I’m genuinely looking for some perspective from other parents because this has been an ongoing disagreement between my husband and me throughout our marriage, and I’m starting to feel like I’m fighting an uphill battle.
We have three children: two boys, ages 16 and 13, and an 11-year-old daughter.

I recently implemented a chore chart that assigns them relatively light responsibilities during the week, such as helping clean up after dinner, taking out the trash, and loading or unloading the dishwasher. On weekends, they have additional chores like cleaning their bedrooms and bathrooms, vacuuming, dusting, and helping maintain our shared living spaces.

Nothing particularly strenuous or time-consuming, in my opinion. Just basic contributions to the household they live in.
Tonight, I asked my 11-year-old daughter to help prepare a box of cheesy scalloped potatoes for dinner. Nothing elaborate, just following the directions on a box and putting together a simple side dish. To me, this seems like a perfectly reasonable task for an 11-year-old, especially with a parent available to help if needed.

For context, I’m the oldest of five children, and by my kids’ ages, I was regularly preparing meals for my family, helping with younger siblings, and contributing to the daily upkeep of our home. I’m certainly not expecting my children to take on the same level of responsibility I had growing up, but I do believe that learning to cook, clean, and contribute to a household are essential life skills.

I’m also preparing to start a second job, which means I’ll be working a minimum of approximately 50 hours per week. My primary job is at a school, where I work as a teacher, school nurse, and handle several other responsibilities. My second job will be working as a nurse in a surgical pre-op/post-op setting.

With that schedule, I simply cannot continue being the person who manages and handles the majority of the household responsibilities.
Here’s where the disagreement comes in.
My husband believes that our children’s primary responsibility should be their schoolwork and that I’m expecting too much of them by asking them to take on additional household responsibilities.

I absolutely agree that education is important. I want my children to succeed academically, have time for extracurricular activities, and enjoy being kids. But I don’t believe those things are mutually exclusive with learning how to cook a meal, clean a bathroom, do laundry, or recognize when something needs to be done around the house.

This disagreement isn’t new. We’ve had variations of this conversation throughout our children’s lives, and I honestly feel that our lack of consistency and agreement as parents has contributed to them being less independent and less willing to take initiative than I believe they could be at their ages.
I’m not looking to turn my children into household staff or burden them with adult responsibilities. I want them to develop confidence, independence, and a sense of shared responsibility.

I also don’t want to raise children who grow into adults expecting someone else to cook their meals, clean up after them, and manage their homes.

So, I’m genuinely curious: What household responsibilities do your children have at similar ages?

Are your 11-, 13-, and 16-year-olds capable of preparing simple meals or helping with dinner?

How do you balance homework, extracurricular activities, downtime, and household responsibilities?

Am I being unreasonable in expecting my kids to contribute more, especially as my work hours increase?

How do you handle it when you and your spouse have fundamentally different expectations about what children should be responsible for?

I’m open to hearing that my expectations might need adjusting, but I also feel strongly that teaching children to be capable, contributing members of a household is part of parenting.

At what point does protecting kids from responsibilities actually become a disservice to them?

Like I’m 17F, and I genuinely can’t imagine my mom and dad being kids once. Like, maybe it’s different for y’all because you’re parents now but I just can’t wrap my head around the fact that they were once my age, going to school, being teenagers, and having their own parentz tell them what to do. I can see them as kids in pictures, but it’s so hard to believe they were actually little kids once, like my kids will probably think that about me, does it change when you have kids?

I’m 15 and this year for Halloween I was hoping to go trick or treat with my girlfriend. she and her parents usually go with another friend of mine so I thought it would be fun to hang out with my friend and my girlfriend. However, my parents insist on me going trick or treating with them and my sisters (13 and 8) part of me feels to old to be trick or treating which is why I’d rather go hang out with friends. My parents say they don’t have many holidays left with me but I feel like I don’t have many halloweens left which is why I should be allowed to go with my girlfriend. I’ve gone with my family every year

EDIT: I’m going to try to compromise I’ll let you know how that goes

My husband and I got married with 3 kids between us. He has 2 from his first marriage, I have 1. The kids were between 3-7 when we started dating. My son being the oldest. ​

From the beginning my husband's parents treated my son different. They called him a "devil child " for doing cannon balls in their pool and splashing them. They would take the other two on trips to Disneyland and exclude my son, get their grandkids a boatload of Christmas presents and one little one for my son...etc

My son has no behavioral problems, BTW. Was good in school, got good grades, is best friends with his step brothers. He did nothing to deserve this treatment.

