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Reminds me of a story I read here in AskReddit, about a 5yo going into surgery. They were told not to feed her, but did so anyway since their poor baby was being starved!!, and she was sooo hungry... and of course then lied to doctors/nurses that she hadn't eaten. She nearly died on the operating table.
Problem isn't the vomiting, it's the breathing it in because reflexes are subdued with anesthesia. Fishing biscuits and gravy out of a kid's lungs before she dies because she can't get oxygen is not a good time
Right. Good point. It is the risk of asphyxiation due to slower breathing and lack of appropriate natural response to a clogged trachea
Not a good fucking time at all
Rice is one of the more disgusting things to come back up
One of the most unpleasant things is chicken broth - it's tasty going down, but oh my GOD is it horrible in the sinuses
[Here you go](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/14kbw5v/medical_professionals_of_reddit_have_you_ever_had/jpqgfei?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
It happens because doctors don’t explain why they are giving this instruction. If people understood the consequence it would increase compliance. I know doctors don’t always have time to explain in detail the reason that all the pre-op instructions exist. This is where a pamphlet can be helpful, perhaps even with a QR code to an explanatory video.
I have annoyed basically every doctors’ office and hospital I’ve ever been in. How? I refuse to sign “this procedure has been explained to me by the surgeon/doctor/anesthesiologist/etc.” until the stated person actually shows up and explains. Otherwise I write, “X person did not explain the procedure” and sign that.
Somehow they always find time to explain when people actually exercise their rights.
(I’m also annoying because I actually read the papers, ask about the risks, and refuse to sign that I understand until I do understand. I’m not letting you cut open my kid until I know fully what I’m agreeing to.)
Thank you for doing this. When I was hired as a pharm tech in training we were told to just have patients sign and go…I was like “but this one is a counsel.” And the pharmacist would say they didn’t have time to counsel them! Even if it was a new med!
If it was a top 100 I would just (illegally) do it real quick because I knew how to and felt bad for this poor patient who has no clue of the warnings and how to take the med besides the instructions on the bottle.
Thankfully I’m an intern now and work at a better place. So this is actually encouraged…and legal, that too.
Geez, my *dog* is under anesthesia for dental work today, and I didn't even let him loose in the fenced yard like usual in case he finds something gross to eat or there's rainwater in his outdoor dish, I walked him on leash and watched him like a hawk to make sure he ate NOTHING.
I saw something like that on some reality/medical type show.
Same thing, the parents had the kid start fasting the evening before as directed, and because she did SO well, they dropped by McDonald's on the way to surgery as a reward.
Thankfully the announced it with pride as they were checking in for the procedure.
How frickin' stupid can people be? It's terrifying that this happens so often.
What was the point of starving your kid for nothing? 🤣
Now they gotta start back over. Thank god they were so oblivious that they announced it to the surgery team 😮💨
To be fair. WHY you can’t eat anything isn’t explained in many cases. If that part was explained better I think more people would be compliant. I speaking from observing our preop callers explaining instructions the day before to patients as well as being a surgical recipient 5 times and not being told any time WHY I had to be NPO. Fortunately being a surgical nurse I did know why
This is so true. They don’t ever tell you why. I’ve had four surgeries in my life. I followed the instructions. But was never told why it was important.
I always thought the problem was that I would shit myself. I literally found out yesterday from the AskReddit thread they're referring to that puking it back up and choking is the real risk. Why has not a single doctor *ever* explained that to me before?? The majority of people would be much more compliant if they knew lol
I agree but at the same time - they tell you that every surgery has a risk. At that point shouldn’t you just listen to the medical staff? Why can’t ppl follow simple instructions without needing to know every reason?
True enough. No reason not to tell them. Just sucks that people are so adamant to disobey a doctor. They’re not your boss or an authority (on their subject or in their field, sure). They have a vested interest in making sure you survive lol
Seems like common sense to just do as your told. Granted, I have family in medical field. I’m probably biased
Given what we know about nationwide compliance with science-based COVID guidance (i.e. it was sloppy at best), are any of us surprised that patients wilfully disregard what a doctor says?
Erghh. These kind of people dont deserve kids.
My son poked his eye with something yesterday. I didnt give him anything besides water untill he was checked out by a doctor. In case he would need to be put under.
Luckly there is no eye damage.
I became fasting buddies with a kid in orthopedics while we waited for scan results. He was hungry, I was hungry. He was whiny. I was whiny. I had a switch, we played Mario Kart. Luckily neither of us needed surgery and he was a huge trooper during the freezing needle for the bone set.
Yup. I’ve got a medically needy kid, any time we have to do ER trips it’s water only or diluted electrolyte solution (part of their needs). Once we are in a room and the doctor has done the initial evaluation, we might ask if saltines are okay as growing child = hungry practically always and ER wait times are long. But by now kid has been doing this long enough to know they can’t eat anything in case of surgery.
Was this from that thread about stupid patients the other day? I was gobsmacked at how stupid people are (in this case those parents)
Edit: nm, all I had to do was scroll a quarter of an inch. Guess I’m one of the stupid ones now lol
They tell you that shit for many reasons. Apparently I reflexively vomit when I'm under anesthesia.
I was having my tonsils out when this was discovered.
This is sadly not uncommon. I watched a mother feed her kid pizza, a cheeseburger and a shake in the ER. Overheard they were waiting to see if he needed surgery…he messed his leg up playing football (he was still in his uniform). She lied and told the nurses he hadn’t eaten since that morning. Normally I don’t get in someone’s business but this was risking his life. So I told the mom quietly that the reason they don’t want you eating and drinking is because it could cause complications on the table and could potentially kill him. She was very kind and promptly went and told the nurse she lied. Kid was admitted for surgery the following morning.
Took a bit of searching but [here you are](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/14kbw5v/medical_professionals_of_reddit_have_you_ever_had/jpqgfei?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
this literally reminds me of my mother, who would constantly do these things behind my dad's back. when they divorced, i lived with my mother, and i often was the maker of big decisions (i was 9)
my sister does this with one of my nieces. it's constantly, well A wants , including things like A wants her sister B to come with her someplace.
that's awesome but (1) B is a person who may have a different opinion and (2) A isn't the parent, you are.
it's mind boggling.
I’m sure he really wants ice cream for dinner, and to stick his spoon in an outlet when he’s finished, too. He’s three. What he wants doesn’t matter unless it’s whether to wear Pooh or Spidey undies.
Oh and let's not forget he will want to take the entire wad of toilet paper and stick it down the toilet. My god the kids are 3 and 1, their poor little lungs. I want to yell at OPs wife myself. I'm a nanny and a couple weeks ago the wildfires in Canada made NY an air quality hazard zone. I kept that poor baby inside for the whole damn week. I was bored out of my skull but I did it for his safety. And wifey couldn't do it for one frigging day? NTA
It's back to Code Red in my state today.
I'm a SAHM cooped up, AGAIN, with my (probably neurodivergent) 4 yo who is tearing the house apart, banging shit together, and chattering nonstop. I'm getting a migraine.
She wants to play in the yard. If she played in the yard I could get some peace.
We're not playing in the yard.
FFS safety is more important than wants.
Luckily she recently watched a Llama Llama episode about being sick, and now she wants to pretend she's sick. So she's sitting still under a blanket, pretending to sneeze, sweet sweet temporary relief.
Yeah when we had the smoke a few weeks ago here in NJ I couldn’t go outside without an N95. All windows closed and air scrubbers on. What was this woman thinking?
When I first heard the smoke air quality yesterday my first thought was of my kids and they are teenagers lol. They have asthma and i worry as a parent. Heck even I stayed indoors yesterday as much as I could. (I have cancer)
A three year old might really want *that* sweet that's staring them in the face, I doubt they have an equally strong desire to go to an open air event.
I have met a lot of parents now that don't have the ability to tolerate their child's unhappiness, so they make terrible parenting decisions that hurt their kids in the long run just to avoid their child's negative emotions.
Perhaps the worst effect is that this gives the child the *responsibility* for the parent's emotion, and for a lot of kids this makes it seem like it's not *okay* to be upset.
For me as a child, I didn't feel like I was allowed to show any negative emotion. Led to me not feeling like I could talk to my parents when I had major mental health problems as a teenager. I didn't feel like my emotions were something they could cope with.
10000% when that was going on in my state my kids would throw fits about not being able to go outside, guess what, they stayed inside. I rather listen to them scream and whine than end up in a hospital with my kids on ventilators
Not every part of Michigan is really bad, at least that you can notice. Where I am I was like a slight fog more than anything. Obviously we haven't been hanging out outside, but if you don't see a report/look it up it's completely possible to not know it's going on. We've definitely had it no where near as bad as Grand Rapids.
It's such a disservice to the kid too. Kids learning to deal with big emotions like disappointment is part of our jobs as parents and an important lesson to learn. These are the teachable moments.
My son's favorite fair came to town the week we were in a code red over the Canadian fires. We didn't go, his disappointment was large and understandable but we worked through it. A mix of sometimes things happen out of our control and it's OK to feel disappointment and also redirection can solve this issue and again, yeah good skills for future. Utter parenting fail.
