Sometimes when we are married with kids, we kind of fall into habits and routines that take some of the pressure off of our partner. One person may become the default parent for homework and quizzing for a spelling test, while the other could be the one who packs lunches and makes snacks. Often these things aren't done intentionally, it just kind of happens. We stick with what we are comfortable with and used to.
But when parents divorce, things change. When one has the kids with them, there is no longer another person to lean on for half of the responsibilities. Instead, it is all in, all of the time. It can become tedious and exhausting. But that's what parenting is all about, right?
A man and his wife divorced and are now sharing custody of their daughter. He's having a bit of trouble keeping up with things that his wife used to do, so he's called in some help, and his ex isn't thrilled about it.
He turned to Reddit's AITA Forum to see what Redditors think about him using his daughter's day care as a salon instead of doing her hair himself. As you can probably guess, people had thoughts.
The original poster admits that he is not a hairstylist.
Right off the bat, OP lets us know that he was never involved in his 3-year-old daughter's grooming routine before his divorce, and now, he is kind of lost. He admits that he has to "figure it out" because the poor kid is a "frizzy, tangled mess." But right now, he is cheating a bit.
"A teacher at my daughter's daycare has very similar hair to my daughter's so I asked if she could help me with my daughter's hair," he explained. "She said she could do my daughter's hair in the mornings if I dropped her off earlier (dropoff starts at 8, I usually drop her off at 8:45 but her teacher says if I drop her off by 8:20 she'll be able to take care of her hair). She gave me a list of curly hair products to buy and what to bring to school. She also gave me some tips for washing and caring for it at home."
Sounds reasonable as a "short-term" solution if the teacher is OK with helping OP and his daughter out.
Sure enough, OP's ex caught wind, and she is not happy.
Somewhere along the line, OP's ex found out that he was not taking care of the little girl's hair himself and letting someone else do it. That caused a problem. She thinks that OP is just "avoiding doing her hair" instead of learning to do it himself, and she called BS.
"She called me a bad parent for 'relying on a teacher to do my job' and for messing up the morning routine so we could get to school early enough for the teacher to do her hair (we used to wake up, give her a bath, I'd attempt to do her hair, we'd have breakfast, then go to school but now we wake up, take a bath, and eat breakfast in the car)," he wrote.
If her hair is taken care of, does it matter who does it?
Some Redditors didn't get why OP's ex is so upset. Wouldn't it be worse if he just left her totally unkempt at school? A few thought OP had a pretty great solution.
One person commented: "NTA. If the teacher doesn't mind doing it — which, by the way, is very generous of her and you should get her a very nice gift for her trouble — then I don't see why it's an issue."
The same commenter added a caveat: "But it might be more sustainable for you to ask the teacher to train you to do your daughter's hair, because it is unlikely that future teachers will want to do this, and what will you do then? (You should compensate the teacher for her time if you do this.)"
Valid.
"NTA but you should learn how to do your kids hair," another person wrote. "It's a chance for you 2 to bond, you get to be a better parent, and that teacher isn't going to be around forever to do her hair. There's videos on YouTube that walk you through it. It won't always come out perfect but I can promise you your daughter would rather have frizzy hair if it meant her dad did it."
OK, those are pretty much the only NTAs out there.
The rest of the Reddit crowd think that OP is out of line.
The common theme among most comments is that OP is taking advantage of his daughter's teachers. They are not paid to be hairstylists. He needs to take care of the little girl himself.
"YTA," one person wrote. "How long has this been going on? They way you wrote this it sounds like weeks. By now you should be able to give your daughter a simple style. Also, you mentioned in a comment that you leave her hair loose on the weekends, that you still can't style pigtails or braids, and only stick around 1 or 2 times a week to learn from the teacher. Are you at least braiding it at night to practice?"
"Yta op," a Redditor agreed. "Seriously that's some pure weaponised incompetence you're showing. This has been going on for weeks, you ASKED the childcare worker to help and you are completely taking advantage. You only stay around once or twice a week to learn, and still haven't managed to do her hair."
Dude, this is not the 1980s. You have the whole world at your fingertips. Use it.
Is it hard to learn to style a child's hair if you're not used to it? Sure, it can be. But when you carry a tool in your pocket that can teach you to do anything, there is no excuse. Hey OP, instead of looking for a place to play the victim, you should be using Reddit to look for suggestions on YouTube channels or places to watch hairstyling tutorials. There are a bazillion out there. Get to scrolling!
And in the meantime, get that teacher a fat gift card for going the extra mile for you and your daughter. Lord knows teachers don't get paid enough for their regular duties without adding on being personal stylists for their students.
These stories are based on posts found on Reddit. Reddit is a user-generated social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website where registered members submit content to the site and can up- or down-vote the content. The accuracy and authenticity of each story cannot be confirmed by our staff.
