When it comes to parenting, everyone has different ideas of what works best.

Some take a firm but fair approach, while others are gentler with their kids. Some parents are get walked all over, while others are tyrants.

And the chances are, you find it much easier to find flaws in other people’s parenting than your own.

So when the father of the blended family in this story took his trademark approach to parenting his partner’s son, he was shocked by her reaction.

Read on to find out what he did that was so wrong, and how he felt in the aftermath.

AITA for asking my stepson to take a shower?

My wife and I have a blended family with five boys.

Three are mine and two are hers.

The youngest is eight (almost nine) and is somewhat of a rebellious one.

They are all good boys and all get along so well, but our youngest does stand out as the more difficult child.

Most of his difficulties come from him talking disrespectfully or shouting at all other members of our family, on top of wanting to argue with most directions he is given.

I’ve recognized that most of the problems are more common when his mom is around as she takes a more free flowing approach, while I take a more structured approach.

Let’s see how the drama in this family got underway.

My wife and I were watching a show when our youngest came in from playing outside to have dinner.

We paused our show as it wasn’t appropriate for his age and talked with him while he ate dinner.

Our son finished eating and came and sat on the couch, and asked again if he could watch a show with my wife.

She told him she was going to finish watching the show we started and then after watch something with him.

All parties seemed to be on board with this decision.

But it didn’t pan out as expected.

I then asked him to go take his shower while we finished our show.

He argued and said he didn’t want to take a shower.

I told him I understood, but his bed time was approaching, and he needed to take a shower as he was going to run out of time.

This led to him screaming and yelling and accusing me being mean all that he shouldn’t have to and that he could do it later.

During this, my wife stayed silent for the most part, with some interjections within.

It got to a boiling point for him and he decided to storm off while we were trying to explain to him that his screaming and yelling were unnecessary and frankly hurtful and disrespectful.

As he stormed off I told him he needs to come back and listen.

Yikes! Read on to see how the situation continued to escalate.

He comes back into the room and is still screaming.

My wife interjects and says “ok son, I can see you’re upset so I’m going to allow you to go upstairs even though stepdad said to come down”.

This is the first thing that kind of irritates me.

Throughout this conversation I spoke calmly to him, reminded him that the shower was not a punishment, reminded him that it’s ok to not want to do something but sometimes we still have to do it, and that the screaming and yelling was very disrespectful.

After she tells him he can leave I say hold on as I have one last thing to say.

Let’s see what he said.

They both showed frustration and I said, “I love you, and you’re are going to get yourself in trouble by treating us this way. You are acting like a baby and it didn’t have to be this way.”

My tone was calm yet assertive of the boundary of please don’t scream at me.

He didn’t respond at all but my wife turned to me and angrily said, ‘’Do not talk to him like that”.

In the moment I felt undermined and betrayed.

I sat and looked at her for a moment while feeling confused, then stood up and walked out the room.

AITA?

Co-parenting this blended family really has got a bit rocky here.

It seems like this step-dad was trying to be fair with a demanding child – so it’s no wonder it was such a shock when his wife undermined him.

Let’s see what folks over on Reddit thought about this.

This person believed that the blended family needed clear boundaries and united parents.

While others pointed out the flaw in his parenting here.

And this Redditor suggested looking at the situation from the child’s perspective.

It’s great that this blended family are trying to achieve harmony, but there are still some areas that need smoothing out.

It can’t go on like this.

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.