A husband is dumbfounded after his wife asked him to buy an incredibly expensive " push present " for her for delivering their first child.
Taking to the subreddit r/AITAH, which stands for Am I The A------, the man vented about the request and ranted about "extremist podcasts" and social media influencers who are ruining relationships as he said his wife was acting "entitled."
u/throwra-pushpresent began the post by explaining that he and his wife have been together for five years and that she's currently pregnant with their first child. About a week ago, he said she sent him a TikTok that featured a woman from "one of those extremist podcasts" who began discussing the fact that women deserve a "push present" for bringing children into the world.
The man said he had to look up what a push present was, then discovered that it's a thank-you gift for the woman after she gives birth to show appreciation for her sacrifice and the experience of doing so. The husband wasn't amused by the concept.
"This concept is and still seems very strange to me. I understand seeking appreciation from your husband for what women go through during pregnancy and childbirth, but it’s the materialistic part that gave me the ick," he wrote.
"The woman on the TikTok went on and on about how it’s a 'body for a body' which meant the man would have to get a permanent tattoo on his lower body, give her a house and a car as a gift exclusively to her," he continued.
The husband went on to call such expectations "very entitled" and "honestly a little vindictive" as well as "envious" when it came to the tattoo. He said they seemed "very over the top" for his taste.
His rationale for that is that having a child is, in his eyes, the decision of both parties, or that at least it was in his case. "My wife in our case is not forced to be a mom or be pregnant, as she wants to be a parent too," he said.
When she sent him the TikTok, the man said he replied with laughing emojis and "moved on, thinking it was the end of it." He said he probably thought she meant to send the TikTok to him as satire, as if to say, in his words, "oh look how dumb this woman is, thinking she deserves all that."
But when the husband reacted so callously, the wife wasn't impressed. She allegedly came into the other room where he had been sitting and told him that she doesn't expect a tattoo as a push present or a house exclusively for her, but she did want a car. "She wants me to dip into my personal savings," the man said.
At that, the husband said he began laughing. "I thought my wife and I had similar views on how extremist people can be, and I was wrong," he said. "I thought she was joking, and I pressed her if she was actually serious." He said she "got very annoyed" that he assumed she was joking and said she was "probably imitating the entitled woman on the reel" as he said, "She flatly said that she expects a real push present."
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The man said he instead told his wife that her gift is "the gift of parenthood and the realised outcome of a healthy baby." He added, "Materially speaking, I'll probably gift her a Mother's Day card, a day out or some jewellery she wants (total under 700 dollars), but nothing more. I said if she really wants an extra car, it'll be 'OUR' car, not just hers."
He said his wife "pressed more and said how it isn't enough for what she will go through" after that, then "kept pushing and pushing" before asking him if he thought that she wasn't "worthy enough."
"I told her she is worthy as my partner and the mother of my child, but she has to be realistic and realise that none of us, individually speaking, is worthy of what she’s asking for," the man wrote. "That she has to manage her expectations because I don’t see why she feels she deserves that."
The man admitted, "It came out wrong but I didn’t mean to dismiss her as a person." At that point, he said his wife refused to speak to him and was crying arguing about it with him for a while before that. He said he heard her criticizing him to her sister on the phone in the other room.
"Under no circumstances would I ever consider gifting HER a car," the man said. "I feel bad she is hurting right now but I don't feel bad for giving her a reality check."
People in the comments agreed with the man, with the top commenter writing, "Damn I was thinking some roses or maybe necklace with baby’s birthstone." That comment garnered over 16,000 likes. The original post has over 20,000 likes.
"For the Love of cheezits I wish people would stay off those stupid f------ Tiktok videos," another Redditor commented. Yet another summed up what everyone else seemed to be thinking: "NTA. Influencers are literally ruining people. My present after successful deliveries was my husband knowing that he's a rotten cook, so he bought groceries and enlisted our loved ones to fill our freezer with heat and eat meals. He also chopped ingredients for them and cleaned up their kitchens. He started this project about a month before the due date of our firstborn, skipping his gym time so that it was a very sweet surprise."
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