A father took to Reddit to recount a punishment he subjected his young son to and how it was received by his wife.

The man wanted to see what the consensus was on Reddit, explaining that his own wife looked at him as though he were a "horrible monster" when he told her about the punishment.

"Was I the a**hole here?" he asks. Let's find out...

According to him, he constantly has to tell his son, Tim, not to leave his bike outside when he comes back indoors so that it doesn't get stolen. But Tim never listens.

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The Redditor continued: "Well last week as I was leaving for work in the morning I saw that Tim had left the bike out again. Rather than talking about this for the umpteenth time I decided to show him that our warnings could actually happen.

"I threw the bike into the bed of my truck and took it to work with me. Upon finding his bike missing he was distraught.

"He called me crying asking if I had seen it when I left this morning and I told him ‘No, I didn't see it. Isn't this why we always tell you to put the bike away?’ I calmed him down and told him that we can make a plan for him to earn a new bike when I got home for the day."

When he came back home from work, he brought the bike with him and told his son that it had been abandoned in a park, before warning Tim he "wouldn't always be this lucky".

He continued: "Later that night my wife was telling me that it was super lucky that I happened to find the bike and I told her that I had it the whole time and ran through what happened with her.

"She looked at me as if I was some kind of horrible monster. 'Why would you put our son through that? And why wouldn't you at least tell me this dumb plan so I could stop you?' she said.

"It's not like I had it planned out it was just a spur of the moment decision as I was leaving for work and she was still asleep. Tim was only missing his bike for a day and I wasn't giving him that hard of a time about it."

Reddit was divided on the matter, with one person slamming the original poster for
"doing it in a way that left his wife to deal with the kid’s distress, without even telling her what was going on.

They added: "Wife spent the whole day with her distraught child thinking the bike was really gone."

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However, a different person argued: "Man I lost a bike when I was 5 to this same scenario... I wish my dad pulled up with it.. NTA I think it’s a genuinely good lesson."

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Another agreed that the dad was not at fault, and explained their reasoning: "You didn't trash the bike, you didn't throw or give away the bike, you just let your son see the consequences of his actions. Seems like he learned his lesson."

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That's the consensus on Reddit - what do you guys think? Let us know!

Featured image credit: Pexels

Dad's 'horrible' punishment for 'distraught' 9-year-old son divides parents