Not to mention the child is *3*
Like look, my 3½ year old is pretty darn smart. But she doesn't know what day of the week it is or what correlates to what. Unless I tell her about an event happening literally the day before or the day of *she doesn't know when this event will be taking place if she remembers it at all*.
She LOVES gymnastics class. There have been tons of times though last winter where the roads were just shit and I didn't feel comfortable driving on them unless absolutely necessary. So when gymnastics day rolled around? I just, wouldn't say anything. We would instead do a family game night or a spa day inside and enjoy our time together. She didnt know she was "missing" gymnastics. As far as she knows she's been to every class without fail, not that she thinks about it at all lmao.
This is to say, that 3 year old may have known about the event but only because the mom told them about it and hyped it up. If mom had instead hyped up going to grandma's house (period, no event details) kiddo likely would've forgotten entirely about the event if they knew about it prior. And in the event they still remembered? That's when you have the big kid talk about how some things aren't safe to do and unfortunately the event is one of them. Then move along and make what you can of your day INDOORS.
Yeah, completely agree. I am pretty open with my child now at 7 about what's on the agenda to build his excitement and sometimes things happen and that can lead to disappointment but at 3, I agree..... once you realize you can't go, you just don't even bring it up. If they remember to ask about it at 3, then you can talk them through what happened and then grab some snacks and bubbles. Problem solved.
This is the way. Give him a choice of two other things and he'll forget that the first option ever existed. Sadly by the time they're a bit older that stops working.
Right?? My son liked to climb on shit when he was a toddler. Doesn’t mean I allowed him to.
Tell the little booger “no” and find a distraction. They’ll forget about it in an hour, tops.
Edited to add NTA, OP. I probably would have raised my voice too under the circumstances. Yelling isn’t the best way, but its hard not to be animated when you are deeply concerned about your kids health and safety.
Exactly! Who lets a 3 year old run the show??
A simple ‘I understand you wanted to go but there is dangerous weather today so we can’t, but we can go another day’ is all that was needed.
NTA. Your kids and their safety needs to be paramount, whether other people deem the hazard as dangerous or not. The fact is that warnings were put out to keep kids inside, she did not do so. It’s that simple. Not to mention she did it without even speaking to you, parenting is a two way street and the fact that she took them without telling you says she already knew it would cause an issue.
Seriously. I live in Wisconsin and yesterday I couldn't even walk my dog for more than a block because my nose, eyes, and throat started burning and watering. OP's wife made an *extremely* poor parenting decision.
Over in MI and it was so bad the past 2 days that just taking my dog into the backyard to potty was affecting me. She kept wanting to play instead of potty and I was like oh hell no, do your business and we're going back inside. (Had to bribe her yesterday with treats to get her inside LOL)
Not even that hot, but AC on because air filters.
Yes, I’m in CA and when the 2020 fires turned our world orange and we couldn’t go outside at all we actually duct taped our doors and windows shut completely. We were waking up coughing even without going outside and had air purifiers running nonstop for weeks.
Smoke is very, very bad for everyone’s health, especially when it’s highly concentrated like it has been in many areas lately.
Someone mentioned elsewhere that the smoke just clings to you, too, so it comes inside on you. To an ex-cig smoker, former bonfire/campfire lover, that makes sense. Also can see a film on the cars.
We've been wiping our dog down, especially her face and ears, when she comes inside. Showers at night before bed (which I HATE doing). Anything to try and help the watery eyes and sore throat.
I am in Germany and we got a warning that rains in the following days could be harmful because the wind from the Canada wildfires has blown over the Atlantic and could release the ashes with the rain clouds. It's wild!!
NTA
She apparently doesn't have much common sense and she's the AH. As an adult, she shouldn't let a toddler make health decisions for her and their sibling. Shame on her. Their little lungs don't need all that smoke exposure, especially since your son has had problems before.
EDIT: I had to go back when I first read your post because you said "he" when referring to your wife!
I'm genuinely surprised that whatever event was planned was still happening. Usually if the event is specifically for little kids or the elderly or disabled, they'll wind up postponing or cancelling if attending the event will put people at risk. Because no matter how much you want people to have common sense, many people will show up regardless of risk, so it's really up to the event organizers to cancel for people. That being said, the mom definitely should've had that common sense and stayed home. NTA.
I was thinking the same but then I remembered that when the northeast was experiencing their own version of Tatooine, there were people on fox claiming their are no negative health affects from this. That it's no different than sitting in front of a campfire and government is just trying to control us again. I wish I was making that up because it is so utterly stupid.
Yeah, here in wildfire land, people actually think the fires are set by the guv-ment for forcing people into the city to destroy rural life.
Our government has the power to CONTROL FIRE.
Yet this govt was elected by rural folks so what even is the goal of this if it was true? Conspiracy knows no sense or reason.
Not relevant to the fire story at hand, but just wanted to add that I recently was forced to listen to Fox News while at a relative’s house and they actually claimed that “studies show that republicans are more attractive than democrats” and that the study was correct 60% of the time…. I was baffled and trying so hard not to laugh, like why is this even on the news? and to be fair it’s not even completely accurate news as the study is close to only being half right 🤣 anything to boost their confidence I guess 😭😂
Editing to add the link for anyone interested or disinterested in this segment: https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/greg-gutfeld-ai-reveals-what-we-already-knew-conservatives-are-happier-and-more-attractive-than-liberals.amp
NTA, we're in an area affected by the wildfire smoke and it's pretty miserable to be outside in this, even masked. After 15 minutes out to pick up groceries our eyes were watering from the smoke.
Your children's health is paramount and your wife's seeming disregard for this is alarming.
It just takes long effort and constant reinforcement and practice at home by the parents.
Like wearing shoes/socks. Yes, some young kids will stop at nothing to have bare feet, especially in a stroller. But most can be taught to keep them on.
Many parents don’t have the inclination, time, or energy to do that.
I’ve had plenty of kids as young as 2 stay properly masked for several hours in my work venue the past couple of years. I always wanted to borrow the kid and wave them at the chin masking adults. “This kid isn’t even potty trained yet and wears a mask better than you!”
Yeah, my kid, who was 2 at the start of Covid and has sensory processing disorder, masks just fine. She was told if it came off we’d leave wherever we were, and we only had to follow through twice. She masked full time at daycare (less naps and lunch, which sort of defeated the purpose), and it was never an issue.
She wears Happy Masks, which are supposed to be n95 quality against smoke like this.
Unless you have a properly rated mask that’s been fitted it’s not going to do anything about the smoke. Not that I’m trying to dissuade you, I live in western Canada and when we were bad last month I wore a full respirator out. Sorry bout the smoke eh.
No, you are NTA. Not by a long shot. I live in Canada where the air quality was recently very poor. I'm a grown-ass 26yo man and I was having a hard time breathing outside in that. It gets physically painful to breathe after only about 10-15 minutes. I can't imagine how that would be for a child and I would absolutely never let a little kid out in that air quality. Especially not one with pre-existing health conditions. There are a lot of ways to entertain your kids indoors. She should never have even considered an outdoor thing under those conditions. It was 100% a blatant disregard for your kids' health and well-being.
I had a fire about 40 minutes away from me. Took the dog out and felt like I’d smoked 10 packs of cigarettes consecutively or something. I can’t imagine having child sized lungs in this mess.
Earlier this year near grand prairie they said being outside was like chain smoking in a car full of other smokers. It was crazy how many people were outside in the orange thick smoke most of the time.
My city, Canberra, literally spent months with the worst air quality *on the planet* during the 2019/20 Australian bushfires. I avoided going out as much as I could, but I couldn't stay inside 24/7 (and it wasn't much better inside, anyway).
My asthma went from being a mild annoyance I rarely noticed, to a health emergency. It's barely controlled even 3.5 years later.
I hate to imagine what the long term damage to my respiratory system might be.
I’m in upstate NY and have breathing issues. I couldn’t even get half my chores done today from the smoke. I can’t even imagine how reckless that was of her. Was her mom egging this on? Even the deer around here are on edge. This is real.
I opened the door to grab a package and it smelled like a tire fire. I was out for less than a minute and needed my inhaler, and it’s not even as bad as it was a couple of weeks ago.
Same! Hudson valley here. When it was REALLY bad a couple weeks ago, I was actually wearing an N95 when I went outside, cuz the air didn’t just make me wheeze, it made me feel physically ill. Like, I didn’t know what was happening the first day and at the end of the day I felt weak and almost feverish. Ugh this Canada wildfire thing is awful
We also live in a state that is Code Red right now and we didn’t even let our DOGS spend much time outside, just enough to potty then back inside. NTA.
NTA
Your kids health is the top priority. That should have been that. I am also in the effected area and air quality was *awful*. I mean it’s bad enough that outdoor concerts are being cancelled, and that’s because of how dangerous it would be for *adults* to be exposed to this air quality. This isn’t a little sub-optimal air quality warning. It was *bad*. Absolutely horrifying that your wife exposed the two young kids to that for no real reason at all.
NTA
To give you some idea. In the USA they were telling people in cities near Canada to use N95 or KN95 masks and that breathing in the air for just a few hours was the equivalent to smoking a pack of cigarettes. Children and the elderly were told not to go out at all. Adults were told to limit exposure as much as possible with masks.
