Active discussions

Help protect children from gaming harms.

Take our survey

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

For being furious with DH because DD hurt herself whilst he was on his bloody blackberry

88 replies

Yabbadabbadooo · 19/06/2007 22:58

Today DH and I were out at a school event. Whilst we were there DD1 needed the loo and so I took her leaving DH with DD2. Whilst DD1 was being a typical toddler and mucking around in the loos I caught sight of him on the other side of the playground totally engrossed with this blackberry, despite the fact he'd taken the morning off work. DD2 was in the pram, straps not on and she was standing up in it. I couldn't yell to DH to get her to sit down because a) I was inside and b) there were 50 small children country dancing in the playground between us and he wouldn't have heard me unless I shrieked.

Anyway, DD1 finally finishes farting around in the loo and I come out of the block I"m in to see him cradling a clearly very distraught DD2. Parents around him are giving him wet towels and he's tending to her head. So, it's clear to me that she's fallen headlong out of the pushchair, onto concrete.

I told him at the time I was angry but as I had hear to deal with I focused on her more than him and he played the incident down somewhat. He then went back to work and I spent the afternoon with a very grumpy baby. When he came back he was very concerned about her and told me that the fall was actually so bad that he heard her head hit the concrete. So, after playing it down it seems it was more of a heavy fall than he'd originally said.

So, I'm totally effing furious with him for this. This is the third time she's hurt herself on his watch (similar no. of injuries on my watch but I'ma SAHM so I'm there more often IYKWIM). She's a rough and tumble little kid and needs watching like a hawk and after a previous incident we had words about how he needs to be more vigilant. Now, I know accidents happen and blame is not appropriate but I can't help but be so frigging furious that he allowed her to hurt herself in that way when she was literally right next to him, just becuse he's so addicted to that sodding blackberry.

Also it turned out he didn't even know what were the signs of concussion - he kept telling me to let her sleep.

I am so fed up with him tonight that I said I thought he was negligent and that unless he was more vigilant of the kids then I couldn't feel happy with him looking after them on his own. I suspect that was below the belt. Was it? Did he deserve a lecture?

OP posts:
Wallace · 20/06/2007 13:10

Was it your dh who put her in the pram?

Original poster
Yabbadabbadooo · 20/06/2007 13:08

Well, to me by being careless and not accepting responsibility he is acting like a child.

OP posts:
vimfuego · 20/06/2007 13:08

Accidents happen. My first priority wouldn't be working out who to blame.

katelyle · 20/06/2007 13:06

This is off the point, and I don't know if it applies to the OP, but I do think that we are often inclined to think of ourselves as the carers for our children and their fathers are "helping" us do it. We sometimes even say that they are babysitting! People do things differently, and I do sometimes think that we make things harder for ourselves by unconciously undermining fathers when they don't do things our way. Just a thought.....

Original poster
Yabbadabbadooo · 20/06/2007 13:06

foxinsocks - i understand your point and I do agree but what made me see red is that we've been here before. So he's not learning from the mistakes is he and that's what's making me so pissed off.

He never remembers to shut the stair gates, she's always slipping in the bath when he washes them, the other day he decided to mow the lawn whilst I popped out and DD2 wandered into a woody part of our garden and fell over into a pile of dead holly leaves - he certainly couldn't see her and the noise of the mower meant he couldn't hear her screams either.

So now we're moving away from the realm of the Blackberry issue and the key and worrying thing for me is that he simply doesn't effing well think. I can't really give him more time with her as he's at work 14 hours a day - he only sees them at the weekend.

It's not as if I've not raised gentle reminders and never talked to him about it before - so surely going for the jugular now after countless reminders and increasing frustration at his lack of care is pretty much what's called for. Every other tactic has failed.

OP posts:
foxinsocks · 20/06/2007 13:05

he's not a child and that's how he's being spoken to/treated it seems

notthewabbit · 20/06/2007 12:59

Sorry, disagree. He was being negligent. He claearly doesn't understand how much they need to be watched, but he needs to put the Blackberry away and concentrate on his child.

OrmIrian · 20/06/2007 12:57

I have to say I wouldn't dream of telling my DH off - specially not over his way of looking after the kids - and he wouldn't do it to me either. They are his children also and you have to assume that he cares about them as much as you do - just in a different way. I think the fright he felt will have done the trick.

OrmIrian · 20/06/2007 12:55

Agree with fox.

foxinsocks · 20/06/2007 12:51

although it is super crap knowing your child is about to really hurt themselves and being powerless to stop it, so I do sympathise

but I think keeping count of how many injuries happen on each watch and having to hold your hands up every time either one of you makes a 'mistake' is going to be very hard work for both of you!

foxinsocks · 20/06/2007 12:41

I think you got an awful shock but I also think he has had a big fright now and will probably be more vigilant.