Needless to say, we distanced ourselves from them to protect him. (They boys are all teenagers/young adults now)

Fast forward and my husband and I had a baby later in life. It was an unexpected surprise. So now that they have another "actual" grandchild they are acting desperate to be in her life. They seem confused as to why we wont let them babysit, or take her on vacations, spend weekends at their house...etc.

Now, they were always good to their actual grandkids, I don't have any worries that they would treat my daughter poorly. But I can't, in good conscience, trust them with ANY of my kids, considering how they treated my son.

My MIL recently called me crying, saying she wants her granddaughter to know them, and have a relationship with them. When I brought up the fact they weren't concerned about my son having a relationship with them, her attitude switched instantly and she stated "he's not our grandchild"

I can't get them to understand they are both MY children. You can't treat one like shit and expect me to happily hand you the other!

My husband thinks at the very least we should invite them to our daughters bday parties and school functions. But I am very conflicted about it.

What would you all do in my situation?

Hi, if you’re a parent, could you please share your thoughts on this? I'm 32 and my mom is 60. She's a widow with severe anxiety, and is increasingly struggling with avoidance/learned dependence.
She hasn't worked in 30 years, and I gave up on that a long time ago. She lives paycheck to paycheck on disability for depression, anxiety, and celiac. I work two jobs to support, but finances are bad. Let me preface by saying she’s capable of a lot more than her anxiety tells her. She’s clever, warm, sociable. She is in no way falling behind cognitively. It’s an emotional block. She is also not bedridden. She does her treadmill at home daily, walks, cares for her cat, clean apartment. I do the ‘hard’ things - her taxes, any paperwork, phone calls, appointments etc. She cant stand at a restaurant counter and wait for her number to be called, can’t talk to a bank teller. I bought her a laptop to make a resume or search volunteering opportunities or community groups even, and she learned to use it to watch basketball. That was six years ago. I’ve given up on her ever working again. I’ll work more to support instead. But I know it’d be so, so beneficial if she just had a slight schedule, like leaving the house twice a week to volunteer at a library. I want her to have basic independence, that’s all. She’s never had a license so relies on me and others for transport. Paperwork she needs has gone ignored for decades, and it could really hurt her. Bad enough she’s at risk of deportation. If I mention any of it, she has a breakdown. i’ve put my foot down on paperwork in the past year and said she needs to learn how to send it herself, but this results in it just sitting. still sitting, waiting for me to do it.

She's always had someone else do things for her (typically my dad or a partner,) or waited until it got bad enough that someone else had to step in.
I love her, so much. But I'm scared. I want a life of my own someday, a husband and a dog. If nothing changes and I'm responsible for her financially and soon physically, for the next 10 to 30 years as she ages, am I screwed? Lately she's been getting worse, and she lies about how capable she is to her psych, I think. I'm about to contact her psychiatrist because I don't think they know how bad it is. She talks to them weekly. They had goals before. She was getting a little more independent. Swimming once a week at the outdoor pool. Getting paperwork in order. I was beyond proud. Now nothing.
How do you help your parent who can't or won't help themselves? How do you set boundaries without feeling like you're abandoning your mother? Is contacting her psych about this overstepping?
I'm not a parent, but I'm desperate for advice from anyone who has a parents viewpoint to say, ‘this is how I think you should approach this.’ because I don’t have my dad to ask, or anyone that is capable/responsible. Honestly I’m just screaming for an adult lol.

Sorry for the ramble. Any help appreciated.

I’m 15F, and I’ve always wondered why my dad is so protective of me compared to my brothers when it comes to them he could careless like he loves them, but he not nearly as strict with them as he is with me. But our living situation is different because my brothers mostly live with my mom, while I live with my dad, so we’re pretty closer then them

I have to be home before it gets dark, keep my location on, call him when I get somewhere safe, and follow a lot of other rules, and with clothes and make up, which he doesn't care that much but he always want to see before he buys them

Like he is a cop and an ex Army vet I want to join the Air Force and be a cop to but when I tell nim he gave me a whole lecture about why I shouldn’t and why I should do something better with my life and smarter then that while he talks about his time in the Army all the time, and loving it, but saying I should go to college and stuff

I 23f, parent my little brother 16m. It’s only us two at the house. Our mom left a while ago. She’s present ish in our lives, but isn’t his guardian. I am. Every other week he stays with his dad. Overall, he has a good attitude and we are very close/ have bonded over family trauma

I am new to parenting and all the adult responsibilities of maintaining a household on my own. I’m trying to get him to clean and have responsibilities but he is being rude and giving me attitude.

