Childcare can be a contentious issue. So, it’s no surprise that Reddit’s famous ‘Am I The Asshole’ [AITA] thread has numerous parenting disputes amongst its posts. In a thread written this week, one 25-year-old woman wanted to know whether she was in the wrong for refusing to split childcare costs with her 30-year-old boyfriend after he made a seven-figure fortune from his IT startup.
The couple both worked in the technology sector and the woman’s boyfriend received a big payout after the company he worked at went public two years earlier. Savvily, he invested most of the money and has consequently quit his job and decided to live off the dividend as an income…but he still won’t help his wife out with looking after their child while she’s at work despite being at home with time on his hands.
‘We recently had our son and I’m currently on maternity leave and intend to go back to work after it’ the original poster [OP] explained. ‘We had initially planned to send our son to day care but after hearing about my bf’s plans [to not work] I suggested we could save the money and not do so since my bf is going to stay at home anyway,’ she said.
‘My boyfriend refused, saying that he intends to relax and have fun now that he no longer needs to work instead of being stuck with childcare most of the day,’ she continued. ‘But the thing is we live in a HCOL (high cost of living) area where a good day care for infants can easily cost 30-40k annually. Unlike him, I don’t have such a huge nest egg and 15-20k in annual savings would go a lot farther for me. I explained the same to him and said that if we are still sending our son to day care then he should foot the entire bill by himself.’
When the OP said this to her partner, he pointed out that they’d agreed to split their finances equally and that, in refusing to pay half of the day care costs, his girlfriend was going against her word. However, splitting your ‘finances equally’ doesn’t always mean going 50/50 and it’s clear in this instance that the couple aren’t starting off from a level playing field.
In order to legitimately make the childcare costs ‘fair’ the couple would need to divide their wealth (including his seven figure pay out) equally and then pay the childcare costs between them. This could be done theoretically, with the proportionate percentage for the woman to pay being calculated from the difference between their financial circumstances.
Many couples opt for this form of balancing the books with rent, bills, and expenses while living together even before they’re married as (thanks to gender pay gapsand occupational segregation) paying ‘equally’ never really means splitting costs in half—and that is clearly the case here.
Additionally, it’s concerning that this new father doesn’t want to care for his son and instead is prioritising ‘relaxing’ and ‘having fun’ while his partner goes back to work weeks after giving birth.
It seems obvious, that this man has a massively irresponsible and selfish mentality and many Reddit users have even gone so far as to encourage the woman to prepare herself with legal advice in case of a custody battle further down the line.
‘What kind of person receives a seven figure pay out and thinks it’s fair to continue on splitting finances 50-50 with the mother of their child that is significantly less financially secure?’ they questioned. ‘I would be documenting this immediately, finding a good attorney with experience in custody cases and washing my hands of this man.’
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