Mum defended after showing kids spreadsheet to prove ‘fun parent’ dad doesn’t pay anything
Joe Harker
Featured Image Credit: Andriy Popov / Alamy Stock Photo / Tomas Anderson / Alamy Stock Photo
People have defended a mum after she asked if she was in the wrong for pointing out to her kids that their dad gets to be the 'fun parent' on her dime.
We can't speak for everyone's upbringings but in lots of families there's a 'fun parent' who takes the kids out to more things and generally lets them get away with more.
If you want to go to the cinema and have a McDonald's afterwards you ask the fun parent, if you want permission to stay out later than usual you ask the fun parent.
One mum had had enough of her kids' dad being the fun parent and decided to ask the internet if she'd gone too far in showing them who was really financing all of that fun.
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Taking to Reddit, she explained that she lived 'a pretty frugal life' and that extra money she had was paid into 'college accounts or fun weekends'.
Most of the time her children, aged 13 and 11, lived with her but 'once a month' they lived with their dad and she lamented that he'd had the position of 'fun parent'.
She wrote that it was 'frustrating' that he 'can't get his child payments in' but was able to treat his kids to a 'surprise trip' when he had them.
The mum said she tries not to badmouth her children's father but that recently he'd been telling them that without his money they 'wouldn't have the home' and her kids were telling her 'dad pays for this'.
That was pretty much the last straw and she decided to show her children a spreadsheet of the household budget, including all the things their father paid for and him not paying their child support 'for the past two months'.
Her kids then got upset with their dad for not being honest about money and the mum explained that they'd argued over showing the spreadsheet and that even some of her friends were split on whether it was too far.
However, the internet was there to reassure her that she was 'just defending yourself' against false claims from her ex and there was nothing wrong with showing the children the actual figures.
Someone said this wasn't a case of 'badmouthing the other parent' and was instead just the mum pushing back on some of the 'lies' her kids had been told.
Another said the dad 'f**ked around and had to find out', while a third wondered whether he was expecting him telling the kids he was paying for things - when he wasn't - wouldn't make it back to their mother.
Others said it was the dad's fault because he 'opened the door' on this issue and that the mum 'almost had to do this' to avoid the wrong impression festering in her children's minds.
Ultimately the vast majority of people reckoned that the kids were 'old enough to know the truth' and their mum had every right to show them the numbers.