Hi! For context I am a 40yo and I live with my husband and 9yo daughter. We have 1 vehicle.
I had 2 OB appointments scheduled for today – 2:45 anual "scootch to the edge" appointment, directly followed by my first mammogram at 3:30 (bit nervous). Last week we had agreed to have my husband use PTO to get our daughter off the bus at 3:15 while I was at the appointments alone.
Today when we got up to get her ready for school, he told me that he would rather not take the PTO and told me to my bring our 9yo to my appointment and leave her in the waiting room until I was done.
I immediately refused, not only because of how insane is sounds to me to leave a 9yo in a waiting room alone for 1.5 hours… But isn’t that illegal?!
In the end, I had to reschedule my appointment because he kept saying it wasn’t a big deal to leave her in the waiting room, and even he ended up storming out of the house pissed at me for being overbearing, paranoid, and overprotective.
His justification on why this would have been acceptable is that when him and his sister were kids in Philly, he would have to wait in waiting rooms alone while his parents had appointments. But this isn’t 1990 and I am not his mom, so…
Am I an asshole for not bringing my daughter with me?
TLDR: Husband stormed out and called me overprotective for not allowing my 9yo daughter to wait in an OBGYN/Gyno waiting room alone for 1.5 hours while I had appointments
UPDATE: I have called and confirmed she is not allowed into to my appointment or left alone in the waiting room as she is under 12yo. Office rules.
PS: For folks asking why i didnt make an appointment in the morning. Sometimes, if you dont want to wait 2 full months for an appointment, you take what they offer you. Even if its 2:45 pm. Yes I did have a annual scheduled which was previously rescheduled due to my being ill for the last one. This appointment was initially supposed to occur in October.
OMG again!? UPDATE: since everyone is a Dr now: I see my dr yearly to clear my medication after I almost died when a cyst on my right ovary burst and bled internally overnight before being brought to the hospital with a heart rate of 198 bpm and 2 liters of blood in my chest cavity. Good news I am alive, bad news is birth control for forever?
NTA. I doubt the office staff would have allowed it anyway.
NTA, because that sounds ridiculous for a nine-year-old kid to be in that situation. I’m worried that your husband didn’t want to take a short amount of time off (a half day?) to help you out and be there for your daughter. If he had an important meeting or another work conflict, that might be one thing, but he’s making a huge deal out of this when he could fairly easily help. Are you the one that does most of the parenting here?
NTA.
He agreed to take the time off and changed his mind on the day of your appointment.
1.5 hours in a waiting room would suck.
Does he always storm out when he doesn’t agree with you?
NTA it’s likely your daughter wasn’t even allowed to wait in the waiting room anyway. I know my OBGYN wouldn’t allow it. Your husband is an AH for springing this on you last minute, too.
NTA
He agreed to take the time off, then changed his mind last minute.
Plus, I doubt they would be very happy having an unattended 9yo in the waiting room for 1.5 hours (and that would be very dull for her).
Jesus Christ, NTA. Your husband is behaving like a spoiled child, wtf.
1) you had an agreement and he backed out at the last minute and had a temper tantrum. Everything about that is shitty regardless if anything else.
2) leaving a 9 yo in the waiting room is way less acceptable now than it was in years past, for all kinds of reasons. It may not even be allowed
(which you had no time to check bc of his last minute switch)
3) how was that going to work logistically given she gets off the bus at 3:15? Edit to clarify: you say your first appointment was 2:45, so this timing wouldn’t work.
A husband who doesn’t care about his wife’s health and won’t step up to do the bare fucking minimum for it is a class an asshole.
Yes. No matter how you feel about leaving the 9 year old in the waiting room, agreeing to it and then backing out last minute is major AH territory.
NTA most medical waiting rooms in my area explicitly ban leaving kids under 12 alone in them because it places an unreasonable expectation on the staff. If a kid is too young to be left home alone, they’re too young to leave unattended in a public office. And, assuming your practitioner even allows children in for these appointments (mine doesn’t, rooms are too small), you deserve medical privacy so anyone expecting you to bring her in with you is way off base.
NTA. My gynecologist’s office doesn’t allow children at all except newborns.
So he wanted her to miss the last third of the school day to wait in a cold, boring, waiting room, surrounded by strangers, for an hour and a half? All because he didnt want to be a dad? He’d even get paid for it (paid time off) What the hell is his problem?
NTA
Your husband is behaving strangely. Why did he wait until the day of the appointment to tell you he didn’t take the time off? Why did he throw a tantrum and leave? Does he act like this regularly?
A Dr’s office won’t let children stay in a waiting room for 1.5 hrs anyways. For liability purposes, they aren’t allowed to. So your husband’s view doesn’t matter.
If he decides he doesn’t want to be a parent by staying with his kid so you can have necessary, and preventive Drs appointments, then it’s up to him to find alternate childcare.
You already had obligations, and he had already agreed. Him changing his mind says a lot about how little he cares about your health, and feels his time, and wants are more important than necessary appointments for you.
NTA
NTA. I’m baffled by the commenters who feel that your child should somehow be perfectly comfortable and safe sitting in a waiting room alone for well over an hour, that the office staff should be perfectly happy to be responsible for her, or that OP should use her vagina as a learning experience for her child.
I’m just so sick and tired of women not getting the support they need, OB appointments are horrible, invasive, I always leave my appointments in pain, then to have another painful appointment, mammogram hurt also, you don’t want to be a responsible parent after both appointments, you want to be the one that’s being cared for, your husband is selfish pig quite frankly.