A man has claimed that his wife looked at him as if he were a "horrible monster" after he shared the lesson he had taught their nine-year-old son - and she's not the only one that was unimpressed with his stunt.
The unnamed dad explains that his son, who he refers to only as Tim, often leaves his bike outside when he's done playing with it and they are "constantly telling him" to put it away in the garage so that it doesn't get stolen. However, the warning keeps being ignored and the dad is fed up with it - so he took drastic action.
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When the dad was leaving for work one the morning, he spotted that the bike had been left outside all night again and decided to take matters into his own hands to show his son "that our warning could actually happen".
He put the bike in the back of his car and headed off to work, then later received a call from his "distraught" son asking if he had seen it when he left in the morning.
The dad said: "I told him 'No, I didn't see it. Isn't this why we always tell you to put the bike away?' I calmed him down and told him that we can make a plan for him to earn a new bike when I got home for the day."
When he returned from work he brought the bike with him and claimed he had found it abandoned in a nearby park, warning Tim he "wouldn't always be this lucky".
He continued: "Later that night my wife was telling me that it was super lucky that I happened to find the bike and I told her that I had it the whole time and ran through what happened with her.
"She looked at me as if I was some kind of horrible monster. 'Why would you put our son through that? And why wouldn't you at least tell me this dumb plan so I could stop you?' she said.
"It's not like I had it planned out it was just a spur of the moment decision as I was leaving for work and she was still asleep. Tim was only missing his bike for a day and I wasn't giving him that hard of a time about it."
Worried by his wife's reaction, he posted the story on Reddit to ask fellow users if they thought he had taken things too far - and people were left divided by the story.
Some defended him, with one person saying: "You didn't trash the bike, you didn't throw or give away the bike, you just let your son see the consequences of his actions. Seems like he learned his lesson."
A second replied: "Kids aren't going to learn if they're constantly coddled from reality. I think this was a really good way of making the lesson stick. One day of 'oh no my bike is gone' isn't going to kill him. Especially since he got it back at the end of the day. In the grand scheme of things, this was a gentle way of teaching him."
But others were outraged, with one writing: "You taught your kid it’s appropriate to lie to get your way. You could have taught your kid that actions have consequences and made them earn their bike back. Instead, you went with lying is fine behaviour."
While a different user commented: "You are teaching your son two lessons. The one he remembers will be about lying and not to trust his own father. There has to be a better way to teach your son."
And someone else added: "How were some of you allowed to have children?"
Do you think the dad was justified, or did he take things too far? Let us know in the comments.
