Many families have members who complicate everything with their toxic behavior. From bringing up unnecessary discussions to pitting people against each other—they always find a way to bring chaos.
Just like the OP's brother-in-law. This man looks down on the author for working from home and doing household chores and childcare. While it's already a problematic point of view, it got even worse when his 5-year-old started absorbing and expressing it as well, despite her uncle always caring for her.
More info: Reddit
Nearly every family has a problematic member, whom they tolerate despite them doing unpleasant things
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This man has a very flexible work-from-home arrangement, allowing him to drop off and pick up not only his own kids, but also his sister's child from daycare
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One day, he overheard his niece calling him the F-slur, which, it turns out, she had learned from her dad
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Apparently, her dad always refers to him this way, because he does chores and childcare, which means he's "not a real man"
Image credits: Freepik / Freepik (not the actual photo)
The man demanded an apology from the girl's parents, but was instead told he was overreacting, so from that point on, he refused to continue dropping her off and picking her up from daycare
Image credits: Freepik / Freepik (not the actual photo)
The girl's parents didn't take it seriously, but when the time came to drop her off, they realized he was for real
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They started continually berating him on the phone and even got the man's mom on their side
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So, the man started to wonder—maybe he was the problem?
The OP and his wife have two kids, 3 and 5 years old. Since he works from home with flexible hours, he gets a chance to drop off and pick up his kids from daycare while his wife goes to her office job.
Along with his kids, he also drops off and picks up his 5-year-old niece, Tracy. The man thinks it’s a great idea, as this way the cousins can spend more time together, plus he gets a chance to be a cool uncle—the one that cares for the kids but is also fun to be around.
Well, apparently not everyone thought he was so cool for doing this. One day, while the kids were watching Bluey, a TV show that is considered to be one of the best modern shows for kids, he heard yelling. His son was yelling, “My dad's not a girl!” while his niece was yelling back, “He is! He's a [F-slur]! That's like a girl!”
Granted, in reality, a different slur was used since it wasn’t in English, but the implication was basically the same.
This shocked the man, because—how on Earth did his 5-year-old niece know this insult? He started explaining why it was a bad word, that she shouldn’t use it again, and that she should apologize for doing so in the first place.
It turns out the girl learned it from her dad, who used it in the context of describing the OP. In his eyes, the author was “a woman,” or “not a real man,” because he does household chores and childcare for both his kids and niece—plus his wife earns more money than he does.
His view that “real men” can’t do chores or childcare is the perfect example of sexism. Basically, in his mind, he ranks the OP as an inferior man, which manifests in his hostile language.
Bored Panda's interviewee, gender educator Rebecca Minor, explained that these kinds of stereotypes persist because they're deeply rooted in historical gender roles and are reinforced by various forces, such as media representation and cultural and religious norms.
She added, "Even with societal progress, these beliefs can be challenging to dismantle in families where traditional roles have been modeled for generations."
While it’s not clear where gender stereotyping originated in the OP's BIL's head, it’s sad to see that it is slowly being inflicted on his daughter, too.
Believing in gender stereotypes can not only negatively affect relationships but also harm the person themselves. For instance, they might feel unable to fully express themselves and their emotions, just to avoid being interpreted according to their imagined gender roles.
Plus, as R. Minor said, "Children internalize gender stereotypes through socialization, including the behaviors they observe at home, messages from media, and interactions with peers." After that, they might struggle with the aforementioned issues, which means that by normalizing sexist behavior to his daughter, the BIL might be dooming her later on.
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At least her uncle took the time to explain to her why this kind of opinion was wrong. Also, after talking about it with his wife, he decided to demand an apology from his brother-in-law. But it wasn’t as easy to get as one might have thought.
When the OP described the situation to his sister, she said that he was “being a drama queen,” and instead of expecting an apology, he simply should deal with the fact that that's how her husband simply is. Sounds like the toxic “boys will be boys” excuse, doesn’t it?
The author didn’t like the fact that his sister didn’t stand up for him, so he let her know that from that point on he wouldn’t be picking up his niece from daycare. Since the conversation happened on a Friday, the couple had two days to figure out what to do with their daughter while they were working. The original poster wasn’t planning to take back this promise until he got an apology.
The workday came and he didn’t go to drop off his niece. His phone blew up with calls from his sister, but he ignored them until a few hours later. Instead of providing an apology, she went off about how she expected him to do the drop-off and he made her late for work, yada yada.
When the time came to pick up the kids, he, just as promised, left his niece to be picked up by her parents. He told the girl that he was fighting with her mom and when it was solved, he’d start picking her up again.
A bit later he got a call from his mom—who has a disability—who had to pick up her granddaughter and was having a hard time with her. Despite him expecting her to take his side, she took her daughter’s, also thinking that he had overreacted.
Even later, the OP received a call from the sister’s husband himself. This man, instead of giving a simple “sorry”, went off about how the author is a [F-slur] and things like that—the opposite of fixing his behavior.
So now, the original poster, seeing that his desire for an apology pitted most of his family against him, plus how sad his niece was that she couldn’t come with him, wondered—maybe he was the jerk?
The people of Reddit didn’t think so. They understood where the OP was coming from and said that people who tolerate dudes like Nick (his sister’s husband) are the problem—as long as they do, the Nicks of the world won’t change their behavior.
Our interviewee added that people should strive to focus on what feels authentic to them and remember that sometimes breaking stereotypes challenges others' comfort zones.
Well, in the long run, hopefully at least Nick will realize the fault in his behavior and will start changing. Or, maybe we and the post’s author are too naive.
The people in the comments told him that he is not at fault and that people who keep tolerating his brother-in-law's toxic behavior are the problem—not only in this case but overall
