to be fed up of crap fathers being excused from basic parenting?

They do. There are two thread recently - one with a dad who can only be arsed to see his kid once a fortnight and one a dad saying he only wants to do 30% of childcare.

And there are posters defending them. Let’s not pretend a mother who did either of these things would be praised for being a good mother

But the bad for “bad father” is quite a bit higher than the bar for “bad mother”.

Yes I would prefer he says no to kids so women leave him and find a better person instead of giving lazy excuses for why they are settling for trash.

just take the post a few pages back, when poster said their husband is a great dad (no beef with this poster, and I am in no way saying her husband isn't a gread dad).
But the examples provided - nobody has ever said that someone is a great mum because she gives her DC breakfast and sometimes even stays home with sick kids, when her higher earning husband cannot. Nobody would think this is anything even worth mentioning, that's bare minimum for mothers.

Its not a perception. It happened, repeatedly. My competent dad friends would be quite insulted by it. Its anecdata sure and not statistically provable but please dont tell me i didnt see or hear what I did.

Yes, and those of us who do leave the useless men are forever told it’s our fault for having kids with him in the first place, and we should have seen the non existent signs that things would have turned out this way.

The worst of it is that lovely women stay with useless men rather than leave them, because leaving them would mean the kids having to spend time with the useless dad without her. Which she knows might result in their harm - dads who can't be arsed to get off the phone while child is picking a finger in an electric socket which dad can't be arsed to buy a safety cover for, dads who forget to close stairgates so kids climb upstairs because he's asleep on the sofa, dads who shout at kids when they're whining through boredom rather than get off their arses and take them for a walk etc etc etc.

That's a perception, not necessarily a reality. I have lots of friends who are parents and no experience of unequal praise for mothers and fathers (good or bad).

Sure it will happen where there is bias towards males or females but not amonst generally fair minded people.

Exactly. DH is in bed now, was at the footie last night, off to a gig tonight. All of this news to me, not planned. Bank holiday weekend, here. Easier for me to get on with it than be lumbered with a great big sulking man-baby. So, I’m enabling it.

I find that everything men can do, women can do with one hand. Shouldn’t have to, but like you say, it all has to be done anyway. So, we just get on with it. There’s only one thing they can do one-handed… I would say most women crack on, rather than argue. It’s sad, but true. But, really, not uncommon.

I don’t get why the mum doesn’t give the dad a shove to wake him up. Then he’ll hear it.

I got one of those 😕 she told me I deserved to be raped and it was my fault it happened! I was 8 years old! 🙁

“Boys will be boys” eh?

The genetic differences don’t render men incapable of basic life skills. Plenty of men live alone, there are even some single fathers <gasp> and they all manage to get shit done without a mummy-wife to organise their lives for them. Stop with the gender stereotype bullshit, this is why men have got away with this for so long.

Yeah, cos it is always a woman's fault isn't it ? Ffs...

Men and women are genetically different. Why do people think they can change that?

"The rate of men taking up even the two weeks paternity leave on full pay is low in my organisation."

I mean this is anecdata but the reason the vast majority of men don't take paternity leave is the statutory pay they receive is laughable, which shows how little fathers bonding with their children is prioritised in the UK.

I understood Shared parental leave is often not taken up because it requires the mother to give up sone of her maternity leave.

Some (men) lie about not hearing it

No, its spot on. Lots of my decent dad friends get heaps of praise for doing totally normal parenting things that wouldnt even register if it was mum. When my ex took the baby out people would fall over themselves to offer help and big him.up. if he hadnt packed something theyd be offering spare whatever. Yes absent, uninvolved dads do get rightly critucised but noone would say a mum was good for parenting four days a month or of she had a "big job" and was away Mon-Fri

It's not unarguable. Most fair minded people would recognise the contribution of both parents if they're putting in the effort for their child.

Perhaps there's an insecure feeling amongst mothers that this is the case when in reality most people would fairly recognise what an incredible job most do.

The only thing I disagree with you on is that ‘not all men are like this. Plenty of fathers are brilliant, hands-on and competent’ because actually it’s not plenty, it’s a minority and even the competent ones are still generally letting their spouse carry most of the mental load.

The bar is pathetically low, and ‘good dads’ are actually just doing their share, yet are hailed as heroes.

Yes. Id rather, had it been the case that he didnt really want them that he'd said that rather than leaving me to single parent when they were tiny. But it wasnt the case. They were wanted and planned and he was a genuinely good, hands on father who shared the load. Until he wasnt. For those who do just go alomg with it, they should say so and allow tje woman to make an informed choice.

They partially wake up, but they know they can ignore it so they just half wake up and sink back into sleep. Once I made it clear to my dh that he was getting up, he knew he had to when he heard it and he woke up. We can nearly all wake up for important noises for most of the night, deep sleep is a pretty short part of the night, many men just don’t bother. While exhausted mums just don’t really get any deep sleep due to being wired to listen for any noise and not getting long enough sleep blocks to get to deep sleep.that was me.