Dad 'Freaks Out' On Mom For Painting 3-Year-Old Boy's Nails

One mom recently took to Reddit's AITA (Am I The A**hole) subreddit to explain how angry she is with her husband after his recent response to her painting her children's nails - especially her son's. The poster, who goes by the Reddit username thegreengobshite, took to the discussion website to ask if she was being unreasonable in thinking that her husband was completely out of line.

She explained that she and her husband are parents to twin boy and girl three-year-olds. Her daughter recently "got into" having her nails painted, something that made her husband incredibly uncomfortable. "He thinks make-up is weird and adult-looking on a toddler," she wrote of her husband's feelings towards the nail polish. She argued that it's actually quite normal, and then he asked what she would do if their son had wanted painted nails, to which she responded that if her son asked for them to be painted she would oblige.

The following week while painting her daughter's nails, her son asked for his to be done as well, so the poster painted his nails. This didn't go over well with her husband at all!

"John freaked out and demanded that the polish was taken off," she wrote. "We argued a few points and his main arguments were:

It's a slippery slope from nail polish to a full face with foundation, lipstick, and eyeliner
Women only wear nail polish to make themselves more attractive to men, therefore I am trying to make our kid attractive
The other kids in the creche would make fun of him"

The poster argued that his points were invalid and that she wanted to teach her son not to care about what other people think of his appearance. "He accused me of not understanding where he's coming from. I do, I just don't agree with him. I think there are other issues behind his discomfort but that's another conversation," she wrote. "In the end, I told John that he could remove the nail polish and in the future, he could tell our son no when he asks for his nails to be painted."

She then added that her husband "said that I was forcing him to be the bad guy and he wasn't going to do that, so our son has pink fingernails and my husband is not happy."

Naturally, the commenters had many thoughts on the post. One wrote, "Many little boys with older sisters end up with fingers, toes and faces painted (sometimes by choice and sometimes not!) - your husband seems duly threatened by the idea that it could be gender confusing for your son. I’m a bit perturbed by his comment about women only wearing nail polish to look more attractive. Don’t lose sight of this misogyny as part of the bigger picture of a disagreement on how to parent."

Some couldn't help but point out the absurdity in the father's rationale that women only wear nail polish to be more attractive to men. "As a straight man, I can say I have never, and I really mean NEVER, been more attracted to a woman because of her wearing nail polish."

Other's had no problem expressing how they really feel. "You are not forcing him to be the bad guy. He is the “ bad guy” if by bad you mean “disappointing a child because he’s an uptight homophobe.”"

Reddit declared the poster to be NTA (not the a**hole) in this situation, and she seemed to really value the conversation her post generated. She posted an update, writing, "thanks for all the responses, plenty to think about here. I've always been aware that I'm more liberal than my husband but our differences are deeper than I thought so we have a lot of talking to do."

She also took a moment to explain to those who attacked her husband in the comments section why he may have the viewpoints he does. "My husband has a f*cked up understanding of sexuality, passed down from his abused, oppressed and repressive parents. They had him late in life so they are closer in age to the grandparents of my generation than the parents. We are not going to change them but we can and will work on ourselves."