy’s nails for a change. He looked at her and said ‘No, and don’t EVER ask me that again.’ She didn’t cry but was silent for the rest of the day and was obviously devastated.”
Later, the mom confronted her husband and told him that she feels like he resents their daughter for not being the son he wanted. The response? “He started calling me ‘paranoid’ and said that just because he didn’t want to waste his time getting his nails painted doesn’t mean he resents our daughter or wants to force her into anything,” she recounted. Now the Reddit user wants to know if she’s TA in this situation.
Many people chimed in to say that this was an important conversation to have. “Regardless of his answer to this question, I’d still try to talk w him about his behavior and attitude toward your daughter, it sounds quite hurtful and must be hard for her to understand why he’s acting how he is,” one person wrote.
Another suggested that the mom tries to approach the conversation from their daughter’s perspective. “I’d recommend just reflecting back to him how your daughter might be processing what he’s saying/doing. Give him the opportunity to consider what he’s communicating (as opposed to what he thinks he’s communicating). That’s often a good on-ramp to identifying implicit biases when the person is well intentioned.”
Dads also hopped in to share their own experiences with raising their daughters and how they’ve adapted to — and embraced! — the lifestyle. “When they were younger, I thought they’d want to do the things I wanted to do with them and that didn’t work,” one dad explained. “They’re their own little people with their own thoughts and ideas and you’re absolutely right if you’re thinking I’ve come in to work with painted nails and spent many an hour with teddies and imaginary friends while ‘drinking’ tea.”
A Reddit user even wrote out a thoughtful script of what the mom could say to the dad to try to get through to him and alter his behavior. It’s actually pretty perfect, if you ask us. “This was the first time she’s tried to show you she wants to spend that time with you doing something that SHE is interested in. She doesn’t know it’s girly and even if it is, she wanted to share it with you – not me,” the user wrote. “Please find her, say you’re sorry and that you’d love to do some nail painting. Go and spend that time with her and please teach her that real men listen and that it’s fine to share HER interests with you.”.
“NTA – Dude was straight up neglecting his human child for some twitch viewers,” one response read, which pulled in more than 41,000 upvotes. “If I EVER caught my husband doing that, I’d be reevaluating the marriage; a child’s well-being and safety should be his first priority, not worrying about his subscribers.”
Another person suggested that this guy has a social media addiction. “What he did was unconscionable, and the fact that he had an absolute TANTRUM and explosive upset over you potentially embarrassing him in front of his followers or ruining his ‘channel’ … and not the fact that HE LEFT HIS INFANT CHILD SITTING HUNGRY AND IN A SOILED DIAPER so that he could TALK AT A BUNCH OF COMPLETE STRANGERS is horrifying, and inexplicable by any other reasoning,” the user explained, before suggesting that he seek treatment.
Someone else pointed out that he repeatedly lied to his wife on the phone, assuring her that their child was okay. “The only way OP could be the AH in this situation is if she leaves the baby alone with him again without supervision. He completely betrayed her trust at the risk of their child’s safety and wellbeing.”
There are clear signs of a relationship imbalance here — even starting from the very beginning of the post, another user pointed out. “What also bothers me is that OP has to ask for help with the daughter as if she is solely responsible and must arrange care. He is also a parent and should be equally responsible. Watching and caring for his daughter should be second nature and not a burden on the wife to have to ask. And certainly not forgotten.”
https://www.sheknows.com/parenting/articles/2597036/dad-livestream-reddit-aita/