Dad undresses sick teenage son while he's asleep. Mom screams 'that's inappropriate.'
When this dad is feeling like he made a parenting error, he asks Reddit:
'AITA for undressing my son while he was asleep?'
The other night, my wife (29F), son (13m) and I (30m) went to my parent’s house for dinner. While we were there, our son started to develop a headache. It was no big deal at first, they gave him some ibuprofen. About thirty minutes later though, he had his head buried in the couch begging us to go home because he was in too much pain.
We decided to go home, and he curled up in the backseat of the car holding his head. When we got home, he refused to move, saying that lifting his head hurt too much and he felt dizzy when he did it. I carried him in and put him on his bed. When my wife and I started getting ready for bed, she rubbed his back and asked him to change for bed so he’d be more comfortable.
He just mumbled before falling back asleep. We both tried a few more times before giving up and showering. When I finished, I just decided to undress him and cover him up. She walked in as I was doing it and snapped at me, she told me It was a massive invasion of his privacy and was totally wrong.
I finished though and tucked him in. He hasn’t said anything about it to either of us, but my wife has been telling me to apologize to him for being invasive and weird. AITA?
Let's find out.
broadpoetry98 writes:
NTA. I feel like it’s a little weird at that age, but he’s still a kid and it was out of love when he was sick. I imagine you didn’t strip him naked and likely just got his jeans off for him and tucked him in wearing his boxers. If he was fighting you about it I think it would be another thing, but if he didn’t seemed bothered by the help I wouldn’t turn it into a whole thing.
bogbabe writes:
YTA. I'm more concerned that a 13-year-old was suddenly experiencing such a severe headache that it completely debilitated him — and rather than take him to the ER, you & your wife ended up fighting about whether you should have undressed him. A sudden severe headache like that isn't normal and could be a sign of something very seerious, and you should have sought medical help.
responsibleclut8 writes:
YTA - why didn’t you take him to the doctor? Symptoms like your describe are seek medical attention symptoms! But yeah I feel like 13 is really pushing the age you can undress your kids. I don’t know if I would react like your wife, but I would probably say something like “I think he is a bit old for us to undress him”.