Source: Reddit
My husband and I just had our last kid a month ago, he has two from a previous marriage Paul (23M) and my stepdaughter Maddy (16F), she lives with us full time. We also had 4 kids ourselves Jason (7M), Mia (5F) Louis (3M) and our baby boy Joshua.
My step-daughter isn’t really that involve with me, but she’s really close to her younger siblings, I’ve never asked something like this before, during my previous pregnancies my husband was there to help me out since he had a more flexible schedule, but now he has a new job that requires him to be there al 6 am minimum, when our kids mostly wakes at 7-7:30, lately I’ve been really tired since Joshua is a big crier and I decided to take the long nights since my husband needs to sleep well or he might’ve an accident at his job.
This has caused me to have big migraines because I sleep very little and I wake up to screaming children running around. My step-daughter is very chill, I take almost no care of her since she’s pretty self-sufficient, during mornings she prefers not to eat breakfast since most times it makes her feel dizzy throughout the day, so while she wakes up with the kids, she just stays in her room getting ready.
Today I pulled her aside and asked her if she could wake up 20 minutes early so she could help me make breakfast for the kids and I’ll wake up by 8 to take them all to school, this would give me one more hour to sleep and feel ready for the day. She said no because her siblings are pretty energetic and she doesn’t feel she can’t take care of them or get Louis to eat all of his food, and it also means that she has to make sure Jason and Mia are ready for school, dress them and make sure everything is in their bags so I can just grab them and take them. I tried to explain how I’ve been feeling really bad because I’m not sleeping well and she just shrugged and said “I said no, I’m not their mom, ask dad to help you or get a babysitter. I also stay up late doing homework but I’m not asking you to make me breakfast every day or drive me to school” and she left.
I texted my husband what happened and I mentioned how I would like if we could convince her, but he said I was a Jerk and that Maddy was right, we spoke on the phone and he sounded pretty mad, he said I better not ask her again and that he’ll take the rest of the nights with Joshua before I should’ve asked him before. I’m confused, I only asked her to help and wake up 20 minutes early, she lives with us after all, so I don’t know why that is a big deal.
Do you think her request is reasonable? Any advice. Here are a few comments on the story where it was originally posted:
