Dad Says Toddler’s Crying Is Making Him Dread Coming Home. Now, He Admits He’s ‘Starting to Dislike’ His Daughter

A father is asking for advice online after admitting he’s “at the end of my rope” with his almost 5-year-old daughter — and is starting to feel like he doesn’t even like being around her.

In a post on a parenting subreddit titled “I’m starting to dislike my kid,” the original poster (OP) explained that he dreads coming home from work because he knows his daughter will be in tears over something.

“No candy. Crying. No snacks. Crying. No iPad. Crying,” wrote the 40-year-old dad of two. “We pick her up from school, she’s crying when we get there cause we didn’t pick her up early enough (we pick her up an hour before most parents pick up their kids). Even when my wife and I give in because we don’t want to hear crying … you guessed it, crying.”

He said mornings are just as hard.

“Oh, and the morning, I dread those too. Guess why? Yup, more crying,” he continued. “It’s either about not wanting to eat breakfast, not wanting to go to school, or just not wanting to listen in general. Everything leads to crying.”

OP added that the nonstop emotional overload is starting to strain his marriage as well.

“She gives in to my daughter because she doesn’t want to hear the crying and I don’t,” he wrote of his wife. “Then we wind up blaming each other and either starting or ending (sometimes both) the day off badly.”

When their daughter isn’t crying, he said, she refuses to cooperate. “Ask her to do the smallest of tasks, she won’t do them,” he wrote.

The couple also has a younger daughter who is almost 2, and the constant upset from their older child makes bedtime especially hard.

With all of this going on, OP said he feels backed into a corner: he’s ready to “put my daughter in therapy (which we can’t afford) or just completely give up and break down to the point I’ll go on auto pilot.”

He also listed all the things he misses from before the behavior escalated.

“I miss my nice and happy 2 year old. I miss sleeping in the same bed with my wife (cause the kid won’t sleep if my wife isn’t in there with her). I love my life with kids, but I miss my life before them,” he wrote. “I know in the grand scheme of things this is all small potatoes, but in the moment it’s making me want to drive away and never come back.”

“It’s been too long of this. I’ve officially got the ick for my own kid. Maybe I wasn’t born to be a parent. This is just f—— hard,” he admitted, ending his post by asking for suggestions and advice.

In the comments, many readers tried to offer practical strategies rather than judgment. One person encouraged the parents to “re-establish boundaries that have faded,” especially around attention and bedtime.

“My guess is she knows it provides her with attention. So I would re-establish boundaries that have faded, such as your wife sleeping in her own bed and then endure/ignore the crying,” they wrote. “No getting angry, no negotiations, just a small and kind acknowledgement like ‘I am sorry you are feeling sad’ and ‘I love you.’”

They added that the key is to stop rewarding the crying with extra engagement:

“And then move on. And keep doing so. If the crying is no longer rewarded with (albeit negative) attention, she will probably stop. And have your other child in bed way before the crying in bed of the other starts.”