Father says wife's 'learning obsession' is hindering kids' lives, turning them into 'walking encyclopedias. AITA? + UPDATE
"My (32F) wife (30F) of 4 years is "over-teaching" our kids (2 and 4M). EVERYTHING is either a learning experience or an opportunity to learn a "skill". I feel like I'm living in a children's workbook and I can't anymore"
PlsStopTeaching
No, my wife is not actually a teacher. So, our kids are to the ages where they're becoming little people and it's awesome. Our older LOVES being a big brother, and the younger is growing by leaps and bounds. Life is pretty damned good.
Except we can't go out of the house without it being a completely out of control "learning experience" or an opportunity for "skill building". The best way to illustrate this is through examples.
The other day we're at the grocery store. The older boy is walking, the younger is in the shopping cart. We have like 10 or so things to buy.And there's my wife to our older son, who we'll call John, I guess.
"John, can you count how many items are in the cart? What line should we go in? Do we need to wait our turn? Is it our turn yet? Oh look, it's our turn! What do we do with our things?
No, we don't put them on the desk, that's not called a desk, it's called a "checkstand". Can you say that word honey? Checkstand What's the person we pay called? Can you read his name? This thing is called a credit card, do you know how it works?"
On and on and on and ON. Everyone in that damn line was rolling their eyes and giving me sympathetic looks. Sometimes my wife will let the younger, "Bill" help or be present during chores and meal prep or things like that. It's more of the same.
"Bill, this is a spoon. This is a knife. This is called a ladel and this is what we do with it. This is a cup. These are noodles, we need to put them in water that's boiling, and you know water is boiling when you see bubbles, to make them soft enough to eat. This is dish soap, it makes the dishes clean!" HE'S TWO FOR GOD'S SAKE!!!
It's just everything is "learned" to death. The other night we were out for a walk and a little kitten darted across the street. Now, a normal parent might ask the kid what animal that was. If he says a cat or a kitten, she'd say "Good job" and move on.
John said it was a cat. My wife said "Yes it's a cat, but it's a baby cat! Do you know what a baby cat is called? Is a cat a mammal or a reptile? How do you know? How do mammals raise their young? Do all mammals have fur?"
I told her I was getting a headache, she could finish the walk with the kids and meet me at home. It wasn't a lie, really. Something similar happened at the fair too.
I'm not exaggerating when I say the kids never got to go on ONE ride and never got to eat ONE treat because they were so busy learning and "building skills" and I can't even deal with that phrase anymore. It makes me want to scream.
Any time I bring it up, like "Honey, just let them have fun. We can talk about what they learned on the way home" I'll get "But this is such a great opportunity for them to build skills! They won't remember in 2 hours!"
If I want to get them a simple, stupid toy that's just for fun, like something they can throw around or a stuffed toy or something, nope, that doesn't help them build any skills! Or a ball is "great for helping them build coordination skills!"
Everything, EVERYTHING in our lives in a learning experience. It's either skill building (OAOIHFAWFIOWEHFAOAHIIOFWEAH I CAN'T ANYMORE!!!) or we/the kids never get to DO the activity because we have to learn about it.
I've talked to her. God knows I've talked to her. I've said it great she wants to give our kids such a head start, and make sure they have good life skills for when they need them but everything doesn't need to be a learning activity.
They can't just color random designs on paper, they have to build skills! Then we have to go through the primary colors and learn about crayons and then do some skill building or "enrichment" activity. They can't just have fun. They can't just PLAY.
After the fair, I lost it that night. She was getting undressed and remarked on how much fun the kids had. I am not proud to say I blew my stack. This was after AT LEAST 100 conversations with various approaches about this.
I ended up shouting "No, they did NOT have fun! They didn't get to ride the Ferris wheel, they got a physics lesson. They didn't get to eat deep fried anything, they got a nutrition lesson.
They didn't get to play games, they got a counting lesson. They didn't get to try to win a goldfish, they got a zoology lesson. NOTHING THE KIDS DID COULD POSSIBLY BE CONSIDERED FUN IN ANY UNIVERSE!!!"
And now I'm an "apathetic" father leaving her to "do all the teaching" when they're "my kids too". I'm at the end of my rope. It's not like I NEVER want them to have learning experiences.
It's not like I NEVER want them to do anything educational. But they need to just BE KIDS sometimes too, and she thinks she's "making learning fun" when nothing is fun anymore.
And I can't listen to anymore of these buzzwords like skill building and enrichment and everything repeated 50 times to the kids or I'm going to lose my ever loving mind.
Here were the top rated comments from readers in response to the OP's initial post:
frettingranddaughter
Unstructured play is actually very important for children's development. Having a broad knowledge base is good, sure, but interpersonal skills are also important. Sorry about the situation, this would drive me nuts...
georgettaporcupine
This. That said, since there IS literature on this, there might be a way to convince OP's wife that free play "counts" as "skill building". Some reading I might suggest on the topic, off the top of my head -- there's probably better stuff out there but this is what came to mind:
Last Child in the Woods (Richard Louv; among other things talks about how children develop competence and build skills when allowed unsupervised play) NurtureShock (Po Broson & Ashley Merryman; specifically the chapter "The Sibling Effect" which discusses how children develop emotional competence through shared fantasy play without adult interference)
poptartaddict
I'm curious what your wife's daily life is like. Does she read fictional books? Does she watch t.v.? Does she paint her fingernails or decorate the house? Does she ever just take a bath and relax? Does she have ANY fun at all?
