AIBU to feel like I’m always the "default parent" even when we're both home?

I think this is very common. I have never forgotten the evening when DH was cooking dinner and I was upstairs putting laundry away. DS climbed two sets of stairs to find me and ask me how long until dinner
I’m afraid I have no answers - getting cross and irritable about it every so often does not seem to have made a difference and the kids still see me as default

Oh dear. What kind of sexist regressive worldview are you passing on to your DC with that attitude?

All of the men in our family are, and have been, amazing engaged dads and a lifelong support to their children. The younger dads are absolutely in there, happily cooking, bedtimes, doing the school runs and the hobbies, dealing with the tears and tantrums.

It's not difficult. It's just life Even people without children have to do it. Men included It's hardly mentally draining

You don’t understand how organising things is a task? Remembering everything for your children. You may not find it difficult but if you don’t do it, the result isn’t pretty. So it counts as a task. I mean PAs are paid. Mums are essentially PAs for the family a lot of the time.

You don’t understand how organising things is a task? Remembering everything for your children. You may not find it difficult but if you don’t do it, the result isn’t pretty. So it counts as a task. I mean PAs are paid. Mums are essentially PAs for the family a lot of the time.

I got fed up with this when I went back to work full time - fair enough when I was doing three days a week so had time to sort things, but not when we were both working the same amount.

My solution was to add him to all the school comms and WhatsApp groups and then take no responsibility for anything that happened on his days to do the school run - of which he did half.

It took a couple of mornings of “why didn’t you tell me about X?!”, to which I responded each time, “it’s on your day, I assumed you’d read it on Studybugs/ whatsapp”, but he got the idea pretty quickly. I also would text him when I HAD done something school related (I’ve filled out the form/bought school disco tickets etc) so he didn’t assume that it was being done by me if I didn’t mention it. Again, took a couple of occasions where he’d assumed that I had without checking, but he’s a bright man, he was and is capable of learning!

Likewise I also won’t arrange gifts etc for parties he’s taking the DC to, nor will I do all the running when he makes an announcement about something ‘we’ need to do (“there are ants in the utility room, we need to get something for it”, that sort of thing). It has definitely taken training - of him - and I’ve had to stop myself from stepping in to just deal with it automatically but he’s much better about it all now.

I'm a woman and been a single parent most of my life I don't understand " me yal load". It's just doing normal day to day organizing of stuff. So why is it such a me tal load?

Yanbu. Try a few things- a long walk on the weekend just before lunch. I think it very reasonable to tear strips off a dad who hasn’t fed his kids lunch because you didn’t tell him. Half the time when asked something, say ask your dad.

Have you tried “ask your dad” do it enough they may just start going to him. Just rinse and repeat.

Tbh I’ve never really had this problem, DH does bedtime because I don’t have the patience and DD will get a snack off whoever is within shouting distance. I think it starts when they are babies tbh, it’s always important to make sure you don’t default to doing everything when they are little.

Oh my gosh- your posts are infuriating as instead of taking on board what multiple women are saying to you, you just keep on repeating the same thing- just reinforcing the fact that most men really do not understand the concept of the mental load!

They're all pretty cool modern youngsters tbh 😀

i too agree with you

That's great but how do you feel about reinforcing gender stereotypes to your kids?

You’re definitely not being unreasonable—a lot of us have felt this exact same way. It’s not just about doing the tasks, it’s the mental load of having to plan, remember, and delegate everything that becomes exhausting.
It sounds like your partner is willing, but maybe he doesn’t realize how much pressure it puts on you when you always have to ask. Taking initiative is part of sharing the load, not just waiting for instructions.
It might be worth having an open conversation—not as a criticism, but as a “Hey, I’m really overwhelmed and I need us to function more as a team without me having to be the project manager all the time.”
Sometimes people just don’t see the invisible work until it’s pointed out.
You’re not alone in this—thank you for sharing!

oh yea, you are so great and i wish all men were like you so threads like this needn't exist.

Feel validated in your wonderfulness enough now?

I'm afraid you couldn't be further from the truth, but I'll leave it there.

nah - you have jumped in to give the man's view.

We know what the man's view is. And every post you make doubles down on the annoyingness.

WE KNOW. And several of us have DHs that step up without being asked. (FWIW: i am tech and DIY with bikes and cars. And gardening. DH is Cooking and Cleaning and how to work the Nintendo thing)

DD has been known to call for me even when DH is in the same room 😂
It's all the usual reasons - main carer, patriarchy, default parenting, lazy parenting, kids preferences, executive function issues. And so on.
Ultimately you make a choice. What's your boundary and what's best for your children. I think in most cases your own personal boundaries (mental load) generally give way to looking after your children.

there are many male animals that coparent. Many men coparent, and guess what, many men also raise children successfully as single parents.

likening humans to farm animals, really? So all we can expect from men is to have sex and fuck off? And nothing we can do will force them to look after “the young”?

why don’t women just take the farming approach and go for AI, ditch trying to coparent altogether if they are never going to look after their young.

Then why are huge numbers of women swerving having children?

It is not ‘society’ , females are built (literally) to nurture children.

I own a farm.

If I tried to get any of my male animals to look after the young, there’d be no young.

Female humans have it pretty good in the scheme of things in nature. I accept it’s not easy though.

I think this is a common scenario. It's usually just habit, especially if the kids always come to you first.

I think that in terms of most "household" stuff, there will usually be one person who leads, and the other is like the sous chef. So, for example, I used to be the lad on all cooking stuff. Dh cooked happily, but the assumption was I would except certain days I worked later, and I also managed groceries and such. (Dh is now retired so this is in flux, which is not great really, we end up with weird dinners. We will have to sort this eventually.)

In terms of cars, he does all of that. I will (reluctantly) take a car in to the shop or something if he asks, but he manages maintenance and registration and all that kind of thing.

Most management works better with one main caretaker and people naturally tend to organise things that way, often without really intending it.

With kid stuff it often falls to the parent who was home when they are young, and if you want to "reset" you have to do it explicitly. Decide who is in charge of what elements of childcare. But if it's just in the moment stuff (can you get me a snack) you can usually do it by consciously redirecting. It's better to talk about it first though so you won't accidentally end up working against each other.

Please see my last paragraph. I was always a full participant in parenting.
Maybe read what I wrote again, you've misunderstood it quite fundamentally, or I haven't explained it properly. There were no issues of responsibilities in my relationship with my kids mum. In fact she encouraged me to have custody when we separated, saying I'd make a better job of it.
I was just saying that there are also things which seem to be assumed the role of a man. I'm not saying that's right.