For some background, I (38/M) am a father of 5. Oldest is 9 and they’re all about 2 years apart. I work full time and my wife (35/F) stays home with the kids. I wfh M/W/F and I commute to my office in the city T/TH and am gone basically 7a-5p. Our kids are involved in various activities, not all in these, but different combinations are involved in tumbling, boy scouts, youth groups at church, baseball, ballet, etc. This time of year is a particularly busy one for us. We have an activity every night of the week except Friday basically, from late March-early June. My wife and I do a pretty good job of managing them and splitting up who takes who to what. She usually takes the girls to tumbling / ballet on Monday evening and Saturday morning, and I do Boy Scouts, baseball, and youth groups on T/W/TH. We also usually have baseball one other night during the week and when we do if it conflicts, we split up or get our parents to help watch the younger kids at home. This time of year there’s lots of evenings where one of us is making dinner and the other and 1 or 2 of the kids is scarfing it down heading out the door or eating it at 7-8pm after their activity when they get home.

I help out as an assistant coach with my son’s 7-8 year old baseball team. Sports were always a big part of my childhood, and I’m still a big sports fan. My son, inherited my love for sports. He can’t get enough of them. He loves to watch them, and loves playing them even more. I don’t force him to play, and have told him if he’s never having fun to let me know. Today, I was in the city all day, got home at 5, scarfed my dinner, took my son to Boy Scouts and we got home at 9. I’m going to be out of town tomorrow and he has a baseball game. I was just telling my wife about when he had to be there and what field it was at, and she says to me “I wish you put as much effort into their other activities as you do baseball. It feels like for the other ones you’re just showing up.” I took offense to this. For one, I’m one of the coaches so naturally I’m more involved. I’m not one of the Boy Scout leaders or youth group leaders. I take them there, participate if a parent is required to help out their kid. For example, we’ve gone on hikes, built model rockets, pinewood derby cars, etc. I told my wife that I feel my skills as a parent/instructor come more naturally with helping out with baseball because I grew up with it and I myself know more about it and just feel more comfortable and in my element with that rather than being a Boy Scout leader or youth group helper. I also said, that would be like me saying she “just shows up” to ballet and tumbling instead of teaching them. It really upset me because I feel like I am busting my ass to balance work, home life, and all of our extracurricular activities. I don’t miss any of them for any of my kids unless we’ve got a conflict and have to split the family up if two have something going on at one time. It just hurt to hear that from her. AITAH for being upset by that?