June 17, 2024 at 6:52 pm

His Wife Wants Their Kids To Be Competitive At Sports And Got Her Parents Involved in the Conversation, But He Thinks She Took Things Too Far

by Matthew Gilligan

Source: Reddit/Unsplash/@silverkblack

When I was young, I played all kinds of sports and generally had a good time.

My parents didn’t push me or any of my siblings when it came to that stuff and it was all supposed to be for fun.

What a concept, right?

But I also remember friends of mine whose moms and dads thought they were gonna go pro and were relentless and over the top when it came to competition.

The guy who wrote this story on Reddit is really going through it with his wife and his in-laws and he wants to know if he’s being unreasonable.

Check out his story and see what you think.

AITA for arguing with my wife and my in-laws over our children’s extracurriculars?

“My wife (32f) and I (32m) had some compromising to do with extra curricular activities.

My wife grew up doing a lot of them. She pretty much never had “free time” and her parents are pretty against it for kids. She did gymnastics, softball, basketball, soccer, dance and music growing up.

His upbringing was different.

My family were more laid back and that worked for me. I swam and did art sometimes. But none of it was super competitive and serious. My wife did a lot of more competitive stuff and was always serious and going for pro.

When we were discussing kids she wanted the kids to be raised the same as her. I didn’t agree with that. So we agreed we wouldn’t force it on them, we wouldn’t overwhelm them (2 or 3 at absolute most at a time) and we wouldn’t make them do the more competitive sports teams if they didn’t want to but if they wanted to it wouldn’t be stopped either.

We have four boys. Our older two are very into sports and they take it seriously and want to play on serious teams. But our younger boys are the opposite and really don’t like team sports.

Every kid is different…

One favors swimming and the other favors rock climbing. But neither want to do either seriously. My wife wanted them to follow in their older brothers footsteps and at least do football on the serious team their brothers were part of and have since progressed from.

I disagreed and referenced back to our prior agreement. She disagreed with me and said they need to be on teams and should be more serious about sport.

Here we go…

My wife brought her parents into this and all three of them tried to tell me why I was wrong. ILs said kids with free time are going to grow up to be delinquents and I was the exception to that.

They also said the younger boys aren’t going to be tough enough for high school and beyond if they don’t learn something more solid in terms of sports. I asked what any of this had to do with them being tough and was ignored.

My wife said I was being disagreeable for no reason and so unreasonable. I grew frustrated and told her she was using her parents to gang up on me and that we had an agreement and she was refusing to stick to it even though I never interfered in what our older boys wanted.

She told me they made the right choices. She wanted our younger boys to do the same.

This isn’t going well…

She said they’re missing out on the pressure that all kids need to experience young and the expectation that being part of a serious team brings. Her parents said my wife is right and I need to see sense and stop being selfish.

I lost my temper and told my ILs this had nothing to do with them and told my wife she was totally wrong for bringing her parents into this and trying to back me into a corner and I was not okay with any of it.

They’re mad at me for making it a fight.

AITA?”

Check out how people responded.

This reader said he’s NTA.

Source: Reddit

Another individual agreed.

Source: Reddit

This Reddit user spoke up.

Source: Reddit

Another person talked about their family.

Source: Reddit

And this reader didn’t hold back.

Source: Reddit

These two are DEFINITELY not on the same page…

If you enjoyed that story, read this one about a mom who was forced to bring her three kids with her to apply for government benefits, but ended up getting the job of her dreams.