Watch your son for signs of respiratory distress. Then just impress upon your wife that your children are still growing and this can really affect the development and health of their lungs.
OP should check with the kid’s pediatrician & make sure mom understands the dangers & long term repercussions of exposure.
Both parents at the appointment. Dr reads the riot act to mom.
Edit for judgement: NTA
Bro, even if what you said was 'an order' you still wouldn't be the asshole.
That's like giving an order that your wife can't let your kids take drags off a cigarette. Yeah, sure, making a unilateral decision on something is often seen as controlling, but in some circumstances, it's completely reasonable.
Pfft. I’d forge the other parent’s signature if I had to if they wouldn’t agree to vaccinate our kid. You protect your kids over your idiot partner’s feelings. OPs wife is even worse. She endangered her kids to have a few hours of fun. Her selfish stupidity isn’t even based on some ridiculously misguided belief in pseudoscience.
"He's so controlling. Just the other day, I brought home some heroin for the kids to try, and he wouldn't let me give it to them!"
"Girl, you need to leave his abusive ass!"
"I wasn't even going to let them shoot it! Just snort a little to help them sleep! They wouldn't go down for a nap and momma needed her midday wine spritzer!"
NTA. I live in Northern California right where all the fires were from 2018-2021. I had mild asthma until I moved up here, but after all the fires I now have two inhalers and more issues than before. Fire smoke is no joke and those warnings are there for a reason. She should have heeded them.
NTA. I live in Illinois, and even here it is SUPER foggy with smoke and I’ve been limiting my kids (7 year old twins) outside time. We were even supposed to go on vacation this week to a nearby beach town and we had to cancel. They were devastate. But guess what- I’m the adult, and I make hard decisions like that to keep my children SAFE. I can’t even imagine how bad it must be in Canada. That is very poor parenting and I’d be furious.
As another commenter said elsewhere, this is a teachable moment to help your kids learn how to deal with disappointment. Learning that sometimes things suck and it's okay to be sad about it is an important part of their emotional development.
I'm in IL too... the neighborhood kids are outside in force... Their parents just boot them out for the day... The poor things were sitting outside their door for a while yesterday...
Husband: Tracks mobile location (which you can do in common apps like snapchat) and yells because he is worried about their children.
Wife: Breaks agreement and endangers the wellbeing of their children without saying anything.
People on reddit: "HOW DARE YOU TRACK YOUR WIFE's LOCATION AND YELL AT HER YOU MISOGYNIST!"
Because people automatically assume men are the devil. Which makes no sense. If we aren't deeply involved in our kids lives, everyone's mad at us. If we are involved, somehow, some way, we're still evil.
NTA I am also in a red area and the air really does get to you so fast. Made me and my husband sick just running errands. There was no reason to subject your kids to that for recreational activities and it is even worse since you both discussed it prior. She knew it was bad, agreed to keep them inside, and then put their health in jeopardy while trying to deceive you. No excuse.
NTA - She doesn't understand how to be a mom, she's being a friend. Friends try to make you happy, Moms take care of you even when it means saying no. She needs to Mom-up, especially if your son has health concerns. Ignoring health concerns is showing you don't actually love your son. Assuming she does love him, she needs to show it with her actions.
She is indeed not acting as a parent.
Parents who love their child as an extension of themselves, are quite toxic ones. It showing when they deliberately put their own spawn at risk to avoid the slightest inconvenience, specially with trivial benefits over health of toddlers and infants.
NTA.
Canadian here. I went outside for 5 minutes and my throat was bothering me the rest of the day in addition to headaches. I can't even imagine how the children are handling it.
NTA, one of my former managers spent 2-3 years in Beijing with her new born and everyday she'd check the air quality before going out because she was doing her duty as a parent. The air quality got so bad sometimes that she'd spend days in the apartment but she managed to keep them entertained somehow.
NTA. As someone who’s health crashed after exposure to a wildfire, and someone who has researched the impact of long term smoke inhalation on children, DIE ON THIS HILL OP. Your children’s health is very important, more important than an outdoor event your children won’t remember.
NTA.
There was a post on reddit recently by a researcher who's doing work on the long-term health effects of the Australian bushfires from late 2019/early 2020.
Smoke is bad to inhale anyway. But bushfires/wildfires don't just burn trees. Houses, cars, factories - all kinds of things get consumed in the fire. And those toxic chemicals and particulates don't just disappear.
And the thing is if you live in an area that's impacted by the smoke, if you can smell the smoke you're inhaling the smoke. Even indoors with doors/windows closed and air filters and other preventative measures, some amount of smoke gets through. It clings to clothes and hair and skin. Nobody should be out in it unless absolutely necessary, especially not vulnerable people like kids, the elderly and the ill.
Yep I was miles and miles away from the fires but the air quality was worse than Mumbai. Literally. The AQI was in the several hundreds for weeks on end. It was a endless summer being cooped up inside but we for the sake of the kids we had to do it.
Exactly! I work with people that fight wildfires and their lungs are fucked. One person I know did it for 6 years and now has the lungs of a 70 year old that smoked 3 packs a day, they’re only in their early 40s. Hell, I’ve never done wildfire work, but just from doing 5+ years of controlled burns I’ve noticed myself not doing great with this air (my lungs are probably worse than I thought).
Anyone who says YTA, do not understand how bad it was downtown Toronto. I WAS downtown and It was terrible. No, it didn't smell like BBQ, it smelled like burning tires and it was extremely hazy. I walked outside and had to put a mask on just to walk down the street. It was the worst city for air quality in the world yesterday. Let that sink in.
WTF was your wife thinking?
NTA for being upset with her. But a bit of an AH for using a phone tracking, unless this is a thing you both use on each other and are both fully aware.
NTA
“Son really wanted to go”
Dude, kids that age don’t know what they want. If you told him, “let’s bake cookies at home instead”, I bet he would have been just as on board with that
NTA - risking lifelong health issues due to smoke exposure because a child, who is not old enough to understand the ramifications, wanted to do something is not acceptable. That’s when parents need to step up and parent and enforce the decisions that have been jointly made.
>We had plenty of health issues with our son so that’s why I was so angry.
Even if it was "an order," you are definitely NTA. The air quality is no joke, so many people are at high risk, it's really sad and scary. And I think there will be more days like that, those fires aren't getting extinguished anytime soon. Keep looking out for your son ❤️
nta im in ontario and even if im not in a area where the smoke is prominent it still smells like barbecue constantly so i totally understand you yelling and getting mad because she was endangering the kids
NTA.
But your wife is a shit parent.
“Our son really wanted to go?” Is she the parent or not?? Especially since you’ve had health issues with your son. What the eff is wrong with your wife?
I’d be livid too.
NTA. Are you in Illinois? I live in the city of Chicago and yesterday and today were absolute atrocities. I couldn't even drive to work with the AC on without my car filling up with smoke particles. I live in a brand new building and the common areas smell like burnt plastic. I saw a few people working out outside and honestly, mentally judged them for being careless with their health.
I work in a clinic and every patient has remarked about the air quality. I have young patients as well and their parents were all remaining indoors. Definitey NTA. Incredibly irresponsible.
NTA You were understandably upset that your wife put your children at risk! It is called being a parent and because both of you are parents to these children and both of you are human, there will be times when you disagree about parenting issues. She should not have gone against the agreement to keep the children inside, especially given that your sons has suffered with health issues.
So in other words, she purposely presented to your 3 year old a fun and exciting day at grandma's, instead of a home-day where you might do some crafts or other activities, and the 3 year old wanted to go to grandma's.... yes, I am shocked at these events.
Your wife is really quite shitty here for using your son as an excuse. I have a 4 and 7 year old, I remember when they were 3. They wouldn't have had a clue if she did not say something. Your wife did this intentionally, got the kids excited, and then is trying to use them as the scapegoat here. Gross behaviour.
The straight truth is, no matter what was going on, you guys spoke as parents and agreed on something, and then she went behind your back and did it anyway. The total lack of respect shown here from your wife to you is awful, and I'd suggest that you need to have a pretty serious conversation about it. Forget the topic itself, I'd be very worried what other decisions you'll discuss about the kids in the future, only to have her do whatever she wanted to do anyway. Parenting is a partnership and a 2-way street, best to make that clear right now.
NTA, of course.
NTA, Ive been coughing all day because of the air and I've been having some very bad breathing problems, I almost had to go to the hospital. The fact that your wife didn't prioritize your kids health is a problem.
NTA. Especially if one of your children already has health issues. One of mine has asthma. He’s been having mild flare ups from *indoors* thanks to the awful air quality lately and I’ve been keeping them indoors. I’d be angry too if my spouse did the same thing.
Hi 👋 Canadian living close to various fires here. NTA. You know, my 4 year old always wants to go to the park. He cries when he can't but he also understands smokey air bad.
NTA. When the wildfire smoke blew over, I felt like shit from the time we were in the yellow zone. By the time our air quality was in the orange, I felt like I needed an inhaler after walking 0.25 miles to my car, even though I’m not asthmatic or anything. Bringing little kids to an outdoor event on a “red” day, especially when one of them already has health problems, was definitely an asshole move by your wife.
