for getting annoyed when childcare just automatically gets dumped on women?

In my family I think it’s a fair split. But in DH’s family I see exactly what you mean. FIL is useless, doesn’t engage with kids at all. Then DH has two brothers and they will both very much take a back seat when we are visiting PILs. All of the blokes just sitting their watching TV while the women are expected to do all the childcare and cooking etc. MIL doesn’t help as she’ll tell her precious boys to sit and have a rest as they work so hard, while expecting me and their wives to do all the cleaning up. To be fair DH is the best of the lot of them but he definitely regresses a bit when at the PILs.

Never happens in our family. Parents take care of their own kids if they are too young to ask - both parents.
No one "gets asked to" change a nappy or do anything for a child, particularly one that's theirs.

If the kids need something, they'll ask whoever is closer to them, and that can be any of the older cousins, aunts or uncles.

If anyone was repeatedly asking me to do something children or cooking related, I'd tell them no thanks.

Same as ours. The men in our family cook, clean and do everything the women do. My kids go to Dh or myself equally or whoever is there.

its your family - the men are useless and the women enable it. Not everyone’s are like this.

Doesn't happen in my family, though it does in DH's.

First Christmas with my newborn, my dad ran around like some sort of muslin butler grabbing me pillows to support breastfeeding and handing me supplies.

Just had dinner with a friend, and my husband looked after both toddlers whilst me, the husband and wife all finished off the cooking. Both kids like synchronised pooing, so this was no mean feat.

I have and would never change any child’s nappy. It was bad enough for my own! And yes, when MIL has tried to hand me her GDC by BIL, I’ve very pointedly carried or walked said children over to BIL who is almost always just sitting there on his phone. Occasionally his wife is there too, doing the same thing. She likes to give them a break, she says, by cooking their food etc which she can’t do with a GDC hanging off her. Why this should involve me and not her DH, her DD, my DH or indeed anyone else I don’t know. I think it’s because I’m the oldest DIL, with the oldest GDC and she assumes it’s my duty. Probably something to do with being one or 7 herself, with the girls having to look after the boys because their mum couldn’t do it all alone (obvs). Anyway, not my problem, not my DC, not my job.

This is interesting, I’ve never really thought about it this way. If it’s just me and my husband and am 100% default every time, I don’t mind that. But, if grandad, uncles, etc are here I really don’t distinguish between male and female, who wants the baby whilst I….ect and whoever is nearest and volunteers get her, obviously it is always someone I trust completely x

Women are handing their children over to other women in family gatherings because they are so frightened?

You misunderstand the point I am trying to make - it’s not that any individual woman is scared of her own male relatives. It’s that (to put it very crassly) there’s a societal shift to “children need to be looked after women and not men” and - because none of us exist in a vacuum - that influences how individual women and men behave (even in social situations involving friends and family).

There are quite a shocking number of threads on MN, including on the feminist forums, saying men shouldn't be allowed to work in childcare because it's too dangerous.

Is it any wonder women get handed the children when even (apparently) staunch feminists are so insistent that childcare should be left to women?

Not the case here. Mum and dad equally responsible, followed by probably by whatever grandparent is closest. If it's Grandma she will often call for grandpa to help because she is a bossy firecracker that raised a nice thoughtful son as she takes no shit like women doing everything. The uncles are probably more hands on than the Aunts as well, with all the kids in general.

My sil has done this. Passed me her 2 year old and said could I change his nappy. I said I'd pass him to his dad and did. If he wasn't there and she was busy I would have taken him but being female doesn't make me some kind of nappy expert. I do coo over babies and I like a cuddle but I don't do nappy changes when a parent is available.

When you give birth, you join the real world, plenty of time for me time when they leave home.

This has been the way since the beginning of time. It is nature. In 2025 with contraception it is a choice. Choose wisely as it effects your future.

If it’s my kid - I’m happy to change, feed them etc - or if I can’t for some reason I’ll ask their dad, my husband to do it. Chances are he would do it without prompting as he used to watch them as much as me.

someone else’s kids needs sorting - ‘I’ll take you to daddy’ if their mum is busy…

Dads sitting around doing nothing can only happen if you let it happen .

thankfully my husband did parent without prompting but if they don’t in your wider family - then you can ‘encourage’ them to, if their child needs something 🤣🤣🤣

I'd glibly like to say be that change...and then I see too many posts on here getting the heebeejeebeez about a male nursery worker, midwife, primary school teacher, childmiinder and just go...whoosh!

Hard to believe but some natural men are just really good at nuturing children just as some natural women make great engineers...and then there's a load of people in between.

Equality-wise we've shifted towards women and now we've got to let go a bit on the things us women feel belong to 'us'. If it wasn't for the men shifting a bit in days gone by, us wimmin would still be a fightin.

Let's return the favour.

@WimpoleHat , I was walking in the shopping centre yesterday and there was a little girl on her own. I felt uncomfortable asking her where her mummy was because it could have looked bad.

I'm glad to say that she did go back to her mother and sibling.
Seeing little ones on their own scares me. I'd never forgive myself if something bad happened and I'd have not helped prevent it.

I really don't believe women think their own fathers, brothers and grandfathers are too dangerous

That’s not the point I’m making - at all. I’m saying that we’ve created a societal environment where men are reluctant to interact with children other than their own for fear of accusations or “looking dodgy”. I was on the tube a few months ago with a male friend, who spotted a toddler looking lost. His immediate reaction wasn’t to ask her if she was okay, it was to ask me to ask her if she was okay - and I absolutely understand why. But it means that the prevailing mindset is child has needs = ask a woman. So it’s not really surprising that that seeps over into family situations to some extent.

We went to a family do last night 10 kids age 3 weeks to 11 years. All parents were hands on while grandparents and great grandparents relaxed and chatted (and served food)

The women this happens to, let it happen to them.

Find a voice and call it out.

No. Parents should predominantly be responsible for their own kids, not asking others of either sex or any gender to do things that simply aren’t their job - why anyone particularly needs help holding their own child or why they don’t ask for it from the father of said children (assuming he’s there) I don’t know. Sure it’s nice if everyone interacts with the kids, but actual care like toileting, nappies and comforting crying is a parent’s job, just like it is when they’re at home day to day. Ok if people offer but it’s cheeky to expect anyone else to want to do the unpleasant bits of parenting just because they happen to be around.

Yes, this 100%. You simply can't have a mindset where men are automatically considered too dangerous to be allowed to look after children, without accepting the very obvious consequence of that mindset being that all childcare always falls by default to women.

In the last thread (of many) reflecting on one particular evil man who had horrifically abused children in his care, there were several posters declaring it pretty much obvious that any man wanting to work in childcare must have clearly nefarious motives for doing so. Even some posters who acknowledged that not all men would abuse children given half the chance were resolute that 'the good ones would understand parents' concerns and self-exclude from the career'.

Maybe all of these people - the men and the women - have just been reading the many MN threads and received the very clear message that any kind of childcare is solely the preserve of women and men must steer well clear from little ones.