Parents don’t always realize they’re treating one child differently.

So, what would you do if your husband showered your daughter with attention because she was good at school, but gave your son little to no attention because he struggled more in school?

Would you just pay more attention to your son and stay out of it? Or would you confront your husband about it?

In the following story, a wife finds herself in this predicament and tries to correct the behavior. Here’s what happened.

AITA for telling my husband he is being a bad father to our son by favoring our daughter over our son because of school grades

My husband and I have been married for 16 years, and we have a 15-year-old son and a 12-year-old daughter.

My husband has always placed a very high premium on book smarts. I know this because when I was first pregnant, and relatives had asked whether we were hoping for a boy or a girl, he had joked at the time that he didn’t care about the child’s gender as long as they were intelligent.

It was a joke, and I probably found it amusing at the time, but it’s seared in my mind, and I still bring it up to him when we argue about the following issue.

Her husband is very aloof with their son.

Our son gets average scores in school when it comes to science and math. He scores well in English, and that’s his only 80%+ mark, but in the others, it’s middling scores. He’s a great kid who does try, and my husband used to sit with him, too, but he just struggles with it.

My daughter, on the other hand, is consistently top of her class. She and my husband bond over studies, and they’re really close, which I obviously like. Because who wouldn’t want their husband close to their daughter?

But he’s just become a bit aloof and distant now when it comes to our son. He’ll want to go to school for her parent-teacher meetings, but for his, I’m the only one who goes. Even though I’ve said that his is more important because there’s actual criticism, for my daughter its just the teachers saying how great she is.

She asked her daughter to wait before telling her dad.

This partiality has been seeping into other stuff, too. If it’s a grocery run, he’ll ask her to accompany him. If he’s watching a show or a documentary, it’s her he’ll ask to stay up with him. I hate saying this, but I sometimes get a bit uncomfortable when their closeness comes at the expense of his relationship with my son.

Earlier this week, both of them got some test marks back; hers was a 100, his was a 72.

I told her we’d tell Daddy about her mark over the weekend as a surprise, just because I didn’t want comparisons drawn. Although when I told him about his, he was nonchalant, which in a way hurt more.

Now, her husband is offended by what she said.

Today, when she shared her test, he lavished her with praise and took her out for lunch. Later, I told him all this probably makes our son feel bad. He said I was imagining things, that it was just a treat for her for having done well.

I told him it wasn’t just this. He’d totally become distant with him, as if he only had a daughter, and that he was being a bad father by doing so.

He took offence to what I said, saying I was very wrong for saying that, that he’s a father to both, and has his own dynamics with each kid. I couldn’t really take the conversation any further because he was stuck on what I said.

AITA?

Yikes! It would be interesting to know what the son feels.

Let’s check out what the folks over at Reddit think about what’s going on.

This person agrees that it’s unfair.

According to this comment, this will follow their son.

This reader would give him a little time to correct.

For this reader, it’s harsh but true.

She needed to say it because now her husband may actually think about it and correct the behavior.

If not, that’s another conversation.

If you liked this post, you might want to read this story about a teacher who taught the school’s administration a lesson after they made a sick kid take a final exam.