Woman Told Family They Need to ‘Step Up or Shut Up’ About Chores — and Her Husband’s Reply Surprised Her

A family’s matriarch, who is in school to get a master’s degree, served her husband and kids a firm reality check about household chores.

The woman chronicled her frustrations over her family’s attitude around the house on Reddit’s “Am I the A——” forum, where she also wrote that she was taken aback by her husband’s response to her assertiveness. 

“I am married and have 3 kids, all are teens. My husband and I both work and my kids are in school and do sports or clubs after school,” she explained, adding that now that she’s pursuing her master’s degree, she’s unable to do the amount of chores and cooking that she used to do.

“I’m doing what I can, but between work, school and everything else at home, it can’t all be done,” she continued. “Yesterday, my husband came to me while I was doing my homework and said the shower curtain liner in our bathroom was moldy. This pushed me over the edge.”

Feeling overwhelmed, the mom called a family meeting. 

“I had my family come into the living room and told them that if they don’t like how something is, they have able bodies and can deal with it themself, that they have the skills to clean,” she wrote.

“My kids were arguing that they shouldn’t have to do more, they’re in school and busy afterwards,” she added. “I told them that I don’t care, I am busy too, and I can’t do it all, that they need to step up or shut up.”

Later that night, her husband confronted her about the meeting. 

“My husband told me I was too harsh and need to lighten up. He says I was rude and basically telling them their feelings don’t matter and I need to lay off of them,” she recalled. “I told him the message wasn’t only for the kids, it was for him too. He needs to step up.”

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Worrying she might have been “too harsh” to her family, the mom of three asked Redditors, “Am I the a—— for telling my family if they don’t like the way something is, they can take care of it themselves?”

Her July 6 Reddit post has attracted nearly 1,000 responses, with many people siding with her and telling her she’s “NTA [not the a——].”

“All of them absolutely need to step up,” one reader replied, while another commented, “It’s a subtle form of sabotage. He is (subconsciously) ‘punishing’ you for not taking care of everything in the household yourself.”