He’s Making His Wife Pay A Daycare Late Fee Of $262 Out Of Her Own Pocket Because She’s Never On Time To Pick Up Their Son
This 34-year-old man and his wife, who’s 33, have been together for 10 years now, and they have a 4-year-old son.
But, from the very beginning of their relationship, his wife has had a frustrating habit – she is chronically late to absolutely everything.
He can only remember a handful of instances when she actually arrived on time for something. According to him, that’s because his wife is always heading out precisely when they are supposed to be getting somewhere.
For instance, if they have dinner reservations for 7:00 p.m., she isn’t ready to leave until 7:00 p.m. Or, if they are going to a 5:45 p.m. movie, she’s not walking out the door until, you guessed it, 5:45 p.m.
“I used to find it kind of humorous and almost endearing. There was an ongoing joke of her being from the distant future where we had figured out wormhole technology for instant teleportation and that she just had not adapted to the present year yet,” he explained.
Ever since they’ve had a child together, though, he doesn’t find his wife’s tendency funny anymore. When it comes to their son, they have important appointments that she simply cannot show up late to – and the fact that she’s always running behind schedule constantly causes him a ton of stress.
This is especially true regarding daycare, which his son only started attending last year. Because he works while his wife is a stay-at-home mom, she is responsible for both drop-off and pickup from daycare.
His wife is apparently late for both time slots every single day. And back in the middle of August, it became clear to him that his son’s daycare was getting sick and tired of it.
It all began when he received an email from the daycare detailing how a new fee would be tacked on for late pickups. More specifically, for every minute a parent was late, the daycare planned to charge an extra $2 – so being even five minutes late would incur a $10 fee.
Prostock-studio – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only, not the actual people
“To be perfectly honest, there’s no doubt in my mind that they started this because of my wife, who was late to pick him up literally every day his first year,” he admitted.
“I’ve tried to get her to be better, but when confronted, she always has an excuse ready to go, which makes it impossible to have any discussion about the subject.”
So, when their daycare bill for the first two weeks of September recently arrived, he discovered that they’d been charged an extra late fee of $262 on top of their normal daycare cost.
This means that his wife was an average of 12 minutes late to get their son each day.
In light of the charges, he confronted his wife and stated that he’d pay the normal daycare bill.
However, he claimed it was her responsibility to pay the $262 late fee, which she could take out of her $800 allowance.
“She initially refused, saying she couldn’t afford it (despite having no real expenses other than her phone and Netflix), and then she called the daycare to try and debate the issue,” he recalled.
Spoiler alert: that didn’t get anywhere. And in the end, he told his wife that the late fees were completely her fault.
“And that if she can’t even do the bare minimum of being an adult, she needs to grow up,” he added.
Again, his wife went on and on about all of the excuses she had for running behind. Then, she asked why he didn’t just pick up their son. In response, he pointed out how he goes to work to support their family.
This argument has left a lot of tension in their relationship, and it’s affecting their son as well. The daycare will not allow his son back until the entire bill is paid in full, and he feels guilty about that.
“I feel terrible for my son because he’s completely innocent in all of this and loves going to daycare, but I feel like it’s the only way to get my wife to realize there are consequences for her tardiness,” he vented.
Still, he’s been left wondering if sticking to his guns and holding his wife accountable for the late charges is reasonable, even if it means his son doesn’t get to go to daycare.
Do you agree that his wife needs to get it together and show up on time for their son? Should she be forced to pay the bill alone?
You can read the original post on Reddit here.
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