To think men and women are actually programmed differently?

I think you are describing one man, your husband, and his character traits/habits/abilities are massively unlikely to be replicated throughout all men, so yes - YABU.

For background, as a woman who didn’t/doesn’t act in a ‘feminine’ way I am so, so tired of these tropes. Being lazy at housework doesn’t make you a man. Liking dresses doesn’t make you a woman. The sooner we move away from these tropes, the fairer a society we will have. Sorry op, don’t want to rant on your thread - just read the first sentence :-) it’s just it really hacks me off.

I often wonder this. It’s a huge bone of contention in my household and frustrates the hell out of me! My DP is a skilled tradesman, very meticulous in his job and aims for perfection. Yet at home quite the opposite. He always says he’s the ‘practice and logical’ one yet to watch him perform any household tasks it’s quite the opposite. He doesn’t have any ‘systems’ like hanging up the washing for example, so haphazard. I’m constantly battling in my brain whether it’s that he can’t do it or whether he can’t be arsed to do it.

It’s shit

My husband has managed to never fail at those things.

It really isn’t

I think they are but not in the way you’re describing. In our house, it’s me who doesn’t see the jobs that need doing and my husband is the one who takes the lion’s share of housework/life admin. I know other couples the same.

I think men and women are wired differently as parents though. I feel as though there is an identity shift for women when they become mothers that men just don’t experience.

My husband didn’t forget to wash his hands after changing a nappy. It’s not something men are programmed to do but it is a way that men can look ineffectual so the woman in their life takes over because you’re just much better at it.

Women aren’t necessarily better at care roles. I’m sure you forgot to blow on your son’s food or didn’t quite get the temperature right the first few times. Your son cried, you dealt with it because your partner is off being an important man somewhere and there was no other option. You get better at knowing the right temp. Your partner forgets or gets the temperature wrong and he suddenly doesn’t know what to do and you’re much better at blaming DS (because you spend more time with him). The only way your partner is going to get better is he learns through trial and error, like most women are doing. Although I think most men and women are washing their hands after changing a nappy.

So you automatically knew what to do with a newborn? You didn't get any advice, read any books or learn on the job. It came out of you fully fledged.🤔

its a good book

But also a higher proportion of women are the main child carer though, so it would make statistical sense for more women to be better at it as they have more practice. Like you say, it doesn’t mean they are in innately better, just more have had the sole experience of it.

People fall over themselves to make excuses for men to be inadequate, especially when it comes to parenting and housework. Funny that.

Of course it’s social conditioning.

The examples you give are simply exercising organisation skills (getting changing things ready) and remembering important steps in a task (hand washing and cooling food). If your DH holds down even the most straightforward of paid jobs, I can promise you he is as capable of transferring those basic skills to childcare as you are. He might appear to be trying his best, but he isn't. He's being complacent, nor bothering to prep or paying enough attention to remember the steps, because he thinks it's easy/not as vital to get right as his paid tasks/you will step in.

Well I didn’t have that innate way of parenting either. I read some books, learnt through mistakes. My husband was the one who got up in the night to check on them, worried if they were still breathing, was checking their temperature to see if they had enough layers. I don’t just let him do it though as I couldn’t be arsed to learn or care if I did things wrong.

I do think that on average women are more bothered about mess etc so often end up doing more housework.

It's averages though - my husband is much tidier than me and probably does slightly more housework.

He hasn't cracked breastfeeding yet though!

I think there are differences in socialisation (which effectively is part of your programming) and observable across a large group, but there are overlaps and outliers. Some men are very much better at, say, childcare /family stuff and some women aren't.

If you start going around saying "Women are better than men at childcare" it's unhelpful when you really mean: a higher proportion of women than men are good at childcare.

Here's my twopence.

Neither women or men or born to be good at childcare.

There are hormonal differences which may drive a woman to certain responses like waking up in the night to check on a baby, feeding a baby when it cries.

Everything else is learned, and women know that society does not accept her being bad at it, but men are allowed to be bad at these things. So they are not motivated to do them well.

Quite.

Most very well-paid surgeons are male. They don't fanny about 'forgetting' to wash their hands. Because jobs and status are important.

The socialisation is that they are taught women and children aren't important. Some of them fight this socialisation and most don't.

This really is not true. Men don’t lack the cognition, recall and executive functioning motor skills to parent . They have the same skills, up to them if they use them and are adequate . However, some men know a certain type of woman will bluster in and interrupt and take over the task
Let’s not make excuses for inadequate parenting by saying their brains just cannot handle it

I think that might be just your husband. It’s not something I have witnessed with my husband or any of my male friends. Not sure if it makes a difference but my circle of friends did some element of shared parental leave and both partners work full time so both learnt together, both had periods when one was at home and one at work and learnt how to look after their children on their own and sort out everything they needed (making food, packing a going out bag etc.). Did your husband ever do this?

I think some of it (at least in my house) is just down to the sheer repetition of it that mothers get which dad’s simply don’t get. Taking my husband & I as an example, I’m on maternity leave and our daughter is 8.5 months old now so things like nappy changes, blowing on food, weaning/giving her new foods to try, guessing which toy will keep her happy for 5 mins, packing the bag to go out for the day etc is really just automatic for me now, I don’t even really consciously think about these things because I do them all day every day. My husband is an amazing dad and husband, really couldn’t ask for better from him and he is very hands on, but those things aren’t second nature to him like they are to me because he just doesn’t do them as much as I do so he does have to more proactively think about things and it takes him a bit longer than it would do for me to do it.

The problem comes where the mum (and I’m not saying you do this but lots do) immediately steps in to do it for him or to do it her way, rather than letting him find his own way. My husband doesn’t do things exactly the way I do them and that’s absolutely okay, he has his own way of doing things and it works just the same, but if I had jumped in every time I saw him doing things differently to correct him then he would never have found his own way and he’d also never have bothered trying because he’d feel like everything he did was wrong anyway.

But you are describing one man here, on a planet of 3 billion others.
I agree there can be generalisations, but my ex was very astute/measured/conscientious at the fatherly tasks in your example.
Thinking of the many males in my wider family, they are also of a similar nature.
Sometimes it can be a cultural upbringing too.

My husband and I were clueless when it came to our first baby. We both learned how to care for them and sort out a workable regime. I wasn’t born knowing how to do my choice of paid employment. I went to uni, got experience and worked hard to get where I am. My husband does a similar job. He wasn’t born with innate knowledge either.

Ok so he practice til his best gets better. Really as simple as that