My wife and I have 3 daughters. IMO my wife spoils them to no end. Our daughters barely do any chores because my wife won’t make them. I insist upon my wife making them do dishes. My eldest daughter won’t even clean her room because my wife does it for her. When my wife and I dropped our daughter off at her dorm in her freshman year, we helped moved everything into her dorm room. Afterward I told my daughter that my wife and I were hitting the road back home without helping her unpack, about a 90 minute drive. I wanted my daughter to put everything away as a way to finally get my wife to cut those strings. THEY insisted IWBTAH for leaving my daughter to do it alone. Was i? As an added note, my daughter subsequently kept her dorm room a filthy mess to the point where her roommates complained, so my plan didn’t work anyhow.
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My wife and I have 3 daughters. IMO my wife spoils them to no end. Our daughters barely do any chores because my wife won’t make them. I insist upon my wife making them do dishes. My eldest daughter won’t even clean her room because my wife does it for her. When my wife and I dropped our daughter off at her dorm in her freshman year, we helped moved everything into her dorm room. Afterward I told my daughter that my wife and I were hitting the road back home without helping her unpack, about a 90 minute drive. I wanted my daughter to put everything away as a way to finally get my wife to cut those strings. THEY insisted IWBTAH for leaving my daughter to do it alone. Was i? As an added note, my daughter subsequently kept her dorm room a filthy mess to the point where her roommates complained, so my plan didn’t work anyhow.
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> My wife and daughter believed that I was being an AH for not helping my daughter unpack when dropping her off at her first day of school. I felt I was helping her become independent.
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Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.
nta.
They are being set up for failure. Everyone needs to learn to adult.
Nah.
Your daughter was about to gradually become more and more independent over 1-4+ years of living away from her parents at college, and no discrete 60-odd-minute window making her unpack alone would significantly change that developmental trajectory.
Your wife and daughter were experiencing the goodbye departing window as an emotional time. Unpacking together would have been a practical way to spend more time together, made your teenage daughter feel ‘looked after,’ helped her ease into this new big world away from her familiar home, helped her feel settled in and a bit safer in her new environment. She could then recall, as she snuggled under her doona tonight, that her mother made her bed for her, loved her, and would be there in any emergency (teenage girls who have a wise mother’s council are going to be advantaged in their early adult life. College can be dangerous for girls.).
Via helping her unpack and set up her dorm room, your wife would have been doing some “emotional taking care of” your daughter, and she has probably been doing similar tasks on the daily since she was pregnant with her. It’s one of the many types of actions that binds people together in loving relationships. Rushing off was never going to get your wife to “cut those strings,” in fact it would’ve been more likely to make your wife worry more about her daughter. Mothers don’t generally aim to discontinue relationships and care responsibilities for teenagers like -snap!- that.
Yta. “I insist upon my wife making them do chores.” Bro you waited until your kid moved out to teach her how to clean and organize?! Yeah. That sucks. You suck. She probably will not speak to you once she no longer needs your money bc you you want your vision implanted with absolutely no guidance from you as to how to accomplish it.
NTA
INFO: Did you and your wife plan to leave after dropping things off, or did you unilaterally announce it was time to go?
NTA, your daughter is going to struggle at college at basic living skills. I feel for her roommate who is going to live with a person who can’t clean her room.
YTA for coming here and writing this-this, this right here-makes me want to go scroll United
>I wanted my daughter to put everything away as a way to finally get my wife to cut those strings
>I felt I was helping her become independent
This single act was not going to suddenly cut the strings nor teach your daughter independence. You don’t toss someone into the ocean and hope they’ll suddenly learn to swim, especially when there’s always been a lifeguard(mom) on duty.
Your daughter was set up for failure. You needed to pick this battle a long time ago. If your other daughters are still at home, you need to start it on their behalf immediately, no matter what it takes.
YTA.
I can’t wait for your daughters to cut off contact with you.
Imagine being scared for your first time living alone and your deadbeat father says “peace! Suffer alone.”
What did she want you to do, fold her undies and put them in drawers?? In reverse this all would be creepy, inappropriate, and infantilization. NTA.
YTA for two reasons – not teaching her responsibility before sending her off to live on her own, and for not helping her unpack into her dorm. That’s supposed to be the last bonding time with parents to unpack and decorate her new space together before she’s living independently. You didn’t teach her before it mattered.
NTA, I can’t imagine my parents helping me unpack. I mean, you usually try not to bring much anyway so it’s not like it’s even an hours worth of work. As long as you said your goodbyes and keep in touch you’ll see her again before you know it. She’s not even that far away if she needs anything. 🤷
yta. most of the time when parents are helping their kids unpack at college it’s bc they want to spend time with them before leaving them there. this is often the last hurdle before kids move out forever, it is a marker of a new start. helping her transition into that is not enabling her. should she have had more responsibility growing up? maybe. but it’s too little too late for that now.
