Hi everyone, first time poster. This might seem like a silly thing, but my husband and I have been arguing about it for a a few days now.
For some context, my husband and I have a 3 year old daughter with some minor developmental problems( this might not be relevant to the post, but it was an argument my husband used). My husband works from home while I have a typical 9-5 that keeps me out of the house. While this is our first child, my husband has an 18 year age gap with his little sister so he has much more experience with raising children than I do. Because of this my husband usually takes care of raising our daughter(putting her to sleep, bathing her, and feeding her) while I do the house chores when I come home(cleaning, cooking, and taking out the trash).
Our daughter still can’t talk, only being able to say mommy, but we have signed her up for speech therapy at our doctor’s recommendation.
A few days ago, while our daughter was playing with her toys, my husband put on jujutsu kaisen while he was eating his dinner. My daughter likes to watch kid shows with bright colors, so I noticed she was glued to the screen. For those of you who don’t know, the show is an anime that is rated tv-ma.
After putting our daughter to sleep, I told him that I was uncomfortable with him watching a show like that in front of our daughter. My husband just laughed and said that she probably would not even remember it. However I told him that I read online that 3 years olds can pick up and develop memories, but he just told me that was only for normal children and that our daughter is still a bit behind.
Anyway, I did not see it as too big of a deal so I left it. However, the next day he put the show on again. This time he argued that he used to watch dragonball z with his baby sister and she is fine, but that show is much more kid-friendly than jujutsu kaisen. He told me I was being too overprotective and that he was offended that I would not trust him.
He yelled at me to stop getting in his way and just focus on myself, though he did apologize right after for being aggressive.
AITA? I don’t want to come across as the overbearing parent and my husband is a good father to our daughter, but I really do feel like exposing our daughter to content like that might be bad for her development.
NTA kids that age definitely pick up on stuff and remember it, IDC if she has a learning disability or whatever, you can’t say for certain what she will/won’t remember or pick up on. He can watch his show another time or on his phone or something where she can’t see it. It’s not a wild request to have her only watch age appropriate shows (that also aren’t brainrot like cocomelon)
you shouldn’t feel bad about any measure you take for the benefit of your child! if it were the other way around, you would immediately take it into consideration for your partner’s comfort, right? i hope you don’t feel too badly about the situation x
I’m gonna say NTA. I’m a JJK fan and my little brother (11) is trying to get into anime. I gave my mom a list of age appropriate ones when he was 8 and JJK definitely did not make the cut. Children, regardless of developmental issues, will internalize things around them. It could even just cause nightmares, which is problem enough. I fully support not wanting to expose your child to a violent show. He could watch the show after putting your daughter to bed as well.
Also a huge fan of JJK here and absolutely would not show someone that age. I was 4 or 5 when I saw Leprechaun and I still remember the leprechaun eating a guys leg. Agreed with not showing daughter such anime. Get her into pokemon or samurai pizza cats, or digimon and that style of kids show if he wants to share it with her.
I love JJK but… yeah nobody under 13 (at least) should be watching that lol. Good on you guys
NTA if you’re not comfortable, he should respect that and watch it another time. You’re right kids can develop memories very young and even if she doesn’t, there can still be other effects
NTA. who on earth puts a tv-ma show on in front of a 3 year old? i have cosplayed and gone to multiple anime conventions, though i haven’t watched jujistu kaisen (just not interested in it). not all anime are built the same and if it is tv-ma, it certainly is not appropriate for a 3 year old to watch. he can watch that on his own time. kids are sensitive to adult shows. things that don’t phase me now scared the shit out of me as a kid.
NTA. I have a three-year old too and I’ve needed to be really careful about what shows I watch or what video games I play, because she will absolutely pick up on that stuff. It is cute when she tells me she wants me to play “the monkey game” (Donkey Kong Bananza) or “the robot game” (Astro Bot), but my wife and I had set a boundary about what kinds of games to not play while our daughter is present (I.e RDR2 or Battlefield)
Also, it’s kind of fucked up how your husband is using your daughter’s developmental issues to justify watching Jujitsu Kaisen. This is absolutely going to affect how she sees reality because children that age don’t fully have the capacity to separate what’s on a screen versus what happens in real life
First, while my wife & I have raised 2 teenagers, that’s enough to claim experience but not necessarily expertise.