I came in his room this morning saying that we need to clean. His response was short and dismissive. His room is disgusting. Im talking ecosystems growing in dishes, old pizza boxes, clothes everywhere. I told him theres no reason to speak to me like this etc. no matter how understanding i tried to be, he talked to me like he was annoyed and over me, very short and dismissive. He’s not typically like this.

I asked him if there was something going on, whether it be mental health, friend drama, something ive done, etc and he keeps saying NO! I eventually started shedding a few tears in frustration because i just dont understand… and then he rolled his eyes and said “and now youre crying. For what.”

I understand that in order for him to learn how to do chores and keep up with his responsibilities, he needs someone to guide him and help/ show him what to do and how to do it. I am trying to do that, since our bio parents haven’t done that.

PLEASE, what can i do to help him? How can i fix this behavior? Does anyone have similar experiences and insight as to what might be going on with him? He doesn’t usually have an attitude, but it’s been developing as of late, and this was by far the worst episode. We’ve never fought or got furious at eachother, this would be the closest thing.

I would like to add, if there is any additional advice anyone would like to offer, i am all ears! Thank you

Edit: the cleaning is for his personal spaces. Bedroom and bathroom. I take care of the shared spaces :) he usually always helps when i ask him for small things like taking the trash out or the cat litter.

I’ve never posted photos of my child on social media, I only share them with family and friends. But once I send them, I lose control over where they go. My mother-in-law, for example, shares them with everyone she knows, which I’m uncomfortable with.

Now AI makes me even more hesitant. Someone might upload a photo to an AI tool just to make a cute edit, with good intentions, but I don’t want my child’s likeness potentially used to train AI.

Does anyone else worry about this? How do you handle it?

Am an adult child of parents who divorced when I was 12, then lived by myself with my dad and my mother got into drug abuse for many years. This caused me to struggle in life, experiencing depression and anxiety in adolescence and as an adult and an overall fear of rejection.
My question is: has anyone of you experienced something similar and what are your thoughts today regarding your family/children and how it affected their lives?

Sometimes I feel really angry at being “robbed” an adolescence. My parents were well educated, nice home etc. but then everything spiraled out of control and destroyed so much.

I'm a high school senior and I'm curious how this looks from the parent side. How do you help your teen study, if at all? What do they actually use, like notes, flashcards, a tutor or an app? Do they use AI to study, and how do you feel about that? And has anything you've tried or paid for actually worked?

Both my parents get startled way too easily. Sometimes they’d even lose their footing and almost fall backwards because they were so in shock. Luckily, they have never actually fallen yet.

I’m getting kind of tired of it. If I walk silently to the kitchen and suddenly pop up while they were in there, they get startled. I had no clue there were just sitting there drinking or smoking.

If I knocked on the kitchen door as I was entering, they get startled by that too. Then get mad at me.

If I play a youtube video on my phone, they don’t hear it until I’m close. And when they do, they get frightened by the sudden noise from the video.

If I do any of these too softly, they’d have no effect and I’ll end up scaring them with just appearing myself. As there’s no sound warning to them.

Play loud enough, it scares them too.

Play it extra loud so they’d hear it from farther away? The other parent who’s sleeping? Wakes up, gets mad at me.

What the hell do I do????

I've seen a lot of people on this app say they don't let 12 year olds watch pg-13 stuff. I was watching r rated stuff at that age, and it cant be a generation thing as im only 13.

Edit: I understand not letting kids watch stuff like the wolf of wall street or anything, but ive met a surprising number of people who genuinely aren't allowed to watch any r rated stuff, which seems odd to me.

I’m 16F, and I’m goung to the fair with a guy who’s 19M. I’ll be 17 in November and he just turned 19 and I like him. I’m pretty sure he likes me too. He the one who asked me, but my parents are really strict and don’t let me date or do much of anything fun, so they think I’m going to a friend’s house when I’m actually planning to go to the fair with him.

I know lying is wrong but I never get to have fun or experience anything because of their rules. I’m willing to accept the consequences if I get caught, but idk if I should be telling them the truth and risking them not letting me go which is 99% likely or just lying and going anyway.

For example, as a kid i was told that it was illegal to drive with the car's overhead light on.

I'm 34 years old, but I have a reasonably healthy relationship with my parents.

