When it comes to having young kids around, you have to take some safety precautions. Accidents happen quickly, and children are at higher risk of having them than you might think. Just ask any parent who’s had to rush their little one to an emergency room after a mishap at home.
One concerned mom refuses to open the family pool until her husband installs a fence around it, complete with a security gate. Her kids say she’s ruining their summer, but she won’t budge. Now, she’s asking an online community if putting her foot down makes her a jerk.
Sometimes being the responsible parent is tough, but this mom has put her foot down on a hot topic
Image credits: megafilm / Freepik (not the actual photo)
Concerned for the safety of her younger kids, she’s refused to open the pool for summer until her husband installs a fence around it
Image credits: freepik / Freepik (not the actual photo)
Her kids are complaining that she’s ruining their summer, but she’s adamant, explaining that drownings happen all too quickly
Image credits: freepik / Freepik (not the actual photo)
The worried woman says her husband claims he has no time to set up a fence, but won’t hire anyone else to do it either
Image credits: nitwhitts
At her wits’ end, she’s now turned to netizens to ask if refusing to open the pool makes her a jerk
For three years, OP has begged her partner to fence off the pool outside their kitchen. With two toddlers, three older kids, and a sliding glass door opening directly to a 10-foot-deep pool, she’s been sounding the alarm. Her partner? He says, “Just watch them.” She's done waiting politely, though.
Previously, OP has tried everything: child-proof locks, alarms, and rerouting everyone through the front door. But the garage is through that same slider, and no one sticks to the plan. The older kids forget, her partner ignores it, and the two youngest, aged three and five, are fast and curious. A missed moment could mean tragedy.
Now it’s summer, and she’s putting her foot down. No fence? No pool. Her kids say she’s the Grinch of July, and her partner won’t hire help because “no one builds like he can.” Meanwhile, relatives are mad that they can’t come over to swim. OP, however, stubbornly refuses to risk a child’s life for convenience.
Money complicates everything. It’s not OP’s house, not her bank account, and not her call, technically. But she’s the parent chasing toddlers near a body of water. So, following netizens’ advice, she’s learning how to dig the post holes herself, if only to reclaim a little peace of mind.
Image credits: 936072494 / Freepik (not the actual photo)
From what OP tells us in her post, she seems to be the only person in her family aware that drownings happen fast. Her partner palming 100% of the safety of their kids off to her is problematic, too. So, why is it that moms are typically disproportionately saddled with the full labor of running a household? We went looking for answers.
In their article for PsyPost, Darby Saxby and Lizzie Aviv write that there’s an invisible dimension of household labor that unfolds behind the scenes: the cognitive effort that goes into anticipating needs, planning, organizing, and delegating household tasks.
New research has found that this cognitive dimension of housework, often called the “mental load,” is divided even more unevenly within couples than the physical dimension, and it seems to take a particular mental health toll on women.
According to The Gentle Counsellor website, historically, women have been assigned the roles of caregivers and homemakers. Despite progress in gender roles and increased representation of women in the workplace, traditional gender norms continue to influence what should be outdated domestic dynamics by now.
Constantly juggling multiple roles and responsibilities can lead to stress, anxiety, and burnout, and the pressure to meet societal expectations of the "perfect" mother, wife, and professional can intensify feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt.
OP’s insistence that her partner does his fair share for safety shouldn’t be such a big deal, but she’s up against generations of gender inequality. Perhaps she should send her whining kids in her partner’s direction next time they complain - let’s see how he deals with being called the pool party pooper all summer.
What would you do if you found yourself in OP’s shoes? Should she put more pressure on her partner, or roll up her sleeves and install the fence herself? Let us know your opinion in the comments!
In the comments, readers came to the swift conclusion that the worried woman was not the jerk in this equation
