Stepmom Tried To Arrange Childcare So She Wouldn’t Have To Bring Her Older Stepson To Her Six-Year-Old’s Appointment, But Now She’s Being Told To Bring Him Anyway
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When taking a child in for a doctor’s appointment, it is important to respect their privacy and try to keep other people away as much as possible.
That is what the mother in this story was doing for her six-year-old’s appointment when she tried to arrange things so her stepson wouldn’t be there at that time, but nobody would cooperate.
Now she is being asked to taker her stepson along to the appointment, but she feels that would be a violation of privacy, so she doesn’t know what to do.
This is really a problem of communication between her and her husband. Read through the full story below and see what you think she should do.
AITA for not wanting to take my 17 year old stepson along to a doctor’s appointment for my six year old?
My oldest stepson is 17, and lives primarily with his dad.
This is a pretty common situation.
He comes over once or twice a week for two or sometimes three days at a time. As an aside, I also work from home.
My stepson doesn’t attend school and usually just works with his dad mowing grass. My stepson has had a few run ins with law enforcement, thankfully nothing serious, just knucklehead stuff.
It is unfortunate, but some kids just aren’t trustworthy.
However, because of that history and because he doesn’t go to school when he is with us, neither my wife nor I trust him to be alone in the house.
My six year old has a behavioral health appointment today, and those types of appointments are pretty intimate in my view.
He is trying to get everything planned out.
I knew my wife wanted my stepson to come over yesterday, so on Tuesday of this week I asked what the plan was. She said just to have him come over and stay Wednesday and Thursday.
When I mentioned my youngest son’s appointment being today, she said she would talk to my stepsons dad about it and left it at that.
Why can’t the stepson just wait in the lobby.
This morning I asked what the plan was for our stepson and my wife said she just figured I could take him with me.
I tried to explain my rationale and said that I specifically asked about this on Tuesday to avoid this kind of situation, but she says I’m making too big of a deal about taking him.
Yeah, keeping doctor appointments as private as possible is usually good.
Even at 6 years old, a behavioral health appointment can get into some very personal issues and I see it as respect for my youngest son’s privacy.
If this situation were reversed, I.E. it was my oldest stepsons appointment, I wouldn’t want to take my youngest stepson along out of respect for my stepsons privacy.
Why does her gut tell her this?
My gut feeling is that it’ll also be a bad idea to leave my oldest stepson alone in the lobby for the duration of the one hour appointment.
AITA?
If she has a real reason for not wanting her stepson to wait in the lobby, that is one thing. If it is a baseless feeling, that is another. Either way, she did try to get this sorted out ahead of time, but nobody would help. So, it shouldn’t fall on her.
Let’s see what the people in the comments have to say about the situation.
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He should be able to sit in the lobby with no issues.
More detail is needed about this.
If he can’t sit in the lobby, there are bigger problems.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an adult child who feels like their family is asking them to donate to a fundraiser beyond their means.
Here is an important question.
This commenter says to leave the kid in the lobby.
She seems to be overthinking this whole situation, unless she is leaving out some details.
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