YTA. Luckily, I cannot imagine my father being so dismissive and selfish. Your selfishness speaks volumes.
YTA you had 18 years to teach your kid to clean up after herself, but you chose to sit and watch her become spoiled and lazy because you didn’t think it was your job. then at the literal last second possible, you dump a shitty situation on her that she has no skills to handle. no wonder her dorm was always a mess… her parents let her down.
Of course YTA If your goal was to help your wife cut the apron strings, you don’t do that by leaving her anxious and worried. If she helped your daughter set up (a perfectly normal thing, btw, even for independent children) she would leave confident that your daughter was at least set up for success. If your goal was to make your daughter independent, it was far too late for that. Setting up her own room would have been overwhelming, because her parents did not teach her the life skills she needed. So you deprived your wife and daughter of a special moment and a proper goodbye, made them both think you’re an asshole, and all for nothing. Good job, dad.
Ehh, I want to say NTA. I’m a college student and I was dropped off at my place and had to unpack everything by myself, but luckily my parents taught me to be self sufficient starting at the age of 5 (also they both constantly worked, so it was kind of a given)…but anyways, I’ve roomed with a bunch of roommates over the years and I could tell with some of them that their moms did everything for them. Dishes, laundry, cleaning the bathroom, taking out the trash, cooking, etc, and they were the worst roommates to live with.
Eventually your daughter is going to have a reality check living in the dorms, because her mom has coddled her responsibilities her whole life. It’s unfortunate, but sometimes it’s the only way for them to learn that they have to be self sufficient, because other people definitely won’t pick up after them.
Just saw the update and wanted to add: i just feel terrible for the roommate in this situation! I think you and your wife need to definitely plan a day during the weekend to go to her dorm and show her how to clean up her room, because she’s lost and clueless on how to do it. After that, just hope what you taught her sticks…for her sake..
My brother and his wife have raised very independent, chore-doing kids. They absolutely unpacked and organized together. Becoming independent and doing chores is not the same as experiencing big transitions together in a positive way. YTA for that part. Do agree that your wife is handicapping the kids if they don’t do anything for themselves though.
ESH. As parents we’re supposed to be a united front and teach our kids to be independent. Obviously neither of those worked out here. Then you decided to, essentially, punish your kid because Mom coddled her.
The big one, though, is the moving in day. We’ve done those. The school my youngest went to didn’t allow parents inside the dorm at all on move in (or move out) day with good reason. Groups of four kids trying to schlepp stuff into their dorm with two parents each helping? It is pure over crowded chaos and just makes the whole thing worse. And don’t even get me started on the parking situation to unload. Everyone’s TAH for contributing to that over stimulating hell scape.
ESH
Yes, your kids needs to be independent and to be able to live and survive on their own. Her roommates and future partners wil thank you 🙏🏽.
However, it’s also nice to help them and give them those tips , they you picked up along the way through life experience and save them some trouble if you can.
YTA. Why is your wife the only one responsible for raising your children? “ I insist upon MY WIFE MAKING THEM do dishes.”
Your wife has created a dependency that is likely to have a negative effect immediately.
NTA.
YTA
Unpacking is overwhelming for anyone to do alone, but for someone who has no skills to do this?! Why not help set up, and then leave. She’d still have been responsible for maintaining the cleanliness and her roommates would have (or not) complained as time went on. Either she would have learned to maintain the cleanliness and organization or not. THAT would have been the true “test”.
YTA. Teaching your daughter life skills was equally your responsibility, and your last minute symbolic effort was not it.
NTA for trying to aren’t your child, a responsibility that your wife has abandoned.
YTA
You and your wife are a team.
You behaved like a dictator.
In your eyes benevolent, but a sole ruler nonetheless.
You made a unilateral decision which only made you feel good. Leaving her to unpack solo wasn’t going to magical teach her independence. It just made you feel like you were teaching her a lesson in adulthood.
Those ties can and will be gradually reduce with time and distance.
It was disrespectful and rather patronizing towards your wife.
You know best. And it failed she was still a slob. It only serves to cause temporary distress and nastiness towards your wife even if it wasn’t your intent.
I have a daughter. I work full time and care for the home with her spending 2 to 3 days with her dad weekly. You were capable of keeping up with everyone’s chores via a schedule and regular family meetings. If you found your wife primary parenting lacking, college dorm drop off was a ridiculous place to start change.
This isn’t just your wife’s fault.
If you’d acknowledge that perhaps you two together could work towards strengthening their independence. She could provide you with valuable insight into their personalities that you’ve missed as the sole financial provider. You can offer a fresh perspective.