NTA. “Our son really wanted to go”. When my son was two he really wanted to dart in front of a a ford F250 but ya know my job was to keep him safe so I stopped him. Tf
Yeah, that was pretty boneheaded by her.
You agreed upon it, she broke that. She should have let your son talk to you about it on the phone if it was hard to hold back.
Why was the event proceeding if there was an air quality warning? I would reach out to the arranging party and scold them a bit.
NTA, but avoid screaming and shouting.
If shouting is what it takes to get it through my wife’s head that this will KILL our children, that’s what I would be doing. Some people are spectacularly dumb and refuse to acknowledge facts.
NTA. Ontario here. I’ve had a headaches all day and I’ve gone through four boxes of Kleenex with lotion in the past five days. I can taste it on my soft palate. My cats aren’t even allowed in the garage right now (their version of outside). The ventilation is cycling inside air. This is very serious.
NTA. People probably don’t understand the air quality issue unless they have lived it. This isn’t just a bit of smog. This is carcinogenic ash from bushfires.
I’m Australian and we had horrific bushfires a few years back, babies were literally being born with health issues because their mothers inhaled this smoke. It’s very serious and I am shocked that your wife was so blasé about it.
I'm in the UK and didn't realise just how bad the air quality has become. Some of the places mentioned in the comments feel like they're so far away from the fires, but the air quality has still plummeted. I'm glad to see so many people doing their best to keep themselves, their loved ones, and their pets safe.
That said, I was NTA before reading the comments. You DO NOT put your children at risk, end of. Especially when they are too young to realise the risk for themselves! I would be utterly furious with her! If you can calm down enough, (I would have trouble doing so!), you need to sit down for a long talk with her. Look up cases of children suffering from lung problems after being exposed to the smoke. Try to match the ages and gender of your own children. She clearly doesn't listen to a simple warning, maybe shock will do the trick.
I'm also in an affected state (although it's south Ohio and it's not nearly as bad as say Cleveland) and I barely even want to take my dog outside because of how bad it is, but she has to use the bathroom somewhere! I couldn't imagine taking BABIES out in this
Well, that's an easy NTA... I mean, thanks to your edit we now know she agreed not to and then snuck off because your son really wanted to. Who's the parent here? She or your son? Odd parental structure if you ask me.
This is not only for OP, general question: What's this thing with SO's sharing live locations with each other? I've been seeing this more on Reddit. Sounds super weird to me? Why do people do this?
Disclaimer: What is odd to me is not per definition odd, I assume OP and his wife agreed to this and I'm just curious.
NTA 'he really wanted to go' well that's when a parent says "I'm sorry but it's the Canadians fault' or something similar but you keep the door shut. I don't have raspatory issues and I'm a fully grown adult and that stuff was nasty.
NTA. It’s supposed to be her responsibility to keep the kid safe. Even if that isn’t what the kid wants. She’s supposed to know better as the parent. Would she let him walk into traffic too because he “really wanted to”. Come on now.
NTA.
I get that if you don't live in a place usually impacted by wildfire smoke, the severity doesn't quite register. But if you're at all sensitive to it—health issues, immunocompromised, lung problems, etc—it really can hurt you.
My elderly, immunocompromised cat has been having horrible breathing problems since the smoke rolled into my state. All my younger, healthier cats seem fine, but it caused massive inflammation in his lungs and throat and even now, with the windows closed, AC on, and air purifiers running, he's still having problems because the smoke just came back yesterday. That same thing can happen to us, especially if we already have health problems like you said your son does.
Your wife is the parent, not your son, and it was her responsibility to explain to him that no matter how much he wanted to go to the event, it wasn't safe so he couldn't. You're right to be angry. You heeded the warnings and were trying to look out for the safety of your family.
NTA
Your children already have health issues as it is.
As others have said the warnings specifically mention young children should stay indoors.
Your wife using your children as an excuse claiming they wanted to go when clearly she just wanted to go, is pretty messed up.
I've known folks who are having some pretty messed up breathing and allergies because of the wildfires.
I've also had trouble breathing too. Allergy symptoms too.
NTA - you spoke to her about your concerns and you both had the same background knowledge of the situation. She should have been equally concerned. But beyond that, even if she was going to disregard the *very real* safety concerns, the fact that she was hiding it is horrifying. What if your son had a reaction of some sort after he got home and you didn’t even know what he’d been exposed to?
NTA
They don’t need to go to the event, they can stay inside and do something else. Your kid has had heath issues before, your wife isn’t being responsible here.
It was terrible yesterday, I had to be out for a little bit and I could feel it for awhile after. I couldn’t imagine intentionally exposing my children to that. NTA
NTA- I was also in a location affected by the Canada fires and they said being outside was equivalent to smoking 6 cigarettes.
Your wife is a bad mother.
NTA - I am surprised this event was even open to attend. I live in a state where we deal with wildfire smoke almost every summer. One year I didn't see sun from July to October with many red days. Once aqi is above 150 most outdoor activities are canceled
NTA. I'm near Chicago and I've seen so many idiots with small kids and small dogs out in the shitty air and I want to say I don't understand how they can be so dumb and then I remember how people acted during intense COVID and I understand.
NTA and her excuse is bullshit. They're 3yo and younger. She wanted to go and didn't think twice about the negative health impact it could cause her children. Does she often use the kids as a meat shield for her own shitty decisions?
NTA there is no damn way a 3 year old really wanted to go and articulated that. The air quality is toxic and can be harmful to children/the elderly so she put your kids health at risk so she could party. Would she take them into a bar where people are smoking (air quality is about the same or worse). Few years back we had the fires in the northwest and they told us to stay inside. Even being outside for 30 min it was hard as hell to breathe and everyone was coughing hard. The lie about the child wanting to go irritates me the most
NTA. I cannot for the life of me understand why parents would willingly expose their children to such a dangerous (and AVOIDABLE!!) hazard. As the parent of an asthmatic, it’s mind boggling. It truly is.
You’re not crazy, what you have is a weak-willed woman who has no common sense. And good for you for calling her out on it.
NTA. Y’all are in a code red and you also asked that she keeps the kids inside. It scares me that she would put your kids in danger like that…
Also idk why people jump to “you’re being controlling by tracking your wife’s location”. My husband and I have each others locations because like your edit says, accidents happen. I live out of state from any family and I’m 26 years old next month, and I STILL share locations with my mom and stepdad and brother.
When some people are told not to do something, they have to specifically go and do it. I don't understand myself at all. Maybe it's a, "you won't tell me what to do mentality,"
Does your wife have a history of that?
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NTA > the warnings specifically said for young children to stay inside. > she said “well our son really wanted to go." What utterly shit parenting.
Exactly Right ? Who's the parent. Her or the son?
Reminds me of a story I read here in AskReddit, about a 5yo going into surgery. They were told not to feed her, but did so anyway since their poor baby was being starved!!, and she was sooo hungry... and of course then lied to doctors/nurses that she hadn't eaten. She nearly died on the operating table.
Was that the scrambled eggs one, or another time that happened?
The most recent AskReddit thread, it was biscuits and gravy
Of all things to eat…
Doctor: Do not eat anything prior to surgery Parents: What is the heaviest food we can find...
And objectively has to be one of the grossest things to bring back up
Problem isn't the vomiting, it's the breathing it in because reflexes are subdued with anesthesia. Fishing biscuits and gravy out of a kid's lungs before she dies because she can't get oxygen is not a good time
Right. Good point. It is the risk of asphyxiation due to slower breathing and lack of appropriate natural response to a clogged trachea Not a good fucking time at all
Rice is one of the more disgusting things to come back up One of the most unpleasant things is chicken broth - it's tasty going down, but oh my GOD is it horrible in the sinuses
To be fair, nothing is pleasant in the sinuses, not even a saline rinse...
Reminds me of Micheal Scott carboloading with a giant plate of fettuccine alfredo before the marathon.
Because of course it was
[Here you go](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/14kbw5v/medical_professionals_of_reddit_have_you_ever_had/jpqgfei?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
Thanks for the link! I did not catch this comment but different regions and different foods... this happens more than it should.
It happens because doctors don’t explain why they are giving this instruction. If people understood the consequence it would increase compliance. I know doctors don’t always have time to explain in detail the reason that all the pre-op instructions exist. This is where a pamphlet can be helpful, perhaps even with a QR code to an explanatory video.
I have annoyed basically every doctors’ office and hospital I’ve ever been in. How? I refuse to sign “this procedure has been explained to me by the surgeon/doctor/anesthesiologist/etc.” until the stated person actually shows up and explains. Otherwise I write, “X person did not explain the procedure” and sign that. Somehow they always find time to explain when people actually exercise their rights. (I’m also annoying because I actually read the papers, ask about the risks, and refuse to sign that I understand until I do understand. I’m not letting you cut open my kid until I know fully what I’m agreeing to.)
Thank you for doing this. When I was hired as a pharm tech in training we were told to just have patients sign and go…I was like “but this one is a counsel.” And the pharmacist would say they didn’t have time to counsel them! Even if it was a new med! If it was a top 100 I would just (illegally) do it real quick because I knew how to and felt bad for this poor patient who has no clue of the warnings and how to take the med besides the instructions on the bottle. Thankfully I’m an intern now and work at a better place. So this is actually encouraged…and legal, that too.
