On Reddit, a woman recently asked the “Am I The A**hole” (AITA) subthread whether they were wrong for leaving her three infant children alone in her apartment.
The Original Poster (OP) explained that she was 20 years and becoming a mother so young is the last thing she wanted. She was in education and had to transfer her course online to continue.
She explained that she’s at home all day and finds it very tough, “Sometimes I just need some fresh air, especially when I can’t get them to stop crying, and I find myself getting super frustrated to the point of tears…”
OP said the children’s dad is either at work or school, and his parents have rented an apartment for the family. She explained that when she steps outside, “I’m literally just sitting on the chair right beside the door, plus I have a baby monitor step up in their room, and it has a camera on it.”
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She continued, “I can literally see them and hear them, so if anything happened, I’d be able to quickly get to them.”
A Few Minutes Break
OP added, that a stepping outside of the apartment, “…few minutes to take a breather is really important to me because I start to have mini panic attacks when I can’t get them to stop crying and I get really frustrated because I just feel super overwhelmed. Being able to go outside just gives me a chance to calm down.”
On the day that led to OP writing her post, her fiance had come home to find her sitting outside while the babies were crying.
OP said seeing her outside with the babies inside by themselves, crying, “freaked” her fiance out. He called her a “…horrible mom and a bunch of other names that I’m not gonna list here. He thinks that I was being super neglectful and putting the babies in harm’s way and even told his parents, and now everyone seems to be really against me.”
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She concluded by saying that she grew up in the system and her fiance’s family was the only one she’s known. The situation had upset her because “…I really don’t think I was doing anything wrong or putting my babies in harm’s way, but they seem to think otherwise.”
Reddit United In Support
Important-Lawyer-350, gave the top-voted response with a huge 70,000 up votes. They said OP WAS “NTA” (Not The A**Hole).
“When I had my baby, one of the things the nurses told me repetitively while in hospital and during the home visits is that if she is crying and I know she has been fed, she has a clean nappy on and she isn’t sick and I am getting stressed out its ok to go outside for a few minutes to just recollect myself.”
The Redditor added, “Their exact words were, “a crying baby is an alive baby.”
CrimsonKnight_004 also replied in support, “NTA – What you’re doing is preventing shaken baby syndrome. When the caregiver is overwhelmed, you need to step away for a few minutes to collect yourself and breathe. Center yourself, calm down, do what you need to do.”
A later edit by OP said that she showed the thread and the overwhelming support from Redditors. At first, he was upset for sharing personal problems, but after cooling off, “..he actually apologized and promised me he’d be more involved with parenting and even is willing to take parenting classes which I’ll hold him to that.”
There was sympathy for OP and the judgement was that she was NTA. But what do you think, was she right to leave the infants in the apartment?
Our article has been inspired by Reddit and does not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Career Step Up.
This article was produced by Mama Say What?! and syndicated by Career Step Up.
Featured Image Credit: Shutterstock / Krakenimages.com. The people shown in the images are for illustrative purposes only, not the actual people featured in the story.
