Kate Hackett
Redditor u/aitalivingcheaply recently took to the famed Am I The Assh*le subreddit to wonder if she was the asshole for not spending the child support received from her ex on the child.
I’m gonna be real with you a second: Reddit totally dragged on this person and I’m just not sure it was warranted.
Check out the post here:
I honestly can’t believe I’m posting this but here we go…
So, my ex gives me a generous amount of child support every month and I use about 20-30% of it maybe. I’m very good at budgeting since my mum raised me on her own and we always stuck to a strict budget. My ex grew up being overindulged and knowing he would never have to worry about money in his lifetime, so we have different ideas of what living cheaply looks like.
So it doesn’t seem like the son desperately REQUIRES that money, right? It’s just … a lot.
Recently my ex wanted to have a word with me because he didn’t like the fact that I made our son walk home from school. He wanted to know why I wouldn’t buy a car and offered me money to get one when I told him cars were expensive and I thought it was a waste of money. I told him no since I would rarely use it. He then told me to take an uber home instead of making him walk. Again, I told him no and he brought up all of the other ways he thought I was making our son “live cheaply”. For example: I didn’t buy him new football boots or a goal when he started getting into football (he is only 4), I buy him “cheap” clothes, I rarely take him to eat out and if we go to a toy shop, I only ever let him get one thing and it can’t be super expensive.
Basically, one parent doesn’t see the need to purchase a car when errands are walkable. I agree; driving sucks!
My ex wanted to know what I was using all of the money he gave to me on if I was raising our son like this, so I explained I never used most of it but kept it in a separate account for either a rainy day or for our son. Now he’s angry at me for making our son “live cheaply” and essentially told me to stop saving and actually give our son the things he wants now because he had already made sure our son would be fine in the future.
AITA?
So this parent keeps the support in another account for “a rainy day or for our son”.
Edit: I was trying to avoid editing the post but since so many people are asking me to/asking me the same question over and over again…
Of course my FOUR YEAR OLD son doesn’t walk home alone from school. I drop him off and then pick him up. The teacher only lets him leave the building after she sees me. Also, it’s a 25 minute walk for anyone who cares.
Not so black and white, right? Reddit didn’t totally think so. The poster was quickly labeled the asshole in this situation.
Thankfully there were some nuanced takes too.
“Definitely not enough context here. If school is a few blocks away and you pick him up and walk him home, then fine. But given the suggestions about taking an Uber, I’m betting it’s not a couple of blocks. There is such as thing as too much indulgence on a child, but it sounds like you might be placing too much value on the idea of being “simple”. Being rich doesn’t make you a good person, but neither does being very frugal. If you’re denying your son things that you didn’t have because that seems moral, that might be an issue. Sounds like something you should talk to a therapist about,” wrote Old-Advice-5685.