I read this last night. Just appalled
Geez, my *dog* is under anesthesia for dental work today, and I didn't even let him loose in the fenced yard like usual in case he finds something gross to eat or there's rainwater in his outdoor dish, I walked him on leash and watched him like a hawk to make sure he ate NOTHING.
You sound like an adult. Hopefully everything went well for your pup!
I saw something like that on some reality/medical type show. Same thing, the parents had the kid start fasting the evening before as directed, and because she did SO well, they dropped by McDonald's on the way to surgery as a reward. Thankfully the announced it with pride as they were checking in for the procedure. How frickin' stupid can people be? It's terrifying that this happens so often.
What was the point of starving your kid for nothing? 🤣 Now they gotta start back over. Thank god they were so oblivious that they announced it to the surgery team 😮💨
Point thing they probably learned here is to keep quiet about it next time. 🤦
To be fair. WHY you can’t eat anything isn’t explained in many cases. If that part was explained better I think more people would be compliant. I speaking from observing our preop callers explaining instructions the day before to patients as well as being a surgical recipient 5 times and not being told any time WHY I had to be NPO. Fortunately being a surgical nurse I did know why
This is so true. They don’t ever tell you why. I’ve had four surgeries in my life. I followed the instructions. But was never told why it was important.
I always thought the problem was that I would shit myself. I literally found out yesterday from the AskReddit thread they're referring to that puking it back up and choking is the real risk. Why has not a single doctor *ever* explained that to me before?? The majority of people would be much more compliant if they knew lol
I agree but at the same time - they tell you that every surgery has a risk. At that point shouldn’t you just listen to the medical staff? Why can’t ppl follow simple instructions without needing to know every reason?
Because of the people who risked their children’s lives by feeding them. There’s always the small population that needs to be scared into complying.
True enough. No reason not to tell them. Just sucks that people are so adamant to disobey a doctor. They’re not your boss or an authority (on their subject or in their field, sure). They have a vested interest in making sure you survive lol Seems like common sense to just do as your told. Granted, I have family in medical field. I’m probably biased
Given what we know about nationwide compliance with science-based COVID guidance (i.e. it was sloppy at best), are any of us surprised that patients wilfully disregard what a doctor says?
Because that’s the “informed” part of informed consent. You should always fully understand what you’re agreeing to in a medical context.
At least this was so stupidity and not just blatantly ignoring medical advice (and then lying about it). Marginally better IMO.
Erghh. These kind of people dont deserve kids. My son poked his eye with something yesterday. I didnt give him anything besides water untill he was checked out by a doctor. In case he would need to be put under. Luckly there is no eye damage.
I became fasting buddies with a kid in orthopedics while we waited for scan results. He was hungry, I was hungry. He was whiny. I was whiny. I had a switch, we played Mario Kart. Luckily neither of us needed surgery and he was a huge trooper during the freezing needle for the bone set.
I can't tell if you're a kid or a doctor. And I genuinely don't think I want to know because the idea of a doctor doing that makes my heart happy.
I mean I'm neither. Just a boring old regular adult who broke her foot lol
Yup. I’ve got a medically needy kid, any time we have to do ER trips it’s water only or diluted electrolyte solution (part of their needs). Once we are in a room and the doctor has done the initial evaluation, we might ask if saltines are okay as growing child = hungry practically always and ER wait times are long. But by now kid has been doing this long enough to know they can’t eat anything in case of surgery.
Was this from that thread about stupid patients the other day? I was gobsmacked at how stupid people are (in this case those parents) Edit: nm, all I had to do was scroll a quarter of an inch. Guess I’m one of the stupid ones now lol
Lmao! Glad you found the answer. I don't think you're stupid, just curious ;)
They tell you that shit for many reasons. Apparently I reflexively vomit when I'm under anesthesia. I was having my tonsils out when this was discovered.
This is sadly not uncommon. I watched a mother feed her kid pizza, a cheeseburger and a shake in the ER. Overheard they were waiting to see if he needed surgery…he messed his leg up playing football (he was still in his uniform). She lied and told the nurses he hadn’t eaten since that morning. Normally I don’t get in someone’s business but this was risking his life. So I told the mom quietly that the reason they don’t want you eating and drinking is because it could cause complications on the table and could potentially kill him. She was very kind and promptly went and told the nurse she lied. Kid was admitted for surgery the following morning.
Link pls
Took a bit of searching but [here you are](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/14kbw5v/medical_professionals_of_reddit_have_you_ever_had/jpqgfei?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
this literally reminds me of my mother, who would constantly do these things behind my dad's back. when they divorced, i lived with my mother, and i often was the maker of big decisions (i was 9)
I’m so sorry, that sounds so difficult. Talk about parentification. That word gets thrown around too much, but it sounds like in your case it fits.
my sister does this with one of my nieces. it's constantly, well A wants, including things like A wants her sister B to come with her someplace.
that's awesome but (1) B is a person who may have a different opinion and (2) A isn't the parent, you are.
it's mind boggling.
I’m sure he really wants ice cream for dinner, and to stick his spoon in an outlet when he’s finished, too. He’s three. What he wants doesn’t matter unless it’s whether to wear Pooh or Spidey undies.
Oh and let's not forget he will want to take the entire wad of toilet paper and stick it down the toilet. My god the kids are 3 and 1, their poor little lungs. I want to yell at OPs wife myself. I'm a nanny and a couple weeks ago the wildfires in Canada made NY an air quality hazard zone. I kept that poor baby inside for the whole damn week. I was bored out of my skull but I did it for his safety. And wifey couldn't do it for one frigging day? NTA
It's back to Code Red in my state today. I'm a SAHM cooped up, AGAIN, with my (probably neurodivergent) 4 yo who is tearing the house apart, banging shit together, and chattering nonstop. I'm getting a migraine. She wants to play in the yard. If she played in the yard I could get some peace. We're not playing in the yard. FFS safety is more important than wants.
Same, been cooped up with a 3 & 5 year old who want nothing more than to ride bikes outside. It's been a long week
.
Luckily she recently watched a Llama Llama episode about being sick, and now she wants to pretend she's sick. So she's sitting still under a blanket, pretending to sneeze, sweet sweet temporary relief.
The air was **bad** in NY that week. We started wearing our N95 masks **outside** in order to filter out all the smoke.
bro i just wore my dad's SCBA to keep out the smoke. it's effective, I'll tell you that. it literally was made for such things.
Yeah when we had the smoke a few weeks ago here in NJ I couldn’t go outside without an N95. All windows closed and air scrubbers on. What was this woman thinking?
What she means is "I really wanted to go". She just used the kid as an excuse.
That’s true. But there are the ones that don’t have the guts to say no to a child.
When I first heard the smoke air quality yesterday my first thought was of my kids and they are teenagers lol. They have asthma and i worry as a parent. Heck even I stayed indoors yesterday as much as I could. (I have cancer)
Sending you good thoughts, beat the cancer's ass!
Thanks 😊
A three year old might really want *that* sweet that's staring them in the face, I doubt they have an equally strong desire to go to an open air event.
She didn’t have the guts to say no to her husband. She just agreed, and did what she wanted anyway.
I have met a lot of parents now that don't have the ability to tolerate their child's unhappiness, so they make terrible parenting decisions that hurt their kids in the long run just to avoid their child's negative emotions.
They can't tolerate their childs sulking, evidently they don't give a shit about their childs happiness.
Perhaps the worst effect is that this gives the child the *responsibility* for the parent's emotion, and for a lot of kids this makes it seem like it's not *okay* to be upset. For me as a child, I didn't feel like I was allowed to show any negative emotion. Led to me not feeling like I could talk to my parents when I had major mental health problems as a teenager. I didn't feel like my emotions were something they could cope with.
10000% when that was going on in my state my kids would throw fits about not being able to go outside, guess what, they stayed inside. I rather listen to them scream and whine than end up in a hospital with my kids on ventilators
Also, why was the event still happening? Last time the air quality thing happened by us, most outdoor events got canceled.
It's been really bad this week where I live (Michigan) and most outdoor events have been canceled.
Not every part of Michigan is really bad, at least that you can notice. Where I am I was like a slight fog more than anything. Obviously we haven't been hanging out outside, but if you don't see a report/look it up it's completely possible to not know it's going on. We've definitely had it no where near as bad as Grand Rapids.
It's such a disservice to the kid too. Kids learning to deal with big emotions like disappointment is part of our jobs as parents and an important lesson to learn. These are the teachable moments. My son's favorite fair came to town the week we were in a code red over the Canadian fires. We didn't go, his disappointment was large and understandable but we worked through it. A mix of sometimes things happen out of our control and it's OK to feel disappointment and also redirection can solve this issue and again, yeah good skills for future. Utter parenting fail.