However, in your shoes, I'd be letting him look after them more not less. I'm sure he doesn't love them any less than you do and he's only going to get the hang of how to look after them by spending time with them.

I also think that you need to be a bit careful with this whole 'blame culture' - children are not easy to look after. We don't all realise when they need to see the doctor or forsee every danger - that's just parenting for you. You (or him) do not need to hold up your hands every time you think you've made a mistake. No parent is perfect and parenting is all about making mistakes and then learning/moving on from them!

SoupDragon · 20/06/2007 12:31

Who didn't do the straps up when she was in the pram?

Original poster
Yabbadabbadooo · 20/06/2007 12:28

thanks for the support - glad to hear I'm not the only blackberry widow. Am loving Crackberry tho!! So true.

Choosyfloosy - my issue is that DH wasn't concentrating because he was sending non essential emails (i.e. working) when he was supposed to be looking after dd for the mere 5 mins it took for me to take dd to the loo. I can't see how the issues are seperate, or even if it's worth trying to as the basic facts remain the same.

It's like he seized the moment to get his Blackberry fix and that's what makes me see red. I suppose that if he had been watching TV / reading a book I would have been angry too but since the Blackberry has joined our family that seems to be his no. 1 passtime, which he can always "justify" because he's "working".

OP posts:
Sixofone · 20/06/2007 11:13

Can I also join BOHBB's please? (Altho', still trying to work out what B then 4 then -ing actually means )

My hubby has one and it now means he NEVER takes any time off work and is perpetually checking his work emails.

Sadly, it 'broke' last week (I didn't have anything to do with it ) and he was without it for 48 hours. So he gets his laptop out and plays about on that instead

choosyfloosy · 20/06/2007 09:47

um. I totally agree with everything you have said.

But it does sound like the household is run a bit like a court of law atm?

I think the fact that your dd got hurt because your dh wasn't concentrating should be separate from the fact that he was working while he'd agreed to take time off.

Both things need discussing and I'd agree both are infuriating but I would really try to separate them - you seem extra furious that it was because of work - it could have been because he was reading a good book (that's when I get distracted) or watching the Olympics 200m final (that was when ds fell off the bed and had to go to hospital ).

Do you see what I mean? bit confused i know.

Hope your dd continues to seem fine.

littlelapin · 20/06/2007 09:32

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

TrinityRhino · 20/06/2007 09:26

whats a blackberry?

fluffyanimal · 20/06/2007 09:24

Give the blackberry to your dd to play with. if she's anything like my ds, she'll find it very interesting to drop it into a glass of juice, or the toilet, or the bath....

The defensiveness, IMO is a very Mars/Venus thing.

Countingthegreyhairs · 20/06/2007 09:20

Um, asterisk errors

that should read 3 asterisks after w

and 4 asterisks between b and ing !!!

Countingthegreyhairs · 20/06/2007 09:18

No unreasonable at all Yabba imo. Hope your dd is OK. My dh drives me mad when he's supposed to be looking after dd and yet he's somehow 'disengaged'. Get so stressed I might as well do it myself.

Sodding blackberries. Have threatened to flush his down the loo on more than one occasion. Hate it even when he's not supposed to be looking after dd and he's supposed to be spending the evening with me!! Sorry if this sounds a bit crude but it's almost like someone is sitting on the sofa beside you having a w. They are in your presence but totally focused on something else !! Bloody rude I say. ... Posting in total solidarity. Thus ends rant from BOOHBB'S (burn our other-halves b*ing blackberries). Um, you may have gathered by now that your op has touched a bit of a raw nerve ....

kslatts · 20/06/2007 09:05

YANBU, but maybe he is trying to convince himself it was an accident that couldn't be avoided as he feels guilty. Hopefully it will have made him learn his lesson. Glad your dd is now ok.

Katy44 · 20/06/2007 08:19

sounds like he DOES feel guilty and the defensiveness is part of that
I know that's probably not helping now!

Original poster
Yabbadabbadooo · 19/06/2007 23:27

Katy- glad I'm not the only one who things his ommission to his parents was glaring.

OP posts:
Original poster
Yabbadabbadooo · 19/06/2007 23:26

Well I wish I was more volatile really. The thing is shouting doesn't work with him. Smashing the thing up wouldn't work - he'd have new one in 24 hours.

OP posts:
Quattrocento · 19/06/2007 23:22

Well I am obviously more volatile than you are, tbh. I would have got really very cross indeed.

Swipe left for the next trending thread