AITA for teaching my daughter at my wife’s expense ?

A father (16F) has been teaching his daughter advanced concepts in engineering, math, and programming, which she enjoys. While joking about her mother’s driving during a lesson on control systems, the father inadvertently upset his wife, who accused him of being a jerk and said it could lead their daughter to lose respect for her mother.

The father believes it was just a lighthearted comment and feels the reaction was excessive. read the original story below…

‘ AITA for teaching my daughter at my wife’s expense ?’

I have a daughter (16F) who since the age of about 12 became quite interested in my line of work. I am a control systems engineer and currently work building autonomous robots.

Since the age of 12, my daughter would inquire about things to study and I would teach her different concepts in mathematics and physics and also programming. These days she self studies also.

These are typically topics that are more advanced than what she learns at school and as a side effect it has made the school science and math seem trivial for her. I recently a small assignment for her based on some 3D visualization tool where she can see a simulation and program the controller in C++ using a tool called Robot Operating System.

I had her implement a [bang bang controller](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bang%E2%80%93bang_control) and [PID controller (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional%E2%80%93integral%E2%80%93derivative_controller).

Initially to learn on a simulated fan but then to drive a simulated car in a game like environment using simulated LIDAR sensors for the PID control. While doing so and taking to her about the bang bang controller for driving based on collision detection, I made a joke about the bang bang controlled driving being like her mom’s driving.

My wife overheard us and got upset at me and called me a j**k. She had just scratched her car by backing into a low concrete ledge the other day and has scraped her car a couple of times before (maybe like 5 or 6). It was just a light hearted joke and I don’t think she is a bad driver or anything just had some bad luck.

She gave me a lecture and took it way too deep saying I am training our daughter to be sexist (which is ridiculous since she is a woman too) and that she will lose respect for her mom or myself.. AITA here?

Here’s what the community had to contribute:

joosdeproon −  Soft YTA Don’t make jokes, even light hearted jokes, at your wife’s expense, and behind her back to boot. You are right that it’s not so much a sexism thing. But it is a respect thing. You are showing disrespect to your wife, unintentionally but it’s true.

You are showing your daughter that hehe we can joke about your mom being a bad driver.

lamelexcuse −  YTA y’all should be a unit and not making jokes at the other expense to your child. also “its ridiculous because she is a woman too” shows you font understand. its because its a stereotype that women are bad drivers and you are reinforcing that to your child

jrm1102 −  YTA – you made a joke at your wife’s expense. Not the hugest AH but your wife was upset by this and you need to own that and apologize.

kiwihoney −  YTA for the joke. The fact that you thought your wife wasn’t listening makes it worse, not better.
Never say sh-t like that about your wife (or any other woman) to your daughter. Even in “jest”. You think she doesn’t pick up on that latent misogyny? Dream on.

mifflewhat −  You are not the ah for teaching your daughter. YTA for making mean-spirited jokes about your wife’s supposed incompetence to your daughter.
The fact that you’re teaching your daughter cool stuff does not make it ok to belittle your wife to her.

Isyourmammaallama −  Yta for using her to make your point

mortemgaze −  You should not be normalizing making jokes at the expense of your wife in front of anyone, even less so in front of your children. I understand where you’re coming from, as I’m one to poke fun on friends or people I’m fond of in a lighthearted way when the situation allows it, but not everyone takes it as lightly as people like us do.

In this particular scenario, YTA even if you didn’t mean harm – solely because it’s something that clearly bothers your wife, and you comment came off as insensitve.

LunasUmbras −  Apparently no one in here is from a black cultured family. Scraping a car 5 or 6 times? You’d be hearing about that from everyone at every single family gathering / cooking and everyone would have a good laugh. Nta

mildgorilla −  Dude stop trying to make this more complicated than it is. You made a s**tty joke. It’s not the biggest deal in the world but it was an a**hole move and you should take responsibility for it. All the s**t about teaching your daughter engineering is great, but irrelevant YTA

WifeofBath1984 −  YTA she told you it bothered her, so don’t joke like that. This is not rocket science.

What do you think? Is it reasonable to joke about driving skills in this context? Share your thoughts below!