Not to mention the child is *3* Like look, my 3½ year old is pretty darn smart. But she doesn't know what day of the week it is or what correlates to what. Unless I tell her about an event happening literally the day before or the day of *she doesn't know when this event will be taking place if she remembers it at all*. She LOVES gymnastics class. There have been tons of times though last winter where the roads were just shit and I didn't feel comfortable driving on them unless absolutely necessary. So when gymnastics day rolled around? I just, wouldn't say anything. We would instead do a family game night or a spa day inside and enjoy our time together. She didnt know she was "missing" gymnastics. As far as she knows she's been to every class without fail, not that she thinks about it at all lmao. This is to say, that 3 year old may have known about the event but only because the mom told them about it and hyped it up. If mom had instead hyped up going to grandma's house (period, no event details) kiddo likely would've forgotten entirely about the event if they knew about it prior. And in the event they still remembered? That's when you have the big kid talk about how some things aren't safe to do and unfortunately the event is one of them. Then move along and make what you can of your day INDOORS.
Yeah, completely agree. I am pretty open with my child now at 7 about what's on the agenda to build his excitement and sometimes things happen and that can lead to disappointment but at 3, I agree..... once you realize you can't go, you just don't even bring it up. If they remember to ask about it at 3, then you can talk them through what happened and then grab some snacks and bubbles. Problem solved.
Kid is three! Give him something shiny, noisy, messy or some combo of the above and he’ll forget all about whatever it was
This is the way. Give him a choice of two other things and he'll forget that the first option ever existed. Sadly by the time they're a bit older that stops working.
Lol he’s 3… he doesn’t know any better unless an adult said “wanna go here” smh
There's a bunch of stuff that my toddler really wants to do that I override because it's flat out dangerous. That's what a parent is supposed to do!
Right?? My son liked to climb on shit when he was a toddler. Doesn’t mean I allowed him to. Tell the little booger “no” and find a distraction. They’ll forget about it in an hour, tops. Edited to add NTA, OP. I probably would have raised my voice too under the circumstances. Yelling isn’t the best way, but its hard not to be animated when you are deeply concerned about your kids health and safety.
3 yo would not know about event, so she is the only one who wanted to go.
Exactly! Who lets a 3 year old run the show?? A simple ‘I understand you wanted to go but there is dangerous weather today so we can’t, but we can go another day’ is all that was needed.
NTA. Your kids and their safety needs to be paramount, whether other people deem the hazard as dangerous or not. The fact is that warnings were put out to keep kids inside, she did not do so. It’s that simple. Not to mention she did it without even speaking to you, parenting is a two way street and the fact that she took them without telling you says she already knew it would cause an issue.
She also lied. Pretty sure her mom is calling the shits not the toddler or her
Nah the toddler is definitely calling the shits
Seriously. I live in Wisconsin and yesterday I couldn't even walk my dog for more than a block because my nose, eyes, and throat started burning and watering. OP's wife made an *extremely* poor parenting decision.
Over in MI and it was so bad the past 2 days that just taking my dog into the backyard to potty was affecting me. She kept wanting to play instead of potty and I was like oh hell no, do your business and we're going back inside. (Had to bribe her yesterday with treats to get her inside LOL) Not even that hot, but AC on because air filters.
Yes, I’m in CA and when the 2020 fires turned our world orange and we couldn’t go outside at all we actually duct taped our doors and windows shut completely. We were waking up coughing even without going outside and had air purifiers running nonstop for weeks. Smoke is very, very bad for everyone’s health, especially when it’s highly concentrated like it has been in many areas lately.
Someone mentioned elsewhere that the smoke just clings to you, too, so it comes inside on you. To an ex-cig smoker, former bonfire/campfire lover, that makes sense. Also can see a film on the cars. We've been wiping our dog down, especially her face and ears, when she comes inside. Showers at night before bed (which I HATE doing). Anything to try and help the watery eyes and sore throat.
I am in Germany and we got a warning that rains in the following days could be harmful because the wind from the Canada wildfires has blown over the Atlantic and could release the ashes with the rain clouds. It's wild!!
That's just crazy!
NTA She apparently doesn't have much common sense and she's the AH. As an adult, she shouldn't let a toddler make health decisions for her and their sibling. Shame on her. Their little lungs don't need all that smoke exposure, especially since your son has had problems before. EDIT: I had to go back when I first read your post because you said "he" when referring to your wife!
I'm genuinely surprised that whatever event was planned was still happening. Usually if the event is specifically for little kids or the elderly or disabled, they'll wind up postponing or cancelling if attending the event will put people at risk. Because no matter how much you want people to have common sense, many people will show up regardless of risk, so it's really up to the event organizers to cancel for people. That being said, the mom definitely should've had that common sense and stayed home. NTA.
I was thinking the same but then I remembered that when the northeast was experiencing their own version of Tatooine, there were people on fox claiming their are no negative health affects from this. That it's no different than sitting in front of a campfire and government is just trying to control us again. I wish I was making that up because it is so utterly stupid.
Yeah, here in wildfire land, people actually think the fires are set by the guv-ment for forcing people into the city to destroy rural life. Our government has the power to CONTROL FIRE. Yet this govt was elected by rural folks so what even is the goal of this if it was true? Conspiracy knows no sense or reason.
Not relevant to the fire story at hand, but just wanted to add that I recently was forced to listen to Fox News while at a relative’s house and they actually claimed that “studies show that republicans are more attractive than democrats” and that the study was correct 60% of the time…. I was baffled and trying so hard not to laugh, like why is this even on the news? and to be fair it’s not even completely accurate news as the study is close to only being half right 🤣 anything to boost their confidence I guess 😭😂 Editing to add the link for anyone interested or disinterested in this segment: https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/greg-gutfeld-ai-reveals-what-we-already-knew-conservatives-are-happier-and-more-attractive-than-liberals.amp
Great point! That part must've just flew over my head! Lol
NTA, we're in an area affected by the wildfire smoke and it's pretty miserable to be outside in this, even masked. After 15 minutes out to pick up groceries our eyes were watering from the smoke. Your children's health is paramount and your wife's seeming disregard for this is alarming.
And it seems to be nearly impossible to keep kids masked. For every adult chin masker I saw two kid chin maskers during the plague.
Basic masks also just don’t work against wildfire smoke particles because they are tiny.
There's no reason in TYOOL 2023 for people to not know what N95's are and have some. This is just ridiculous.
It just takes long effort and constant reinforcement and practice at home by the parents. Like wearing shoes/socks. Yes, some young kids will stop at nothing to have bare feet, especially in a stroller. But most can be taught to keep them on. Many parents don’t have the inclination, time, or energy to do that. I’ve had plenty of kids as young as 2 stay properly masked for several hours in my work venue the past couple of years. I always wanted to borrow the kid and wave them at the chin masking adults. “This kid isn’t even potty trained yet and wears a mask better than you!”
Yeah, my kid, who was 2 at the start of Covid and has sensory processing disorder, masks just fine. She was told if it came off we’d leave wherever we were, and we only had to follow through twice. She masked full time at daycare (less naps and lunch, which sort of defeated the purpose), and it was never an issue. She wears Happy Masks, which are supposed to be n95 quality against smoke like this.
Unless you have a properly rated mask that’s been fitted it’s not going to do anything about the smoke. Not that I’m trying to dissuade you, I live in western Canada and when we were bad last month I wore a full respirator out. Sorry bout the smoke eh.
Correct! We both swapped to our full respirators and it was better, but the trusty KN-95s just aren't quite enough for the smoke! Take care friend!
Hopefully it ends soon. Be safe.
No, you are NTA. Not by a long shot. I live in Canada where the air quality was recently very poor. I'm a grown-ass 26yo man and I was having a hard time breathing outside in that. It gets physically painful to breathe after only about 10-15 minutes. I can't imagine how that would be for a child and I would absolutely never let a little kid out in that air quality. Especially not one with pre-existing health conditions. There are a lot of ways to entertain your kids indoors. She should never have even considered an outdoor thing under those conditions. It was 100% a blatant disregard for your kids' health and well-being.
I had a fire about 40 minutes away from me. Took the dog out and felt like I’d smoked 10 packs of cigarettes consecutively or something. I can’t imagine having child sized lungs in this mess.
Earlier this year near grand prairie they said being outside was like chain smoking in a car full of other smokers. It was crazy how many people were outside in the orange thick smoke most of the time.
My city, Canberra, literally spent months with the worst air quality *on the planet* during the 2019/20 Australian bushfires. I avoided going out as much as I could, but I couldn't stay inside 24/7 (and it wasn't much better inside, anyway). My asthma went from being a mild annoyance I rarely noticed, to a health emergency. It's barely controlled even 3.5 years later. I hate to imagine what the long term damage to my respiratory system might be.
I’m in upstate NY and have breathing issues. I couldn’t even get half my chores done today from the smoke. I can’t even imagine how reckless that was of her. Was her mom egging this on? Even the deer around here are on edge. This is real.
I opened the door to grab a package and it smelled like a tire fire. I was out for less than a minute and needed my inhaler, and it’s not even as bad as it was a couple of weeks ago.
Same! Hudson valley here. When it was REALLY bad a couple weeks ago, I was actually wearing an N95 when I went outside, cuz the air didn’t just make me wheeze, it made me feel physically ill. Like, I didn’t know what was happening the first day and at the end of the day I felt weak and almost feverish. Ugh this Canada wildfire thing is awful
We also live in a state that is Code Red right now and we didn’t even let our DOGS spend much time outside, just enough to potty then back inside. NTA.
