Being a parent is not for the faint of heart. It’s a tough but rewarding gig. One dad in the throws of it all was not looking for outside advice. His younger brother is working on a psychology degree and had some tips. When the younger brother helped the dad out by babysitting, he tried to share them.
This didn’t go over well with the older brother. He is perfectly set in his ways it seems, even though he admits he has some bad habits. He took to Reddit’s popular AITA forum to see if he was wrong for getting mad at his brother.
This dad admits fatherhood is harder than he thought.
The dad begins by giving us some backstory. He is 26 and has three kids under 5, and a fourth on the way. "Before we had kids, my wife and I had lots of ideas about the parents we were going to be and we had lots of scorn for people who parented in ways we disagreed with but, as any parent knows, actually raising kids is hard work and you will break your 'values,'" he explained.
The brother had some ideas on ways to make it easier.
His brother, who is studying child development, wanted to help. “He regularly tells me that he thinks 'ipad kids' are spoiled brats who will struggle developmentally and they are the spawn of lazy, negligent parents,” the dad continued. “I wouldn't say my kids are ipad kids but they do have an ipad between the 3 of them and more screen time that I would ideally like but sometimes thems the breaks. My brother also disapproves of the fact we give our kids sweets as bribes (occasionally) and have lied to our kids. Every time he tells me his views on parenting I just laugh and tell him to try being a parent, then I'll take his advice.”
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The babysitter has tips.
Recently the brother babysat for the kids, which the dad was super thankful for because it was an emergency situation. “When we got home in the evening the kids were in bed having had dinner and we thanked him profusely,” the dad recalled. “He very ernestly told us that, now he had experienced being a parent, he realised that not letting your kids use screens was very easy and they hadn't watched TV or used their ipad in the 12 hours he'd been there. He also said he'd calmed their fears (they had been aware of the emergency a little bit), read to them, not had to bribe them to do anything with sweets and he'd dealt with very calm relaxed children, as opposed to the 'brats' they normally are when they're with me (his words). He gave us a 20 minute lecture about our bad parenting and now that he was in a position to give advice he was going to give it.”
The dad escalated things.
The dad did not take his childless brother’s criticism well. “We'd been planning on giving him £200 to thank him for doing this for us short notice and looking after the kids for so long but we sent him on his way without any pay,” he confessed.
He took things even further. “The next day I called him up to tell him I thought his behaviour was incredibly inappropriate,” he continued. “That I appreciated him looking after the kids but it was better he didn't see them for a while and that him springing that all on us especially after a day of stress showed how immature he really was. I told him that he actually didn't know anything about parenting because he wasn't a parent.”
Now they are not talking.
The dad admits he might have gone too far in this conversation. Their mom even got involved to lecture him because he made his little brother cry. Now his mom and his brother are not talking to him, so he wants Reddit to weigh in and tell him if he is in the wrong here.
This one goes to...
The majority of Reddit users were on the little brother’s side here. They believe the dad comes off aggressive and judgmental.
One user suggested: “Sounds like your childless brother is a better parent than you. Maybe listen to him?”
Don't bribe your kids.
Some users understood that perhaps the younger brother could have worked on his delivery but they still ultimately sided with him.
“Yeah sure maybe he could have been more gentle in the way he told you but he's right and I think that's what made you upset more than anything,” one user mused. “If you have to 'bribe' your kids to listen you then you have a problem, you shouldn't have 4 kids if you don't know how to take of them without having to 'bribe' them to listen to you.”
Some believe everyone was a little wrong here.
There were some users on the site who took it a bit further. They voted that “everyone sucks here” and took no one’s side.
“Your kids are going to end up being brats if you don't quit with the bribery and screen time,” one user advised. “Your brother's child psychology courses have made him a bit of a pompous [expletive]. Still, you don't have to be a parent to recognize bad parenting, just like you don't have to be a plumber to spot a leaky pipe.”
In both verdicts though, the older brother was not exonerated. He needs to do some reflection and examine his actions both as a parent and a brother.
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