‘I’m watching football’: Father refuses to comfort 10-year-old daughter during migraine, says ‘my parents never did that for me’

A 38-year-old mother’s post on Reddit’s Am I Overreacting has ignited a debate about empathy in parenting after she shared a tense exchange with her husband while their 10-year-old daughter was suffering a severe migraine.

The mother, who also struggles with migraines, said her daughter rarely asks for comfort, but this time, she wanted a parent beside her in a dark room as the pain worsened. While the mother lay with her, her husband stayed on the couch and wanted to know, “So am I wrong for being upset with him?”



When she asked him to step in, his responses stunned her. “I’m watching football,” he texted when she suggested he come comfort their child. When she pressed further, asking if he understood how dismissive he sounded, he replied, “She’s got a headache, she’ll be fine.”

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The mother explained that their daughter had asked for him specifically, but he continued to minimize the need for comfort: “Wouldn’t just giving her ibuprofen do the same thing?” “Is laying (lying) with her going to do anything? It seems pointless.”

At one point, when she asked him to grab the children’s Tylenol, he became fixated on dosage instead of urgency or empathy: “Pretty sure it’s not gonna kill her if she goes slightly over the dose. Just food for thought.”

For the mother, the issue wasn’t just medication; it was the emotional support she felt their daughter needed. “She doesn’t feel good and she feels better being near a parent,” she insisted, only to be met with, “I don’t want to lay in her bedroom.” As per his wife, he often says defending his action "my parents never did that for me and I turned out just fine."

She told on Reddit that she felt deeply troubled that something as simple as comforting their scared, hurting child had become a debate: “Maybe I’m overly sensitive, but it really bothers me that he has such a hard time comforting our daughter when she doesn’t feel well.”