AITA for telling my step daughter that if she stays home from school than he needs to go to her mother’s?
A Reddit user recently shared her frustrations over a challenging day with her 12-year-old stepdaughter, Hannah, who stayed home from school without being truly sick. With a household of seven kids and a newborn, the user was already struggling through weeks of family illnesses, sleep deprivation, and caretaking demands.
Hannah’s actions—disrupting naps and making constant demands—ultimately led her to suggest that Hannah stay at her mom’s if she wanted to stay home again. Read her full story below.
‘ AITA for telling my step daughter that if she stays home from school than he needs to go to her mother’s?’
This makes me sound like a witch. I realize that. And maybe this is s**fish. Who knows. Anyways, I have been with my husband for 4 years and we have 7 kids combined. We both came in to the relationship with 3 kids each and we now have a 5 month old together. They all live with us full time and go to their respective other parents homes on every 2nd weekend.
Here’s the issue.. for the past 3 weeks there’s been a rotating sickness in our home and I am the one taking care of everyone else while sick as a f**king dog myself. I’m exhausted, barely running on 4 hours of sleep a night between the baby breastfeeding and one of more of the kids getting up in the middle of the night for water or Tylenol or having coughing fits.
At least 3 days a week for the past 2 weeks, one or two of the kids have been staying home battling this illness and again, I’m the one managing it despite being sick and exhausted myself. My husband works from 4am to 8pm most nights (truck driver). The ONLY one that this sickness has not touched is my 12yo step daughter Hannah. She never gets sick.
Her immune system is a tank. But she was getting irritated because she’s the only one who hasn’t been able to “skip” school. I told her she’s not skipping school for no reason and the other kids have been sick. It’s not like they are playing hooky for shits and giggles. Either way, she asked her dad the night before last if she could stay home the next day because “her mouth hurts” (she has a tiny cankersore).
He said yes. I was already pissed off because it wasn’t discussed with me and it’s me having to deal with it and I’m just frustrated at this point because I want to take a f**king nap with the baby and catch up on my own sleep and take care of myself but can’t because everyone’s rotating staying home.
Anyways, she stays home. I get everyone on the bus (time ranging from 6:10 to 8:30) and go back indoors and Hannah is immediately up my ass, asking me what I’m cooking her for breakfast. I tell her to have cereal.
She whines, doesn’t want cereal. She wants a full breakfast (eggs, toast, hash brown, sausage, pancakes). I say no. She gets pissed and storms off to her room and slams the door. I go get the baby back down to sleep.
Idk, from 9am to 1030am she came in to the nursery NINE times, waking up the baby, being loud, pushing my arm (her way of being “playful”), asking me to bring her shopping for her upcoming dance, asking me to bring her to the mall so she can spend her money, asking me to go watch her cook because she’s “starving” (she did eat breakfast but she bored eats – ADHD, and won’t touch the stove unless I’m right there because she’s scared).
By 3pm when I had to get the kids off the bus, I was fuming, the baby was screaming bloody m**der because Hannah hadn’t let the baby sleep more than 30 minutes ALL DAY between her whining, being loud and slamming her bedroom door after I had told her no to yet another “let’s go shopping” request.
Anyways, by the time my husband came home I was done. I have never been so infuriated honestly. So when she comes in later that night and asks her dad if she can stay home again because her mouth hurts “so bad” and he said yes, I snapped and said “okay, better call your mother and go there then”. My husband asked why we would do that and I gave him the run down.
The other kids are respectful and let the baby sleep. Hannah made sure to keep the baby awake because she wanted to go shopping and thought that since the baby was awake anyways that I would just bring her. I’m not watching a “f**e sick” kid who stays home from school again and keeps the baby up all day long again.
She can go to her mom’s. Anyways, she told her dad that I “clearly hate her” and now my husband has been giving me the fifth degree for “making his daughter feel like an outcast”.
These are the responses from Reddit users:
Eastern_Condition863 − NTA. Tell your husband that if she stays home while not sick, he stays home with her and deals with her intrusions all day.
EmuDue9390 − NTA. Your husband needs to be drop-kicked. HE is the problem here. You need to let him read this post so he can understand what his completely thoughtless “yes” is doing to YOU. It is NOT ok to say yes to work for someone else, I do not care if it is a shared child.
He should have come and spoken to you in private so that if she wanted to stay home he could make arrangements with her bio mom to take her for those days that way no conversation happened in front of the kiddo. But that’s on your husband too, again for saying yes to more work for you without consulting you first, in private.
Economy_Rutabaga9450 − Husband, I am sick. Tapke the baby. I am going to bed. You need to stay home and take care of the baby. And everything else.. Tag. You are it.
dana-banana11 − If she feels well enough to shop she’s well enough to go to school, NTA.
z00k33per0304 − NTA. Tell your husband she’s not sick if she’s hounding you to go shopping and waking the baby up all hours of the day. He can take a day off work to “take care of her” if he doesn’t want her going to her mother’s.
My boys will be “sick” some days and the rule is if you’re staying home you’re not allowed on the computers or the switches. If you’re too sick to go sit in a desk and absorb lessons you’re too sick to focus on playing games. Most times this is deterrent enough and they’re magically good enough to go to school.
1. Husband is the problem.
2. She’s not sick, she needs to go to school.
3. Any possibility she is just desperate for parental attention? Particularly from a Mom since she only sees hers every other weekend? There are six other kids in the house, including a new baby. All of them have had a turn having you essentially to themselves. To me, this reads as a kid trying to get their needs met in an obnoxious but kind of understandable way given her age. She calls it “shopping.” She may mean “spend time with me.”
EntertainmentDry3790 − NTA, your husband is a way out of order for allowing his not sick daughter off school and she sounds spoiled
In_need_of_chocolate − NTA. Your hubby has no right to tell ANY of the kids that they can stay home if you’re the one at home with them. She doesn’t HAVE to go to her mum’s house. Husband could take the day off to care for her if he prefers.
I would tell the kid if she is sick then she needs to be in bed. And if she’s well enough to be out of bed then she’s well enough to go to school and you’ll drop her off. None of this “rewards for skipping school” crap.
Tigger7894 − NTA- my one and only mom had a policy that if you were home sick you weren’t going to like it. I was always jealous of friends who got TV and stuff if they were sick, but this behavior would not be allowed. I’d take her to school tomorrow.
How does she already know that her mouth will hurt? (FWIW, I have a sore in the side of my lip where it hurts to talk, and a minor headache, and I’m at work. I explain to my students that as an adult you get limited sick days so you choose them carefully.)
PatentlyRidiculous − Whoa. You need a spa day. All I can say is that I’m praying for you
Do you think the user was fair in suggesting Hannah stay at her mother’s, or could there have been a better way to manage her demands and school attendance? How would you balance caretaking and discipline in a big family? Share your thoughts below!