The reason I asked those things is because your wife is forgetting that these are little PEOPLE. They're not little computers she needs to fill with information. They have other needs. Those needs include having fun, being creative, expressing themselves, and just being silly sometimes.
Two days later, the OP returned with an update.
PlsStopTeaching
I didn't mean to completely abandon this post. I just had no idea it would blow up like it did, and by the time I got home from work, there were more comments than I could possibly answer. THANK YOU everyone! To answer some questions I saw. The kids are bored to death. Bill, being only 2, isn't super verbal obviously, but John has asked on more than one occasion why we can't do what we came for, basically.
Using the Fair again, he asked why he couldn't go on the [kiddie] Ferris wheel. My wife basically ignored him and just kept teaching. That's part of the reason why I was so mad that night. It seems MUCH more about her than the kids' development at all. I talk to my sons a lot, or at least I try to.
I can't really bring up anything without my wife coming in and teaching or suggesting we do something else to build some skills. I feel like she's actually getting in the way of my own relationship with my kids. I guess I had more to unpack about this than I thought.
But on to the update.
This couldn't have been timed any better if I'd planned it. So John is 4. We have him in a pre-K type class 3 days a week. The very day I made my post, I got a call from the teacher.
She basically told me that John is a very smart little boy, that he seems to know a little bit about everything and has a great vocabulary and memory. But what she said next just about made me tear up and seriously consider a divorce.
There have been several instances since the class started where John has been left to his own devices. They have some structured activities during the day, and some semi structured. Like times when the kids will be painting, but they're free to paint whatever and however they want.
They also have some unstructured time, where they're free to play with the toys in the classroom. Some are learning type toys, some are just toys like the large Lego blocks, stuffed toys, balls, things like that.
Well, the first time John was presented with watercolor paints and a blank piece of paper, he did nothing. The teacher blew it off as nervousness, since this is a lot of kid's first experience with being around a large number of peers away from home. She also noticed he didn't really play much with the other children. She tried to help him join in some of their games, but he didn't seem interested.
She decided to call me after this incident: the class was given a box of metallic crayons and a black piece of construction paper. John did the same thing again. The teacher came over and asked him what he'd like to draw. He said he didn't know.
She gave some suggestions like his favorite cartoon character, if we have a cat or a dog to draw his pet, if we didn't, draw a cat or a dog he might LIKE to have, draw a space alien and a spaceship, and he still said he didn't know what to draw.
After a few more suggestions from the teacher, John apparently looked at her and said "I just don't know what skill I'm supposed to learning". Like I said, I nearly broke down.
I guess I never put it together. I should have, but I never did, and I'm as much at fault for that as my wife is for this whole thing. My sons have NO social skills. They have NO creativity.
They have NO imagination. They don't know that sometimes the purpose of fun is to have fun because they've never been exposed to it. I kinda hate myself for not extrapolating this.
So basically we're raising walking encyclopedias with no personality. They aren't actually building ANY skills at all. I have a feeling they'd learn to hold crayons and draw by the time they're old enough to leave the house. They'll also be able to count, cook a simple meal, and understand that a washing machine gets clothes clean.
What they WON'T understand is the really important stuff. They won't make and learn from mistakes with friends. They won't be able to relate to kids their own ages. They won't understand what activities are appropriate and not appropriate when they get older and start doing things without us.
They'll probably end up codependent because they'll always be waiting for someone else to tell them what to do. They'll be abuse magnets. I had a come to Jesus with my wife when she got home.
I didn't let her call the teacher and "tell her what's what", instead, I told her that I'd called a family therapist, and if she wanted to stay married, we were also going to couples counseling. No ifs, ands, or buts on any of it. SHE needs to build some damn parenting skills, and I need to learn how to grasp the concept of If A, Then B. I did not leave room for negotiation.
I accept my fault in this. I was an only child myself, my parents were pretty hands off, for the most part, and I haven't really had a lot of occasion in my adult life to spend a great deal of time with young children, or with other parents of young children. Just because I knew what was wrong, apparently didn't automatically teach me what was right.
I also want us to go to parenting classes eventually, but that's at a different point assuming we get through all the rest of this stuff. I want to thank everyone for their comments, and I'll be more attentive to this thread if there's anything else you'd like to know.
Here were the top rated comments from readers in response to the OP's update:
Ethelfleda
As a mom...that must have been devastating. How the heck does a kid not love coloring Please do not back down. Please have both of you volunteer in the classroom or get involved with a local parenting group to see what other people do.
pulchritudinouser
What's insane is that PLAY naturally builds so many important skills. That's why ALL young mammals play.
Nvrmnde
And moms instinctively pretend to be awed and surprised at their skills, building their self confidence. I was mocked by my husband for doing that with our son, then I saw a tiger mom do the same. "Oh you took me completely by surprise! How good you were on sneaking on me!"
phat-braincell
damn this is a rare example where i hope this post gets reposted to tiktok so theres a chance OP sees it and can give us an update, i am sooo curious.