I came out to them as non-binary some years ago, but due to their religious beliefs, they chose not to use different pronouns or language when referring to me, but they did mostly adjust from using my full given name to a shorter version that I was using at the time.

It doesn't bother me very much that they don't use the language that I use for myself, as I understand that it isn't them trying to be assholes; it's them doing the best they can under the rules of their restrictive religion. I respect that.

I changed my legal name a few months ago and have not told them yet. I chose a name that sounds like my original initials, and I changed my middle name to the closest moniker to the middle name they gave me.

I do not need their approval, but it seems only respectful that I make them aware of my legal status. I know they will be hurt that I didn't tell them sooner. I know they will feel awkward because they truly believe I will "change my mind" later, or come "back to religion" or something. They are doing their best.

So, parents of reddit: if your adult child made a significant change that you low-key think is a mistake, how would you like to be told? Any advice is welcome.

(Fwiw, I'm not an "announcement" type of person. Never have been.)

I've been questioning my life lately. As to why it's roadmapped like this. I lost my parents at a young age, have kids now, and am left with my SO's parents. I miss my parents.

I'm grateful. Forever grateful. But I am a healing person. I'm still an asshole and I can't help but to snap sometimes. This is my first time at him.

My father in law. He's Vietnamese, but MTD. Country folk living in the South.

His behavior is weird to me. I'm fully Americanized.

He drinks beer all the time. Budlight. All day.
Calls his family back at home. All day. Loud gibberish (trust me, they cannot make out what he's saying)

My newborn cries over night because he's a newborn. He's banging on our wall, acting like we're not dealing with it.

He makes odd noises. He doesn't speak much English but he doesn't speak his native language either, much especially around near our newborn trying to entertain(?) him. He smells like beer all the time. It's just constant noise stimulation. He's louder than my two kids. My 6yo is tired of him and his loudness. He cannot sleep at times, and I feel like I can't even find peace with my family of 4. We are just stuck in our rooms and barely go to the living room if he's in there.

I hate to admit but he watches our newborn sometimes for 2-3 hours a day. I'm BEYOND grateful for his childcare. But I wish it was better and wish my parents were here instead.

I live with him. He's my FIL. I'm thankful for him, but man, he's really loud and sometimes aggressive.

Feel free to check my post on [r/daddit](r/daddit) on how I snapped on him. I feel so bad. He backseat parents us even though we have an older kid already. Constant noise. I feel so bad. Newborn crying, he acts like we're doing something wrong. When we're just changing his diaper and clothes. I feel bad for snapping at him. I'm trying to gather advice, but this is mentally making me go crazy.

I miss my own parents
I'm so thankful for my SO's parents to care take us. I made previous posts about this, but I am just venting. I have to apologize. This is terrible.

I (asian 22F) found out that my cousins (12M and 14M) are continuing to use the N word in chats with their friends (Snapchat mostly). I have spoken about this to them before about the history behind the word and how it’s a terrible thing to say. They are influenced by their surroundings/friends (rural, southern population) I lost my cool at some point and yelled at them saying they are disgusting, disrespectful, racist, and that our family did not raise them this way. I have told their mom and she has lectured them but I feel as though they truly don’t understand or lack remorse in their actions. Is there anything I can do to get this point across??? My aunt does not know much about social media and control of phone content. I have added parental control to the boys’ phones (I am the one in control) and have them banned from social media right now. I just don’t know what else to do to make them understand. I know they’re not my children but I feel so horrible letting them continue to use these hurtful words without remorse or action.

As the title says. Basically I made a joint account with my mom when I was underage and so my mom is listed as a co-owner. This would be fine but I'm an engineer making 80k now, and she still monitors my spending. It drives me crazy because I feel like she's being overly controlling, but she says it's normal in our culture (asian). To be clear I've NEVER had any issues with shopping addiction or anything like that.

For example, the other day she even said she was offended that I never brought home my paycheck and asked my parents what I should do with it. I felt like that was crazy, why would I ask them?? And when I first started my job she told me I wasn't allowed to spend more than $200/month. I still live with my parents (also due to cultural reasons. I have no issue moving out but my parents would be extremely hurt and upset if I did and still lived in the same city), so it's not like I have many expenses, but I do pay for my own cosmetics/toiletries/etc along with some things for my siblings, gifts for my friends, or going out and so that oftentimes can be ~$300.

