In the best of situations, co-parenting has its challenges when caregivers maintain separate households. It can be extremely frustrating when things aren’t equal, especially when one parent takes on a heavier financial load. Sometimes it gets to a breaking point, and parents crack. We get it. Kids are so darn expensive, and if you feel like you’re paying for everything, there’s only so much you can take. A mom shared her frustration in the Reddit AITA forum, wondering if she had taken things too far.
According to the original poster, she co-parents her two kids, 11 and 13, with their father. She’s doing her best to be frugal and save money for college and other enjoyable things in the future. But their dad only sees them once a month and is the “fun parent.” He apparently doesn’t provide OP with child support, but he has enough money to take the kids to amusement parks.
The kids’ dad apparently wove a totally different narrative for them and has the children believing he pays for OP’s home. She told them that was not the case and laid it all out for them.
“My last straw is when the kids told me that it’s dad who pays for the home. So I pulled up my budget spread sheet and it includes all the stuff that he pays for, so child support and he hasn’t paid for the past two months,” she wrote. “The kids were upset for being lied to and the oldest get in an argument with him since she called to confirm.”
Is this guy for real? OP’s out there busting her tail to care for their kids, and he thinks it’s OK to lie and take credit for her work. Um, no. Clearly, this caused a huge argument with their dad, and now OP wonders if she did the wrong thing by exposing finances to the kids.
Not to worry, Redditors thought this guy was just as much of a jerk as we did. Plenty defended her behavior.
“I say she’s not the a–hole because he brought it up,” one commenter wrote. “If he was doing his best and she was showing their kids a spreadsheet showing that he’s a deadbeat, that’s out of line, no reason to get the kids involved. But he brought it up, and he lied, and the kids didn’t know who to believe. Obviously OP is allowed to contribute to that conversation where someone lied about her.”
“OP is so NTA, the kids are old enough to know,” another person shared. “Better to learn young they can’t count on him.”
One Redditor pointed out that OP is also teaching the kids valuable lessons. “Plus, OP just showed them that if they ever need help managing their money, she is a good person to teach them how to track and budget,” they lauded.
We are with OP all the way. Taking credit for someone else’s hard work is despicable, and lying to your kids is the icing on the cake. Stop worrying about being the fun parent and start being responsible. If you don’t, this will undoubtedly come back to bite you.
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