He Won’t Enforce His Ex-Wife’s Reading Rule on His Teenage Son. Is He Wrong?

I personally loved to read when I was a kid but hey, let’s get real: a lot of kids definitely do not.

At all.

So you can see where this dad is coming from in not enforcing a rule from his ex-wife about making their kids read.

But is he acting like an a**hole?

Check out his story and see what you think.

“So I (45m) have a son Callum (15) with my ex wife Amanda. We had an amicable divorce when Callum was two, and so far we’ve been coparenting quite well.

Now, I could say a lot of things about Amanda’s parenting, but the long and short of it is that she and her new husband cater their parenting style to their two younger kids together (11f and 8m). Because of this, he’s decreased his time at their house ever since he got the choice, and now spends every other weekend at their house.

Around a month ago, Amanda and her husband made a “reading rule” for the kids. The 8 year old has to read 30 mins a day, the 11 year old has to read for an hour, and Callum has to read for two hours.

I have no idea why they did this, I think it’s because the 8 year old is falling behind in his reading level and they wanted to keep things “fair” between the kids. I think that this is ridiculous, as Callum is a very smart kid already, and he needs that time for homework and relaxing since he doesn’t have that much free time to begin with.

Amanda let me know that she expected me to enforce the “reading rule” when Callum is at my house. I told her that I would not. She said that it was unfair to Callum’s half siblings that he could just leave for my house and not have to follow the rule, while they had to follow the rule no matter what. I told her tough luck, it’s my house and I make the rules, not her.

Well now, Callum is thinking about not staying with her at all anymore due to the increasing strictness of her and her husband’s rules. She told me that it’s all my fault that he doesn’t want to be around her anymore because I was so lax with the rules.

I’m pretty sure I’m in the right here, but I thought it might be a good idea to get some perspective, so AITA?”

And now take a look at what people said about this on Reddit.

This reader said he’s NTA and said this kind of required reading outside of school isn’t a good idea.

Another individual said he should to for full custody of his son.

And this Reddit user said this required reading thing for a kid this age is WEIRD.

What do you think? Is this guy right?