It does seem like the latest advice coming out of John’s Hopkins, a preeminent medical institution, is recommending to limit screen time and exposure to violence.
Because your husband already “raised” a kid, you may also be going through different standards that would normally be aligned: he’s treating your daughter like his 2nd kid, which usually is more relaxed. And obviously you’re treating her like your 1st, which usually means more vigilance and care.
Neither approach is wrong per se, but both of you will need to compromise some and recognize that he has experience which gives him some weight, and that experience isn’t everything either. He can be wrong also.
Personally I can’t tell you which way to go. I can only recommend that both of you are intentional about flexibility and compromise. He’s going to have to be a little stricter and attentive, and you are going to have to be a little looser and more relaxed.
So it’s hard to say whether this specific thing deserves compromising in which direction. Only that you *both* must compromise overall. If it’s just one way then that’s a problem.
Good luck.
NTA. My dad watched so many violent and scary things in front of me when I was 2-3. I had nightmares all the time, I was scared of the dark (and still am a bit), and I was years into adulthood before I felt ready to give scary movies a try again. I was traumatized by the things I saw, and it has had lifelong consequences for me.
While JJK is not necessarily on the level of the things I watched, it does have imagery that may end up scaring her and causing issues. If he wants to watch anime in front of her, this isn’t it.
NTA. My now 4 year old remembers quite a lot from last year (who knows if this will continue but his memory is shockingly precise at times) and I absolutely wouldn’t risk it.
My mum (accidentally) let me watch Interview with a Vampire when I was 3 and I spent the subsequent 8 years collecting china dolls, dressing up like Claudia, and being obsessed with vampires. I might’ve turned out reasonably okay, but there is research that suggests there can be negative effects from consuming adult media too young.
Hey so I had a learning disability and my parents let me watch a scary movie at 3. I proceeded to have reoccurring nightmares about it until I was a teen. I had a panic attack and got hives from it. This stuff absolutely DOES affect children. I’m not even a mom, and I would never show a small child something not meant for them.
NTA I think the bigger issue is that he is making excuses for poor choices instead of acknowledging what he did and changing. One episode of JJK at 3 will not traumatize a child, but a man who gets in the habit of putting his entertainment needs before that of his children in the room could be an issue. You do what you practice and if this is how he views it, as a thing to be brushed away, what’s going to stop him from doing that at 4, 5, 6 or later? He needs to be practicing the conscientious parenting of a 36 yr old, not the parentification forced on him at 18. He can still change and it won’t be a problem, but he needs to update his mindset.
NTA. The memory argument is really stupid. Most things from childhood we don’t remember, but they still have an impact. You probably wouldn’t remember witnessing an act of actual physical violence at age 2 or whatever but it would still form part of your psychological foundation.
Like with that argument, you could also put a kid in a corner until they are four and able to form memories with staying power. They won’t remember, right?
It’s obviously completely nonsensical if you think about it.
Also, with a non-verbal child, it can be very hard to tell sometimes if they are just interested or kind of petrified because moving bright colors, but it’s also scary.
With shows like Jujutsu Kaisen, it’s not only the physical violence. The characters show a lot of facial expressions that are meant to show deep despair or other intense emotions, and children are capable of discerning that. Your child might be delayed in some ways, that doesn’t mean she isn’t working on discerning other people’s emotions. Most children are actually really good at picking up on very slight nuances like that because it’s a survival strategy for them. They don’t really show it, but you can see them tense up etc with small changes.
I have a friend with horrible anxiety, and she always tried to suppress it around her kids. One day, her young daughter started developing a limp, because she would turn her foot kind of inward while walking. Many doctor’s visits later, it turned out that there was nothing physically wrong with her. This happened whenever her mother was, even if very subtly, displaying anxiety. She sensed that something was wrong but lacked the ability to verbalize it and also the ability to work through it herself. This is not unusual for young children.