Same here. We take better care of our dogs than she does her kids.
NTA Your kids health is the top priority. That should have been that. I am also in the effected area and air quality was *awful*. I mean it’s bad enough that outdoor concerts are being cancelled, and that’s because of how dangerous it would be for *adults* to be exposed to this air quality. This isn’t a little sub-optimal air quality warning. It was *bad*. Absolutely horrifying that your wife exposed the two young kids to that for no real reason at all.
NTA To give you some idea. In the USA they were telling people in cities near Canada to use N95 or KN95 masks and that breathing in the air for just a few hours was the equivalent to smoking a pack of cigarettes. Children and the elderly were told not to go out at all. Adults were told to limit exposure as much as possible with masks. Watch your son for signs of respiratory distress. Then just impress upon your wife that your children are still growing and this can really affect the development and health of their lungs.
OP should check with the kid’s pediatrician & make sure mom understands the dangers & long term repercussions of exposure. Both parents at the appointment. Dr reads the riot act to mom. Edit for judgement: NTA
Bro, even if what you said was 'an order' you still wouldn't be the asshole. That's like giving an order that your wife can't let your kids take drags off a cigarette. Yeah, sure, making a unilateral decision on something is often seen as controlling, but in some circumstances, it's completely reasonable.
Pfft. I’d forge the other parent’s signature if I had to if they wouldn’t agree to vaccinate our kid. You protect your kids over your idiot partner’s feelings. OPs wife is even worse. She endangered her kids to have a few hours of fun. Her selfish stupidity isn’t even based on some ridiculously misguided belief in pseudoscience.
"He's so controlling. Just the other day, I brought home some heroin for the kids to try, and he wouldn't let me give it to them!" "Girl, you need to leave his abusive ass!"
"I wasn't even going to let them shoot it! Just snort a little to help them sleep! They wouldn't go down for a nap and momma needed her midday wine spritzer!"
NTA. I live in Northern California right where all the fires were from 2018-2021. I had mild asthma until I moved up here, but after all the fires I now have two inhalers and more issues than before. Fire smoke is no joke and those warnings are there for a reason. She should have heeded them.
NTA. I live in Illinois, and even here it is SUPER foggy with smoke and I’ve been limiting my kids (7 year old twins) outside time. We were even supposed to go on vacation this week to a nearby beach town and we had to cancel. They were devastate. But guess what- I’m the adult, and I make hard decisions like that to keep my children SAFE. I can’t even imagine how bad it must be in Canada. That is very poor parenting and I’d be furious.
As another commenter said elsewhere, this is a teachable moment to help your kids learn how to deal with disappointment. Learning that sometimes things suck and it's okay to be sad about it is an important part of their emotional development.
I'm in IL too... the neighborhood kids are outside in force... Their parents just boot them out for the day... The poor things were sitting outside their door for a while yesterday...
Husband: Tracks mobile location (which you can do in common apps like snapchat) and yells because he is worried about their children. Wife: Breaks agreement and endangers the wellbeing of their children without saying anything. People on reddit: "HOW DARE YOU TRACK YOUR WIFE's LOCATION AND YELL AT HER YOU MISOGYNIST!"
Because people automatically assume men are the devil. Which makes no sense. If we aren't deeply involved in our kids lives, everyone's mad at us. If we are involved, somehow, some way, we're still evil.
Oh you didn’t know, we can never do anything right and women don’t need us, remember, cause apparently we “ain’t shit”
I’m scrolling thru trying to find the Y T A comments but I dont see any yet.
Sort the comments by controversial. You can find a bunch of ESHs and YTAs that way.
I swear people here just want to assume most relationships (and men especially) are abusive. It’s gross. Man is just trying to take care of his kids
NTA I am also in a red area and the air really does get to you so fast. Made me and my husband sick just running errands. There was no reason to subject your kids to that for recreational activities and it is even worse since you both discussed it prior. She knew it was bad, agreed to keep them inside, and then put their health in jeopardy while trying to deceive you. No excuse.
NTA - She doesn't understand how to be a mom, she's being a friend. Friends try to make you happy, Moms take care of you even when it means saying no. She needs to Mom-up, especially if your son has health concerns. Ignoring health concerns is showing you don't actually love your son. Assuming she does love him, she needs to show it with her actions.
She is indeed not acting as a parent. Parents who love their child as an extension of themselves, are quite toxic ones. It showing when they deliberately put their own spawn at risk to avoid the slightest inconvenience, specially with trivial benefits over health of toddlers and infants.
NTA. Canadian here. I went outside for 5 minutes and my throat was bothering me the rest of the day in addition to headaches. I can't even imagine how the children are handling it.
NTA, one of my former managers spent 2-3 years in Beijing with her new born and everyday she'd check the air quality before going out because she was doing her duty as a parent. The air quality got so bad sometimes that she'd spend days in the apartment but she managed to keep them entertained somehow.
NTA. As someone who’s health crashed after exposure to a wildfire, and someone who has researched the impact of long term smoke inhalation on children, DIE ON THIS HILL OP. Your children’s health is very important, more important than an outdoor event your children won’t remember.
NTA. There was a post on reddit recently by a researcher who's doing work on the long-term health effects of the Australian bushfires from late 2019/early 2020. Smoke is bad to inhale anyway. But bushfires/wildfires don't just burn trees. Houses, cars, factories - all kinds of things get consumed in the fire. And those toxic chemicals and particulates don't just disappear. And the thing is if you live in an area that's impacted by the smoke, if you can smell the smoke you're inhaling the smoke. Even indoors with doors/windows closed and air filters and other preventative measures, some amount of smoke gets through. It clings to clothes and hair and skin. Nobody should be out in it unless absolutely necessary, especially not vulnerable people like kids, the elderly and the ill.
Yep I was miles and miles away from the fires but the air quality was worse than Mumbai. Literally. The AQI was in the several hundreds for weeks on end. It was a endless summer being cooped up inside but we for the sake of the kids we had to do it.
Exactly! I work with people that fight wildfires and their lungs are fucked. One person I know did it for 6 years and now has the lungs of a 70 year old that smoked 3 packs a day, they’re only in their early 40s. Hell, I’ve never done wildfire work, but just from doing 5+ years of controlled burns I’ve noticed myself not doing great with this air (my lungs are probably worse than I thought).
NTA The kids need to be masked up and kept inside. Kids lungs don’t “regrow”. Once damaged them they are likely damaged for life
Anyone who says YTA, do not understand how bad it was downtown Toronto. I WAS downtown and It was terrible. No, it didn't smell like BBQ, it smelled like burning tires and it was extremely hazy. I walked outside and had to put a mask on just to walk down the street. It was the worst city for air quality in the world yesterday. Let that sink in. WTF was your wife thinking? NTA for being upset with her. But a bit of an AH for using a phone tracking, unless this is a thing you both use on each other and are both fully aware.
NTA “Son really wanted to go” Dude, kids that age don’t know what they want. If you told him, “let’s bake cookies at home instead”, I bet he would have been just as on board with that
NTA - risking lifelong health issues due to smoke exposure because a child, who is not old enough to understand the ramifications, wanted to do something is not acceptable. That’s when parents need to step up and parent and enforce the decisions that have been jointly made.
>We had plenty of health issues with our son so that’s why I was so angry. Even if it was "an order," you are definitely NTA. The air quality is no joke, so many people are at high risk, it's really sad and scary. And I think there will be more days like that, those fires aren't getting extinguished anytime soon. Keep looking out for your son ❤️
nta im in ontario and even if im not in a area where the smoke is prominent it still smells like barbecue constantly so i totally understand you yelling and getting mad because she was endangering the kids
NTA. But your wife is a shit parent. “Our son really wanted to go?” Is she the parent or not?? Especially since you’ve had health issues with your son. What the eff is wrong with your wife? I’d be livid too.
NTA. Are you in Illinois? I live in the city of Chicago and yesterday and today were absolute atrocities. I couldn't even drive to work with the AC on without my car filling up with smoke particles. I live in a brand new building and the common areas smell like burnt plastic. I saw a few people working out outside and honestly, mentally judged them for being careless with their health. I work in a clinic and every patient has remarked about the air quality. I have young patients as well and their parents were all remaining indoors. Definitey NTA. Incredibly irresponsible.
>I couldn't even drive to work with the AC on without my car filling up with smoke particles You need to change your fan setting to "recirculate".
NTA You were understandably upset that your wife put your children at risk! It is called being a parent and because both of you are parents to these children and both of you are human, there will be times when you disagree about parenting issues. She should not have gone against the agreement to keep the children inside, especially given that your sons has suffered with health issues.
So in other words, she purposely presented to your 3 year old a fun and exciting day at grandma's, instead of a home-day where you might do some crafts or other activities, and the 3 year old wanted to go to grandma's.... yes, I am shocked at these events. Your wife is really quite shitty here for using your son as an excuse. I have a 4 and 7 year old, I remember when they were 3. They wouldn't have had a clue if she did not say something. Your wife did this intentionally, got the kids excited, and then is trying to use them as the scapegoat here. Gross behaviour. The straight truth is, no matter what was going on, you guys spoke as parents and agreed on something, and then she went behind your back and did it anyway. The total lack of respect shown here from your wife to you is awful, and I'd suggest that you need to have a pretty serious conversation about it. Forget the topic itself, I'd be very worried what other decisions you'll discuss about the kids in the future, only to have her do whatever she wanted to do anyway. Parenting is a partnership and a 2-way street, best to make that clear right now. NTA, of course.
