Mom Infuriated By The Adorable Note Her Husband Left For Their Girls Before His Business Trip
Vitaly Gariev | Pexels | Canva Pro A dad on Reddit is mystified after the cute note he left his daughters before his business trip has left his wife furious.
At first blush, it seems like the kind of gesture most families would dream of, but that's not at all how his wife responded, and it's sparked a heated debate online. Some see little more than a cute note and a mom who's probably spread so thin the stress has made her misinterpret the gesture. But others see a different dynamic, one in which the man's wife has all but disappeared after being overshadowed by their kids.
A mom is furious about the note her husband left for their kids before his business trip.
After generations of dads being mostly stand-offish at best, this dad's approach seems like what everyone dreams of nowadays. In his Reddit post, the dad explained that he was heading out on a business trip for a week and wanted to leave his wife and daughters a note on the kitchen table for when they woke up.
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In the note, he told "Mommy, Blakely and Kensly," his wife and daughters, who are 2 and four months, that he will "miss you girls so much" while he's gone. He then went on to praise his wife as "SuperWoman and SuperMom" and asked the girls to be good for her while he was away.
He added at the end encouragement for Blakely to continue learning her alphabet and for baby Kensly to "keep practicing your tummy time!" before telling them he loves them and can't wait to FaceTime with them later on and that he was "proud that you three are my girls."
The mom felt slighted that the note was only to their daughters and not to her.
At first glance, the letter is adorable, right? We should all be so lucky to have such an involved and devoted dad! But his wife did not see it that way at all. While he stressed that by "you girls" and "you three," he obviously meant mom as well as his daughters, his wife felt like she'd been ignored entirely.
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"She thinks it shows no care towards her and that I only care about my kids and not her," he explained. He felt totally confused by her response, especially since he'd praised her mothering skills in the note… and also neither of his daughters is old enough to read. One of them is still an infant. The note was obviously for Mom!
"Does her anger seem justified here?" he asked his fellow Redditors. "Just want to see if I’m missing something here because my intent was to leave a nice note for all of them."
Some felt the mom overreacted. Others felt the dad doesn't see her as a full person.
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The majority of people on Reddit seemed to take the dad's side, with some even going so far as to call his wife "delusional." "As a wife and mother, all I see is a beautiful and loving note," one person wrote. "I’m very confused by her response.
Many others noted that at just four months post-partum, she is likely experiencing hormonal fluctuations or even depression that are coloring her response, and is likely worn thin and stressed at the notion of spending an entire week presumably alone with a toddler and an infant. "Not an excuse for the unreasonable reaction, but a potential explanation for it," one user wrote.
But others were firmly on his wife's side. "He missed the paragraph to the only person who can read the letter," one person remarked. "He calls her 'mommy' (not by her name) and all her comments to his wife are about his wife's role as a mother," another wrote. "...This reads to me as she's only valued as 'mommy' and caretaker of the house/the kids."
In fact, the identity crisis that happens for most moms after having a baby or babies is very real and sadly often not talked about. Suddenly, you're a caretaker, a "SuperMom," which is great, but what about that Super Person you were before? The one you can't indulge any longer. The one who might get a love letter from their husband that is solely about you, not about how you take care of the family.
The most important response, which also touches on the crux of what is happening in this dad's marriage, was one in which a Redditor called the mom's response a "cry for help," writing that "marriage is a team effort and a partnership, and I think your partner is struggling." Hopefully, that's the message this dad takes away from this conflict, because it is the actual answer, regardless of whether she overreacted.
John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.
