Stay-at-home mom interrupts 'workaholic' husband's call to watch sick kid. 'He’s on calls 75% of the day.' AITA?
"AITA for interrupting my husband's work call to watch his daughter who threw up in my car so I could make my orthopedic dr appt?"
My husband is a workaholic. He works from 8-6 everyday with no lunch and travels 50-75% of the time. I am a stay at home mom with 3 kiddos: ages 8, 4 and 18 months. I do all the chores at home and also partially homeschool the 8 year old. My husband never takes off work to help with the kids as I am a stay at home mom.
Well I tweaked my shoulder and it’s been hurting for 4 months. I recently got a mri and had my follow up appt. Scheduled. I didn’t even bother asking him to take off to watch the kids because he never will because he always has something going on at work, but I did book the appt on the family schedule and told him about it in case a kid was sick.
So I left the two older ones home with him as he was working from home. Well my youngest vomited in the car after I’d been driving about 10 min. I texted him asking if he would take off work so I could still make my appt but he wouldn’t respond.
I was able to have my mom come over and she was willing to watch the sick kiddo so I could make the appt but we couldn’t figure out how to remove the car seat so we could wash it off.
It was a new carseat and I didn’t have the time to YouTube how to get it out and still make my appt because at this time I would have been over 20 minutes late. Well at this point I went into his office at home and asked him to get off his call and he completely blew up at me.
At this point I had already tried calling and texting him. I get that I shouldn’t interrupt his work call, but parenting is an equal responsibility and had she been in daycare one of us would have to pick her up. Plus he’s on calls 75% of the day. Am I the ahole for making him get off his work call to help with his daughter?
Here's what top commenters had to say about this one:
HeirOfRavenclaw said:
I don’t get it. Your mom came over, so the sick child is being taken care of, why did you need him to get off his work call?
BoyoDee said:
I’m pretty sure your husband’s workaholic tendencies is precisely how you are able to be a stay at home mom fulltime. If you want him to step up and do more childcare and work less, that’s a conversation worth having.
However, that would mean you would likely need to step up in certain ways yourself. If childcare should be fully equal in your eyes, shouldn’t bills and financing be also?
YTA about the car seat thing. You could have either figured it out (you had no time to google or YT but plenty to rush home and interrupt the call? Bullshit) or go to your appointment and deal with the seat later. This was not even remotely urgent and not worth interrupting.
Beebophighschool said:
Car seat with vomit may be gross but can be cleaned after you come back/when your husband gets off work. You called your mom to look after the kids. I don't understand why interrupting his call would have helped...am I missing something?
ModeMysterious3207 said:
Is paying bills and earning money also an equal responsibility? It seems that you enjoy the benefits of him earning money for you all, but you don't want to accept that it means that he has to spend time to work at a job.
If you want to change the arrangement then have a discussion. Figure out what expenses you two will cut, or figure out how you will get a paying job so that he can work less and make things equal. YTA.
Unhappy_Ad7172 said:
YTA. You interrupted your husband while he was working, making the only income to pay all the bills allowing you to stay home with your kids. Like... nothing more needs to be said. All the nonsense about the car seat is just that, nonsense that's irrelevant and you're just trying to use it as a justification.
Technical_Quarter_99 said:
YTA just because he works from home doesn't mean he should be interrupted to do non work things. I also work from home and my work from home agreement specifically states that I am to work during those hours not engage in home activities, including watching kids and caretaking. what would you've done if he was working in an actual office? storm into his workplace? like you did here?