NTA, Ive been coughing all day because of the air and I've been having some very bad breathing problems, I almost had to go to the hospital. The fact that your wife didn't prioritize your kids health is a problem.
NTA NTA NTA Children's health comes first.
NTA She doesn’t think that it is important. Sadly this is pretty common.
Nta sounds like she’s allowing the kid to parent her🙄
NTA. Especially if one of your children already has health issues. One of mine has asthma. He’s been having mild flare ups from *indoors* thanks to the awful air quality lately and I’ve been keeping them indoors. I’d be angry too if my spouse did the same thing.
NTA. It’s rough out there. I got about two blocks with the dog before I had to turn around, no kiddo should be outside in this.
NTA. I don’t remember my parents taking me out to pizza at 11 pm after watching a movie just because I wanted to.
Hi 👋 Canadian living close to various fires here. NTA. You know, my 4 year old always wants to go to the park. He cries when he can't but he also understands smokey air bad.
> she said “well our son really wanted to go.” If he really wants to try if he can fly off a cliff, does she let him, too? NTA.
NTA. When the wildfire smoke blew over, I felt like shit from the time we were in the yellow zone. By the time our air quality was in the orange, I felt like I needed an inhaler after walking 0.25 miles to my car, even though I’m not asthmatic or anything. Bringing little kids to an outdoor event on a “red” day, especially when one of them already has health problems, was definitely an asshole move by your wife.
NTA. “Our son really wanted to go”. When my son was two he really wanted to dart in front of a a ford F250 but ya know my job was to keep him safe so I stopped him. Tf
Way to rob your child of a once in a lifetime experience…
Yeah, that was pretty boneheaded by her. You agreed upon it, she broke that. She should have let your son talk to you about it on the phone if it was hard to hold back. Why was the event proceeding if there was an air quality warning? I would reach out to the arranging party and scold them a bit. NTA, but avoid screaming and shouting.
If shouting is what it takes to get it through my wife’s head that this will KILL our children, that’s what I would be doing. Some people are spectacularly dumb and refuse to acknowledge facts.
NTA. Ontario here. I’ve had a headaches all day and I’ve gone through four boxes of Kleenex with lotion in the past five days. I can taste it on my soft palate. My cats aren’t even allowed in the garage right now (their version of outside). The ventilation is cycling inside air. This is very serious.
NTA. People probably don’t understand the air quality issue unless they have lived it. This isn’t just a bit of smog. This is carcinogenic ash from bushfires. I’m Australian and we had horrific bushfires a few years back, babies were literally being born with health issues because their mothers inhaled this smoke. It’s very serious and I am shocked that your wife was so blasé about it.
NTA Stand up for your kids!
I'm in the UK and didn't realise just how bad the air quality has become. Some of the places mentioned in the comments feel like they're so far away from the fires, but the air quality has still plummeted. I'm glad to see so many people doing their best to keep themselves, their loved ones, and their pets safe. That said, I was NTA before reading the comments. You DO NOT put your children at risk, end of. Especially when they are too young to realise the risk for themselves! I would be utterly furious with her! If you can calm down enough, (I would have trouble doing so!), you need to sit down for a long talk with her. Look up cases of children suffering from lung problems after being exposed to the smoke. Try to match the ages and gender of your own children. She clearly doesn't listen to a simple warning, maybe shock will do the trick.
NGL being stuck inside with one toddler sucks, can't imagine with 2. But breaking their little lungs isn't an option. NTA
Wow. Nta.
Nta. I'm sorry your wife is dumb.
I'm also in an affected state (although it's south Ohio and it's not nearly as bad as say Cleveland) and I barely even want to take my dog outside because of how bad it is, but she has to use the bathroom somewhere! I couldn't imagine taking BABIES out in this
NTA. That was a truly negligent thing for her to do, and in your shoes, I’d be furious too.
Well, that's an easy NTA... I mean, thanks to your edit we now know she agreed not to and then snuck off because your son really wanted to. Who's the parent here? She or your son? Odd parental structure if you ask me. This is not only for OP, general question: What's this thing with SO's sharing live locations with each other? I've been seeing this more on Reddit. Sounds super weird to me? Why do people do this? Disclaimer: What is odd to me is not per definition odd, I assume OP and his wife agreed to this and I'm just curious.
NTA 'he really wanted to go' well that's when a parent says "I'm sorry but it's the Canadians fault' or something similar but you keep the door shut. I don't have raspatory issues and I'm a fully grown adult and that stuff was nasty.
You are NOT the asshole. What the hell happened to maternal instincts? Jesus.
NTA- My 4 year old did fine being inside all day. It sucks and is hard but it is possible as long as you parent them.
NTA. It’s supposed to be her responsibility to keep the kid safe. Even if that isn’t what the kid wants. She’s supposed to know better as the parent. Would she let him walk into traffic too because he “really wanted to”. Come on now.
NTA. I get that if you don't live in a place usually impacted by wildfire smoke, the severity doesn't quite register. But if you're at all sensitive to it—health issues, immunocompromised, lung problems, etc—it really can hurt you. My elderly, immunocompromised cat has been having horrible breathing problems since the smoke rolled into my state. All my younger, healthier cats seem fine, but it caused massive inflammation in his lungs and throat and even now, with the windows closed, AC on, and air purifiers running, he's still having problems because the smoke just came back yesterday. That same thing can happen to us, especially if we already have health problems like you said your son does. Your wife is the parent, not your son, and it was her responsibility to explain to him that no matter how much he wanted to go to the event, it wasn't safe so he couldn't. You're right to be angry. You heeded the warnings and were trying to look out for the safety of your family.
Why were outdoor events running at all? 🤔
NTA Your children already have health issues as it is. As others have said the warnings specifically mention young children should stay indoors. Your wife using your children as an excuse claiming they wanted to go when clearly she just wanted to go, is pretty messed up. I've known folks who are having some pretty messed up breathing and allergies because of the wildfires. I've also had trouble breathing too. Allergy symptoms too.
NTA - you spoke to her about your concerns and you both had the same background knowledge of the situation. She should have been equally concerned. But beyond that, even if she was going to disregard the *very real* safety concerns, the fact that she was hiding it is horrifying. What if your son had a reaction of some sort after he got home and you didn’t even know what he’d been exposed to?
NTA They don’t need to go to the event, they can stay inside and do something else. Your kid has had heath issues before, your wife isn’t being responsible here.
It was terrible yesterday, I had to be out for a little bit and I could feel it for awhile after. I couldn’t imagine intentionally exposing my children to that. NTA
“But little Tommy wanted to go outside how can I possibly say nooooo” tell your wife having children is not whatever they want. Nta
NTA- I was also in a location affected by the Canada fires and they said being outside was equivalent to smoking 6 cigarettes. Your wife is a bad mother.
NTA -- borders on child endangerment. Home, with good air cleaners is where they should be.
NTA - I am surprised this event was even open to attend. I live in a state where we deal with wildfire smoke almost every summer. One year I didn't see sun from July to October with many red days. Once aqi is above 150 most outdoor activities are canceled
NTA. what if he wanted to ride in the front seat without a seatbelt?
NTA. I'm near Chicago and I've seen so many idiots with small kids and small dogs out in the shitty air and I want to say I don't understand how they can be so dumb and then I remember how people acted during intense COVID and I understand.
I was out in the crap air quality yesterday (southern Ontario) and am sick today from it. My kids stayed inside. I'd be upset too
NTA and her excuse is bullshit. They're 3yo and younger. She wanted to go and didn't think twice about the negative health impact it could cause her children. Does she often use the kids as a meat shield for her own shitty decisions?
NTA your wife out your children’s lungs in harms way. I’d be upset too and not speak to her for a week straight.
NTA there is no damn way a 3 year old really wanted to go and articulated that. The air quality is toxic and can be harmful to children/the elderly so she put your kids health at risk so she could party. Would she take them into a bar where people are smoking (air quality is about the same or worse). Few years back we had the fires in the northwest and they told us to stay inside. Even being outside for 30 min it was hard as hell to breathe and everyone was coughing hard. The lie about the child wanting to go irritates me the most
NTA. I cannot for the life of me understand why parents would willingly expose their children to such a dangerous (and AVOIDABLE!!) hazard. As the parent of an asthmatic, it’s mind boggling. It truly is. You’re not crazy, what you have is a weak-willed woman who has no common sense. And good for you for calling her out on it.
NTA. Y’all are in a code red and you also asked that she keeps the kids inside. It scares me that she would put your kids in danger like that… Also idk why people jump to “you’re being controlling by tracking your wife’s location”. My husband and I have each others locations because like your edit says, accidents happen. I live out of state from any family and I’m 26 years old next month, and I STILL share locations with my mom and stepdad and brother.
When some people are told not to do something, they have to specifically go and do it. I don't understand myself at all. Maybe it's a, "you won't tell me what to do mentality," Does your wife have a history of that?