There are moments in one’s life when one would have to take difficult decisions. These moments are even more poignant when it comes to family men. Where would your priorities lie? And who would you risk alienating and for whom? These are just some of the questions that one needs to answer. And when they start second-guessing their choice, they need to hold on to their priorities. For, choosing one option would automatically mean alienating someone else. So unless they know of a way to bake a cake and have it as well- they would have to go out on a limb and do what’s best for them.
In certain situations, we might not even be given choices that are comparable. After all, how would one choose between opting to stay for their child’s birth and visiting their dying father? If you are a soon-to-be father, how would you face your wife? If you choose the first option, you are forever guilty of not seeing your father before he died. Needless to say, this will force itself upon your conscience. And if you chose the second, there is a chance that your wife will grow to hate you.
And this is exactly what happened to a Reddit user, who posted this controversial decision on the popular subreddit, Am I The A**hole? (AITA). The now three-year-old post spoke about leaving to meet his dying father, while his heavily pregnant wife stayed behind to be safe. Unfortunately, his wife went into labor soon after he left for his father’s house. In such a bedraggled situation, his wife kept calling him to join her at the hospital. And this is where the man came upon a fork in the road. Could he choose between his son and his father? As it turns out, he chose to meet his father, who died just a few hours later.
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Man Stuck In A Conundrum- Visiting His Dying Father, Or Being Present At His Child’s Birth; To Be Or Not To Be?
“I decided to see my father one last time and I felt like it was more important than seeing my child’s birth because I will raise him and see him everyday for the next 18+ years and I really need to say some things to my father before he dies. My wife and the rest of her family are f***ing pissed at me and said that birth is one of the most important parts of our lives and I needed to be there to support my wife and see the child.”
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While one can understand the precarious position of OP, one might also see the high-handedness with which his in-laws treated him. After all, the man had just lost his father- how could anyone lose the last shred of their humanity to insult a man who was going through that? In a later update, OP mentioned that he and his wife had come to terms with the whole situation and she understood his predicament. But his in-laws still decided to give him a hard time about it.
To put it really frankly, there is nothing that the wife could hold against him. At the end of the day, OP is in the right. Nothing would come close to the guilt that he would face for not meeting his father mere hours before his death. And if we were even blunter, it was also understood that a newly-born infant would barely notice the presence of their father. And if push comes to shove, OP could always explain to his child about where he was during the child’s birth.
The community jumped to give their own verdict. u/ProfessorEmeritass mentioned “You needed to be there with your wife. You needed to be there with your dad. Literally a life and death situation. You could only be in one place. I understand why you chose to be at your father’s death bed. But you owe your wife big time, because birth isn’t about the baby as much as it is supporting your partner in the process.” While the initial sentiment was correct, the last sentence did seem quite problematic. And this was rightly picked up by u/spanishbanana who replied, “Owing his wife big time means he did something wrong. He made the right choice, difficult as it was. I imagine right now he is in a weird place where he lost a lot but gained something amazing too.”
There are some decisions that have no correct answer, after all. Maybe this can be considered as one of them.
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Source
- “AITA for skipping my child’s birth to see my dying father?” Reddit
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