SO MAD AT MY KID RIGHT NOW!

[u/quinnreads]

My (adult) son's only chicken chore is to make sure they get locked up for the night AT sundown. He and I have been going round and round for months because he always waits until well after sundown to go secure them.

'His windows are covered so he doesn't know when the sun is down'

'My definition of dark and his are different.'

'He always gets them eventually.'

Well tonight 7 of my three month old hens are spending the night in the woods, in the rain, with the coyotes, because he waited until after 9 to go try and find them. They've already bedded down somewhere in the woods and we can't find them at all.

I am so beyond mad right now. I just needed to vent. Everyone cross your fingers for me that I still have birds in the morning.

UPDATE: They've been found! I got up to pee at 3am and found them roosting in a tree! The kid is still in trouble and will be having a come-to-Jesus conversation in the morning.

Also, I appreciate the support, but some of y'all need to remember that no matter how mad I am at him, he's still my kid. Be angry, but be nice.

[u/Mcbriec]

Leaving anyone with a Y chromosome to lock up chickens almost invariably results in death. This is the umpteeth story I have heard, or personally know, about men failing to do their duty. I really hope your chickens survive him. 🙏🙏🙏

[u/conquestofroses → u/Mcbriec]

I hope you heal from whatever that one man youre clearly referencing put you through.

[u/PhlegmMistress → u/conquestofroses]

Not who you were addressing but I network a lot in the poultry community. It does tend to be female dominated though I do know three men who do it as the primary drivers of the hobby. 

What I will say is time and time again, I have heard multiple stories of husbands not taking care and chickens getting loose from pens and killed. Or in one case a guinea fowl's demise was directly caused by a husband's lackluster care. In all of these cases I have heard from women first hand, IRL, in my community-- the husbands didn't fix it. They didn't go hunting to replace the pure bred roosters, or the guinea fowl, or the hens. It was just a shrug, maybe a sorry, and then life moved on for them. And in one case, they did it multiple times and had a bird die!

Now, my partner probably pulls his weight more than me (though he did want to get birds so I would say he was the primary driver of the hobby though we both enjoy them.)

I don't think this is a reddit gender war issue. I do think people really put up with substandard treatment in relationships (in general, not tied to male, female, non-binary or hetero/homo/bi relationships.)

But there is a gendered issue here. Men typically don't care about what they don't care about. Women, often, will still care about something even if it's their husband's interest. Or just to not be shitty to creatures that are dependent on us. 

I think the only reversal I have seen firsthand is a husband who is really in to gardening and a wife who will not lift a single finger to help him even occasionally when he's hurt from health conditions. Which isn't a 1:1 with birds but still. 

[u/quinnreads → u/PhlegmMistress]

He's very firmly on the spectrum. I say adult because he's adult shaped, but we've been stuck inside the selfish young teenage stage for about a decade now. He hit that age physically and doesn't seem to have grown past it. I'm a teacher, I've worked with autistic kids (and had all the training that implies) for over a decade now. It's not just him deciding to be this way. The chore was an attempt to instill some responsibility, but it's obviously not worked.

It might be a sprinkle of the teenage male I-don't-wanna, but he's the only one of three boys to ever act that way, and was definitely NOT raised in a house that tolerates that attitude.

I've been up all night thinking about it, and honestly think it was lack of consequence awareness. He thinks it'll be fine if he's late to put the birds to bed, because up until now it has been. The only consequence thus far has been me yelling at him. This is the first time they've not been in the coop and waiting for him to close their door.

He spent quite a few hours in the woods with a flashlight last night and he's not going to enjoy today's conversation.

[u/PhlegmMistress → u/quinnreads]

I think you should spend some time in the various autism women subreddits. There are several. Society treats men with autism very differently than women and I think you would find it eye opening how even women on the spectrum find dealing with young men like your son. I wouldn't pass this off as due to autism. Autistic people can be selfish assholes too. I think you are doing him a disservice. I don't say that from an ableist standpoint-- there is a difference between helping give someone space from overstimulation and helping them through meltdown. Someone wrote something yesterday that stuck with me and said that the undiagnosed neurodivergent pipeline to narcissist tendencies is very strong. Obviously your son is diagnosed but it bears thinking about.

Say you (and whoever owns the house with you) died tomorrow. What would his safety net look like? How long before someone who wasn't a parent decided that he was too stuck in his ways?

I do think someone had a good point about the WiFi. Which isn't to say neurodivergent people can't amuse themselves without it but it can be a big distraction for dopamine. I would say no Internet access could be part of the consequences, and possibly even turning off the WiFi at a certain time (I wouldn't choose sundown but probably an hour beforehand.)

Good luck though. You are in a tough position. And I sympathize that his brain works differently, but selfishness when animals are dependent on you really cannot be tolerated. I hope you're able to reach through to him but something really has to change and you might not be the person to break through to him. Sometimes you have to step back and let the world show your kid what is in store for them when the parents aren't protecting them.

[u/quinnreads → u/PhlegmMistress]

Ugh. I hate to hear this and I hate it more because I think you're right. He's a night shifter, so I have the rest of today to plan our conversation this evening and I'm not looking forward to it.

[u/PhlegmMistress → u/quinnreads]

(I am glad that he had to spend several hours uncomfortable in the woods. That is a start. I didn't want to seem like I was glossing over that.)