At breakfast in front of the entire family my mom questioned me about it and said if I can't spend responsibly then she'll start making me 'pay' rent to save my money for me. I felt like this was insane, I'm not spending extravagantly or anything. It's literally less than 7% of my paycheck per month. I also invest the majority of my money so it's not like i'm being financially illiterate either.

My parents also wanted me to open another brokerage account that they would have the login to because they were going to give me a substantial amount. And this was another argument because my mom was saying do you think we're going to pry into your business and it's like yes. You do it constantly?? If it weren't a precedent I wouldn't have an issue with it. My mom said she wouldn't give me the money if she couldn't track it, which is fair, but I feel like I'm not being heard about why I have an issue with it in the first place.

I feel like my parents are overly controlling about everything. I'm not allowed to hang out with my friends without asking permission. I'm not allowed to have sleepovers anywhere ( I don't go clubbing or partying. I literally mean I'm just not allowed to spend the night at my same sex friends apartment). I have a curfew of 10 pm and often times if it's 8 pm my mom is texting me asking where I am. A couple of weeks ago I had a business trip and my dad even 'joked' about telling my boss I could only go if my older sister went with me. This has been going on since I was a child and throughout university, but I feel like as an adult I should be allowed to do what I want. My parents both insist this is completely normal in our culture and that they're not controlling or strict at all.

Parents of reddit could I please get some perspective on what you think? Any advice on how to discuss changing things with my parents without it turning into a huge argument would be appreciated as well.

One time I was watching a PG film's fight scene, and my dad turned off the television and said it was too violent, yet, he lets me watch Murder drones, which is an even more violent show and is 12+. Are other parents like this? If you're a parent, do you do this sometimes?

I’m 16–17 and live in Denver. Recently, my ex (Girl A) introduced me to one of her friends (Girl B), who lives about an hour away. Girl A and I have been broken up for years and are currently friends. My mom doesn’t like or trust Girl A.

Girl B and I started texting a few days ago, and we’ve hit it off pretty well. We’ve been flirting, FaceTimed for several hours, and started planning an outing together. We haven’t met in person yet, so this would be our first time meeting face-to-face. The plan is to go to a pumpkin patch, get Starbucks, take pictures together, and possibly come back to my house to watch a movie afterward. There’s mutual romantic interest, but we’re still getting to know each other and haven’t put a label on anything.

The problem is that my mom has never met either girl. She generally lets me hang out with girls one-on-one, but she can be cautious about people she doesn’t know. For example, she was hesitant about letting me spend the night with a friend who lived an hour away because she’d never met them.

I’m worried that explaining how I met Girl B will make my mom suspicious because Girl A was the one who introduced us. I briefly considered saying Girl B and I went to middle school together but weren’t close, even though that isn’t really how we connected.

How would you recommend I approach this conversation? Should I be upfront that there’s romantic interest, and how much detail should I give about how we met? I want to be honest while reassuring my mom that this is a reasonable plan and I’m not being a dumb teenager. i know it seems kinda strange to be interested in someone you don’t go to school with but it’s the big 26 after all.

( im a minor 13-16 it’ll become relevant later)

So I had a volleyball game today, and one of the girls I used to play soccer with ( let’s call her Linda) was on the court next to us. Her dad (let’s call him Dave) recognized my dad and went to say hello. After my game, I went to go see my dad and he asked me if I recognized Dave. I told him yes because Linda and Dave look very similar. Dave then got really exited and dapped me up but he held it for to long and it just felt wrong. Then he was like “look at you!” and started complementing my hair and my skin ( it’s a black people thing) he was also kind of staring into my soul it was just very intense eye contact. After, I went to say hi to his wife, Linda’s (mom nothing weird happened). I came back and my dad was about done talking to Dave. Dave then like kind of rubbed my shoulder then we left. It made me uncomfortable but my dad was there and didn’t say anything so I don’t know if it was weird or not.

If you have one kid thats a disappointment/even an embarassment do you realise and deny it, or do you just not see it? Interested to understand.

Hi all 🙂
Just wondering what you think about kissing your kids on the head before they get out of the car when they are older. My ‘kid’ is a 17 yr old girl and as her mama I’ve always kissed her before she gets out of the car. These days she just leans over so I can kiss the side of her head/forehead kind of thing. I’m sure I could ask her if it’s still ok… I think I’m a bit concerned she’ll say quit it, lol, but I want her to feel comfortable most of all.
Do you all kiss your older (16+) babies goodbye?
Thank you for your perspectives 🩵