Dad Forbids Daughter From Taking Pain Medication for Period Cramps

A father is coming under fire after he posted on Reddit asking if he was wrong for not allowing his daughter to have Ibuprofen for her menstrual cramps.

The 40-year-old father pled his cause on the AITA (Am I The A--hole?) thread to minimal agreement. The anonymous dad explained that he shares custody of his 14-year-old daughter with his ex-wife of more than two years. When the daughter came to stay with him for his designated half of the month, she was on her period and taking Ibuprofen to tolerate the cramping she experienced.

"Now I generally tend to avoid allopathy medicines unless its seriously necessary, like conditions that have you hospitalized," he wrote. "I mean for things like a cold or a fever I think its best to sleep it off instead of burdening your body with unnecessary pills. I noticed my daughter popping pills and got worried that she was going to become too dependent on them for a natural process like a menstrual cycle. I asked my ex wife about this and she told me our daughter has an irregular cycle and so she has very painful cramps and needs the pills for the first 3 days."

The father noted that he "wasn't too fussed about this," yet he decided to sit his daughter down and "talked to her about how unnecessary these pills are and how they will ruin her body when she's older and needs to be having a child." Despite never experiencing a period and not knowing his daughter's circumstances until recently, he added, "Menstrual cramps hurt, yes but they're normal and they shouldn't be artificially reduced."

Although he wouldn't allow her to have the pain medication, he would be "more than willing" to let her rest and do no household chores while experiencing her period. She did not take his new rule well.

"But then she started crying and telling me that she goes through 'excruciating' amounts of pain and she needs the tablets to be able to even move around. She also went on about how I won't understand her pain because I'm a man and I won't even have to deal with these things," he recalled.

Their argument escalated and her father believed that she got "too offended" when he told her that "men and boys have struggles of their own and she shouldn't be using her period to paint herself as a victim."

His apparent goal was to not have his "child to grow up weak willed and soft." The father claimed that "millions" of women have dealt with periods over their lives and they "haven't dropped dead because they had to deal with some pain."

When she fell asleep, the dad threw her Ibuprofen away to "give her a reality check and learn some willpower." When she woke up, he described her mood and actions as "ballistic" and that she threw a "tantrum."

"She told me she hated me and called me a misogynist because I apparently 'hate women.' I didn't bat an eye and when she said she wanted to go back to her mom I called my ex and told her to pick her up because I really couldn't reason with her," he shared.

When his ex-wife found out, she was angry but believed that he was not being misogynistic. He concluded his post by relaying that she used to play several sports and activities with him and that they had "so much fun together" and now she "doesn't even want to play catch with me."