I helped my daughter unpack as an “excuse” to spend a few more hours with her. Before you know it, she will be grown, graduated and out on in her own life. You will then regret not “stealing” these few moments with them. I do it anytime I can. Just my .02.
The thing is, you should’ve been doing more to make her independent and responsible all along.
Parents often help their kids unpack. It is a fun bonding time for everyone before leaving your child at college.
I think YTA for this. Your daughter is going to have to learn because she’s left there without her parents. But helping her get her dorm set up wouldn’t have hurt.
NTA, I think your wife wanted to unpack as a parting gesture of love for her kid, who was leaving the nest. And you weren’t really taking that into consideration. Lots of parents help their kids unpack and set up their dorms as a last opportunity to bond, even when their children are quite capable of doing themselves.
But I think you have your wife all wrong about chores. Your wife does all the chores and cleans other people’s rooms because she can’t stand the mess, and she’s protecting her own peace.
Nobody knows how to clean like she does. (In her eyes. ) An improperly completed task is upsetting to her, so she feels compelled to do it all rather than live with someone else’s “best effort” for a week. Is this a healthy mindset? No. But it does indicate the possibility of an underlying disorder such as OCD. She may not be able to suppress the compulsion to do it because she’ll ruminate over whether or not it’s done right if she doesn’t do it.
You, on the other hand, don’t have this issue. So you can see the big picture, and you’re more focused on raising independent, capable adults.
NTA, and I honestly can’t believe everyone on here saying otherwise.
Taking your post at face value, your daughter is in for a RUDE awakening in college. It sounds like she not only has never had to be responsible for herself as an adult, she’s already failing if her roommates are complaining. If she‘s been coddled for 18 years up to that point, the line has to be drawn somewhere, and making her unpack her own belongings in her new residence is literally the most obvious, reasonable line possible in this scenario. When her room needs to be cleaned, I hope your wife doesn’t make the trip just to “help” her out.
I am curious if you ever tried to make your daughters do work. You say you insisted your wife make them do chores, but did you ever step up as the father and fill that role?
Regardless, not sticking around to unpack your kid’s dorm room is the least controversial thing a parent has ever done. Entirely NTA.
I’ve been the bad guy and it’s so hard. So i don’t blame you OP for giving up at home. But I do lean YTA due to the timing here. Drop off at college can be an emotional time and will create a lasting memory. One experience unpacking won’t teach her good habits, but WILL leave her with a bad memory that makes you look like an AH, even if she eventually acknowledges you were correct about chores and had good intentions. I understand being resentful but if you don’t want to seem like the bad guy, don’t
take a dump all over a memorable occasion.
Curious. What part in the parenting of this child have you contributed? Seems a whole lot of blame laid on the mother of your children, when you’re quite literally their father.
NTA. Let the roommates complain. Perhaps she will realize that if she doesn’t do it, it won’t get done.
YTA
You abdicated the active parenting of YOUR children to your wife. You are free to sell your labor for money BECAUSE your wife took on YOUR responsibility to supervise and support your children 24/7 for the time you were commuting and working. That doesn’t excuse your lack of effort towards raising your children the rest of the time.
YOU have been abdicating YOUR responsibilities as a parent, adult and partner onto your wife. She has been doing your work in the home and family every bit as much as she has for your children. You sound disconnected from the relationships and routines in your own home and family. You think occasionally demanding YOUR WIFE change her behavior to better suit you as you remain inactive as a parent is “parenting” and your right.
OP, you may be facing a future where your relationships with your children, and possibly your wife, are distant and tenuous. Because YOU have contributed little of yourself, your time, attention and energy, to develop individual relationships with them. Mom has been doing all the work. In future, Mom may be the only parent your adult children feel a bond with.
You’ve had your account for 9 hours and have made several posts. You’re not seeking advice, you’re seeking validation.
According to your post history it sounds like you need to seek therapy and not Reddit.
YTA
Nta only so much u can do when the other parent is undermining you all the time . Your wife created the monsters now u get the blame for it smh 🤦🏾♀️
NTA. You helped move her stuff, she has arms and legs, she can unpack it herself. This whole bonding thing helps her unpack is the dumbest thing I’ve read on Reddit. When I went to college, my parents helped load everything into my car, and then I drove by myself and brought everything into the dorm and unpacked myself, did not bother me one bit.
Then, a few years later, I decided to move across the country. My parents loaded all my stuff in the back of my dad’s truck, and we spent 5 days driving together to my new apartment. Brought in everything, and they stayed for a little over a week to help me get settled before they left. College isn’t the end all, be all of helping your kids. There will be other times, Redditers yall need to fucking chill.
