Just when you think women are making head way in the pursuit of equality, along comes a man with misogynistic views so obvious and frankly bizarre, it makes you eye roll so hard you actually sprain an eyeball. How are there still people walking around thinking that child rearing and everything that encompasses is ‘women’s work?’ No idea, but one woman’s recent experience goes to show that they are still out there, living among us!

The strange interaction happened when the woman’s friend and his 6-year-old son came to visit one day. The catch up was going well until the friend’s son Jacob paid a visit to the toilet.

My friend (M30) was visiting me (F30) with his son let’s call him Jacob . We were hanging out and decided to play some Mario Kart in the living room, while his son was playing a game on his Ipad.

His son then wanted to use the bathroom. He’s been here before and knows where to go. I don’t have children, but I feel like children, around 5 or 6, should be able to wipe themselves, however my friend and his wife still clean him up and wipe him.

We have since stopped playing and were talking when we hear Jacob call out that he’s done (meaning that he’s waiting for someone to help him wipe). My friend groaned and didn’t get up. He asked me if I could go clean up Jacob. I looked at him with a blank stare which pissed him off. He scoffed and got up to go see Jacob. After 10 minutes they both emerged from the bathroom. My friend looks livid and says that he has shit on his shirt because of me. (I don’t even want to know HOW he ended up with shit on his shirt) and that I should have done it for him. He hates doing it and feels like it’s his wife’s job. I told him well thankfully I’m not his wife and I’ll never clean up his son. He ended up cutting his visit short and left. I don’t think i was the asshole but his wife texted me later berating me for not doing this because my friend was having a very rough time. He lost his job and was depressed (I didn’t know that) and visited me to clear his head. I felt bad because maybe I should have noticed that his demand was out of the ordinary and done it, now that I know how he felt.

This situation is just so mind-boggling and bizzare that it kind of still feels surreal to me.

Commenters were quick to pick up on the man’s overtly sexist assumption that in the absence of his wife another available female should be performing the task, regardless of the fact that it is his child!

Your vagina doesn’t make you a magical child care giver. I’m glad that dude left. Don’t invite him again and I’d drop the husband and wife. I’m not touching a kid that isn’t mine. Especially for something like that. NTA. (slendermanismydad)

One assumes he can wipe his own ass and that’s a pretty transferable skill. 🙄 (Temporary_Nail_6468)

A lousy father AND a raging misogynist! What a catch!! (jhonotan1)

NTA. But your friend is. He had no right to even ask that from you. And how would the child feel with a “stranger” coming in and wiping their butt. (whateverthefuwant)

Other people questioned why the child hadn’t learned or wasn’t being taught to wipe themselves, and asked for clarification from the woman as to whether there was some developmental or physical reason why the child needed assistance.

NTA – His kid, his poop. And, unless there is some developmental reason that the kid couldn’t clean himself, it’s the parents – both of them – who are the AH’s for not teaching the kid to do it himself.

In a follow up comment the woman revealed “Jacob is not disabled. His mother is really overbearing and just decides to do everything for him, my friend follows suit. Jacob will start school in September (he was homeschooled before).”

He’s unemployed so he literally has 24 hours each day in which he can teach his son to wipe himself or do it himself. (Fromashination)

NTA. In no scenario is it your responsibility to tend to some else’s child in the bathroom when the child’s able-bodied parent is there.

At 5 or 6 the child should be able to do this on their own now. What will they do at school? (GimmeTheCoffeeeeeee)

People rightly wondered how the father could have made such a bad job of a simple task to get his kid’s poop on his shirt. Clearly he needs more practice! But what alternative reality is this man living in to think it is someway his friend’s fault that he failed so badly?

Yes, the shit on the shirt is definitely an interesting additional element. I don’t know how any adult could be that inept, although clearly he never wipes his kid’s bottom because he sees it as “women’s work”.

The accusation that the shit on the shirt was OP’s fault is WILD. (msfinch87)

I wonder whether he’d leaned into his weaponized incompetence enough to do that on purpose, just to make op feel like they were wrong not to do it for him. (LittleMissScreamer)

As if the story up to this point wasn’t wild enough, the woman then has to deal with the wife who also thinks she should have performed the task because her husband is depressed after losing his job.

You’re NTA here in any sense. So what, dudes going through some stuff? EVERYONE is going through some stuff. His kid is STILL his responsibility. If his wife were that concerned, she would have kept the kid at home with her. Her calling you and bitching at you about some situation that isn’t even your responsibility makes her an asshole, too. (3dmund)

We couldn’t agree more!

What do you think? What would you have done in this woman’s position?