A dad of four took to Reddit to ask other users if he is an a**hole for paying one of his twin sons a higher allowance than the other. According to the dad, both of his sons are 14, he also has two girls who are 10 years old and 7 years old.
As the dad admits in his post, all of his kids “are pretty responsible kids, and consistently do their chores as they’re meant to.” He went on to say that his family has “a little chart that says what all their jobs are, with each of their roles being proportional to their ages. The boys take on the largest number of responsibilities, which each of them alternating jobs every week.”
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Dad Asks If He’s Wrong for Paying One of His Twins a Higher Allowance Because He Takes on More of the ‘Emotional Labor’ In the Home
According to the post, his son usually both make $15 a week for doing their choirs while his 10-year-old daughter makes $10 and his 7-year-old makes $2, “mostly for symbolic purposes.” However, because “one of my boys is a real leader in the home,” the dad decided to secretly pay him more than his twin brother.
“He’s just naturally brilliant with people, is constantly dealing with conflicts between his sisters and his brother, takes charge in rough situations, and is really considerate of others. He’s always been the “frontman” between his brother and him, with him speaking for both of them while his brother hangs back. Though we’ve never told him to, and though it’s not his responsibility, he’s always been a real help to his mother and me in keeping the house running smoothly. His brother (call him B), on the other hand, is much more reserved. He keeps to himself. That’s not a problem, but we do recognize that A takes on more ’emotional labor’ in the household than B.”
As a result of Twin A taking on more of the “emotional labor” at home, the dad and his wife made the decision to give him an extra $5 a week and have been doing so for the past year. “The boys both have debit cards (got them when they were 13), so we put the money directly into their accounts and neither of them see money getting exchanged. A does know he makes more money, though.”
It wasn’t until last week that Twin B learned about the extra $5 he’s been earning. “They were online shopping for video games, and B questioned why A was able to afford stuff he couldn’t. A admitted to him that he’s been making more.”
Understandably for a teenager, B “is absolutely furious” with his parents. “He says that it’s totally unfair that they’ve been doing the same amount of chores, but A’s been making more money. But we don’t really know how to explain to him that A deserves recognition for the less easily quantifiable work he does in our family.”
The dad then asked other Reddit users for their thoughts on how he and his wife handled the situation. And many of the commenters sided with Twin B.
“YTA you are punishing one son for having a more reserved personality,” one person wrote. “Resolving conflicts with his siblings etc. is not his job, the household chores are.”
“Also, in some twin sets (like mine) you have a dominant twin and a submissive twin, with the former (like A) normally speaking for the two and being a leader, a pattern that B might feel locked into,” another person added. “I love my sister but sometimes it does still feel like she’s trying to parent me and it boils my blood. This was even though my parents did their absolute best to treat us the same and have others do the same. Who says B wants to be lead or spoken for?”
What do you think?
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