People have no sympathy for a new dad who wants to make use of his PTO — and leave his wife at home. The dad, who has been married to his wife for five years, wants to take an all-inclusive trip with their baby in tow. In his mind, this would allow his wife to “have a small break” and “catch up on sleep,” but to many others, the idea sounds totally ludicrous.
In a post on Reddit, the dad explained that he and his wife both work full time and have found a way to divide child care duties that works for them. They also have a nanny who helps them some of the time. The dad emphasized that because of his wife’s inconsistent work schedule, he ends up “doing more of the solo shifts” with the baby.
“I don’t mind this at all,” he clarified. “I love spending time with my kid and we’ve got a good routine. Early on there were some teething pains where I felt my wife didn’t realize she was getting more downtime, but we’ve mostly fixed that.”
But the dad wants to take a vacation.
What really shocked some people was that he wanted to travel for a couple of weeks with the baby — without his wife. The dad explained that he wants to use his remaining PTO because it doesn’t carry over into the next year. His wife, however, has limited PTO and “needs to give a lot of notice to take any time off.” For her, traveling doesn’t seem feasible at the moment. It doesn’t help that her job is pretty “intense” and requires her to be in person instead of remote.
The dad explained that he talked to his wife about using his PTO to travel with the baby for “a couple of weeks.”
“I’d handle everything, and I was thinking of going somewhere really easy, like an all-inclusive resort so I don’t have to do much traveling,” he explained. “That way I’d still get a break and use my time off.”
His wife didn’t like the idea — and he seemed surprised.
When he brought it up to her, “she immediately said no” and didn’t even want to discuss it to try to figure something out, according to the dad. He didn’t seem to understand why his wife was so bothered by the suggestion. “I get that she’d miss the baby and that it’s hard as a (mom) – separation anxiety and all that – but I didn’t think it was that unreasonable to at least discuss it,” he shared.
He went on to say that his wife might feel “a bit lonely” if her husband and baby traveled without her, but for the most part, she seemed concerned about the baby’s well-being. “I guess her primary concern is that she doesn’t want the baby not be under her watch and the disturbance of (baby’s) routine,” he wrote. “As mentioned before, I have spent a lot of solo time with the baby so I think I’d be okay but my wife is still concerned.”
He admitted that he could still use his PTO and stay home.
But he doesn’t really want to do that. To him, it “feels like a bit of a waste.” To mitigate his wife’s concerns, the dad said he could take a solo trip and the baby could stay home with her. However, she told him she wouldn’t be able to handle that on her own, especially because of her work schedule.
“Travel is one of the things we both love, and it feels like one of the few ways to really make use of my time off,” the dad added. “Now she won’t even talk about it. If I bring it up, she just shuts it down or gets annoyed.”
He asked Redditors what they thought about the situation.
Most of them criticized the dad. One person questioned the dad’s priorities considering he and his wife just welcomed their baby very recently.
“Have a staycation and catch up on home stuff cause clearly you’re both busy and I’m sure there’s things that could be fixed, upgraded, added, etc that could make the home life easier and more enjoyable,” the person suggested. “If you think it’s a personal sacrifice to keep your family connected during the most vulnerable time of your (baby’s) life and miss out on a vacation, it paints you in a very bad light for your priorities.”
Others understood exactly why his wife didn’t even want to discuss the possibility with him — because it’s “a ludicrous suggestion.”
“Unfortunately, you have a baby now. Your time prioritizing wants like traveling is over, at least for a little bit,” one person wrote.
“I think it has to do with you and the baby going on vacation WITHOUT your wife. Come on now! Use your brain!!” someone else wrote. “Brand new baby/family, you think she wants to miss any of it?? NOOOO! Especially not a holiday!”
Several people urged him to apologize for his “ridiculous” and “rude” idea. “Your wife likely doesn’t want to talk about it because you’ve hurt her feelings,” one person explained. “Apologize. Take some time off and stay home with the baby. You don’t need to go on a solo vacation just because you have the time to burn.”
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.