YTA
This why dads end up with no relationship with their daughters. You see her as a failed product of your wife’s coddling, but you’re actually just cold and removed.
You insist upon your wife making your daughters do chores? Why don’t you insist upon it since it means so much to you? You can’t be upset your girls don’t do all this stuff for themselves when you won’t even assign the tasks yourself.
You have equal fault in not preparing your daughter before now. I can’t imagine how lonely and isolated she must have felt having her parents dump her in a new place and peace out for their 90 minute drive when those around her had parents helping unpack before much longer drives. Your poor daughter. YTA.
YTA. Unpacking and putting the room together is a bonding time. You decided to engage in a pissing contest instead of looking at it as a bonding moment as your daughter enters a really exciting time of her life. This was a time to meet her roommate, others in the dorm, go have dinner together, really enjoy the experience and make her send off one that was loving. Instead you chose to announce that you were leaving. And as far as her room being a mess? You think that is uncommon during college life that they’re not housekeepers? You really missed an opportunity and I’d go further and say that your daughter probably thinks YTA too. You can blame your wife, but, really, go look in the mirror. You chose to really begin a battle that you already lost.
YTA you are the parent, you had just as many years as your wife to teach the daughter.
When I was dropped off, there were RAs walking up and down the halls shouting “parents, help your kid make their bed, give them a hug, and head out. If they’re old enough to be living away from you, they’re old enough to unpack by themselves.” I’m sure they were just trying to clear out the parking lots so more kids could get in, but it was sage advice.
NTA.
Depends on the kid. Some of them are excited to cut the strings and start this new phase of decision-making. Sounds like your kid had no clue what to expect or how to do any of it, and you abruptly decided to leave her to it. I feel sorry for her roommate, who probably had to teach her how to do laundry and take out the trash and probably muttered WTF at least 5 times a day.
YTA. And so is your wife, who knew your daughter was leaving home but held back on sharing important life skills.
I don’t understand parents who don’t get that their job is to raise a functioning adult and the future adult needs to attain these skills as they hit developmental milestones so as not to be overwhelmed.
You took away a special memory for both of them. You’ve failed your daughter by not preparing her for life then left her in a new space, knowing not a soul and no clue how to set up or organize her space, probably embarrassing her when all the other parents are there helping out. Don’t be surprised when you are left out and not a part of your daughter’s life moving forward, no walking her down the aisle, no being called Papa when the grandkids are born.
YTA
YTA but more importantly do you even LIKE your daughter?
Yes you are and I can think of a few other choice words to describe you.
YTA. Huge right of passage moment and you kind of shit on it.
Yta
NTA
FTK
As a daughter who went to college once upon a time…. YTA. Having my parents help me move in is something I still remember as an act of love from them, as I was becoming an adult. The fact that my mom made my bed that one time made a difference when I made it a hundred times myself.
Your daughter WILL be an adult eventually. As in, fully independent and living on her own and depending on herself. If she’s lucky she will know that she can always come back home if things get bad, and that will HELP her to be more independent, and be able to take risks because she has a life built on a strong foundation.
Obviously she needs to be babied a little less, but if there’s a time to do it, it would be when you’re letting her go.
In essence your wife has crippled her daughters as no one (as evidenced by the roommate’s complaint) wants to live with a slob
YTA. Look, 90 minutes more or less won’t fix anything, but helping a child (if possible) with their first home away from their childhood house is a great bonding experience. It seems stupid to deny her and yourselves that memory just because “you wanted her to be independent”. You are going away at the end of the day. She will have to learn or face consequences, like every adult. Maybe this was not the moment to try to fix this issue after 18 years of not doing it. If you wanted to do it, you, as one of the parents, should have stepped in way earlier. And no, “telling my wife X” is not “stepping in”. You are a parent, too.
Oh boy
You came to the worst possible place to get parenting advice. Non technical Reddit subs are predominantly echo chambers of immaturity. They’re going to act as though you dumped your daughter in the Arctic without a jacket and gloves or dumped her at a halfway house, simply because you didn’t put her belongings away.
Once reddit knows you’re a parent, you’re automatically the ah. If your daughter comes here and asks for any kind of advice, they will tell her to use you to get through school financially, and then go no contact. Keep this in mind when looking at the responses you get. NTA, they have to grow up sooner or later.
YTA. That’s just mean. I think my dad knew my mom needed to stay and help me unpack just as much as I needed her to. It’s been 30 years and I still remember walking them back to the car at the end of the day after meeting all my friends and him whispering “your mom is going thru menopause are you sure I can’t stay” with tears in his eyes. One last giggle and off they went. He’s gone now but these are the little things I hold on to. Knowing my dad would ALWAYS show up for things big and small. Maybe you’re not as good a dad as my dad though 🤷♀️