Dad Slammed After Refusing to Get Stepson’s Name Tattooed Alongside Own Kids
The internet is slamming a 36-year-old man after he revealed he doesn't want his stepchild's name tattooed on him alongside the names of his three biological children.
"I have two kids from my first marriage. I have been married to my wife for four years, we have a [one-year-old] daughter," the man explained in a post shared on Reddit's infamous Am I The A--hole forum.
"She has a [8-year-old] son from her first marriage," the tatted dad continued, adding that the children all live with them. "My kids' mother has visitations one weekend a month. Her son's dad isn't involved at all."
The man shared he had the names of his two older children already tattooed on his arm, and he had plans to add his youngest daughter's name.
"My wife and I were talking about the tattoo, and she asked me if I'll tattoo my stepson's name in the same round as our daughter's," he wrote, adding he "told her I have no intention of tattooing his name."
His wife was shocked and asked him why, to which he responded he only has "the names of my children tattooed."
"She said I am excluding her son, and he is part of this family too," he continued. "I refused to tattoo his name and proceeded to only tattoo my daughter's name."
Unsurprisingly, his decision did not bode well with his spouse.
"[My] wife called me all sorts of things," he shared, asking Reddit: "Aita?"
The resounding answer spread across nearly 3,000 comments? Yes.
"You've been a father figure to him for half his life. Poor boy will probably be shattered when he realizes you don't actually see him as yours," one reader commented.
"The kid looks up to OP [original poster] as a father. He's going to be so hurt when he realizes OP doesn't feel the same way," another weighed in.
"As a step-parent myself, this speaks volumes for his relationship with the kid and how he views him subconsciously," someone else wrote.
"Not to sound like one of 'those' Redditors, I don't say this lightly, but if I was OP's wife, I'd be doing some hard thinking about how I was gonna fix this and, if I couldn't, it'd be divorce," another commented.
Meanwhile, another user weighed in from the perspective of someone who's been at the receiving end of similar familial dismissal.
"I've been the one to question my place in my family and it hurts and has lasting repercussions on a person's mental health," they wrote.