to wonder why childcare seems to default to women, even now?

At my daughters school I’ve been there a handful of times this year cus my husband does all drops and pick ups - seems an even amount of dads picking up there he says 🤷‍♀️

daughters 5th bday party it was nearly all dads who brought the kids along

my dad takes the kids for me loads as well!

so im certainly not seeing this in area I live or within my circle op !

There are several African tribes where the men and women 'share' childcare in a very full way. So the bond just being with the mother is not a biological imperative. However, it's how our society nurtures men and what it encourages both men and women to think about division of labour and roles.

Doesn't someone on this forum have something more interesting to discuss? The wave of angry mothers and angry grandmothers complaining about the other and lack / expectation of support these past few days is bloody dull

I want to organise it myself- for my own peace of mind.

Because babies come from the woman’s body. She ‘produced’ them, takes the maternity leave and in most cases feeds them exclusively, and it all flows from there - the ‘handover’ where it is no longer one sided, usually when she goes back to work, never happens because at that point the baby prefers mum, mum knows how to soothe them and why they’re distressed, their likes and dislikes etc, and has undergone a series of physical changes to attune her to the baby’s needs. No mum is going to ‘make the baby suffer’ and listen to them crying ‘mummmmmmy’ just to prove a point or enforce this handover, and one set of tasks rolls into another. Until they’re 7/8 and mum is still the go to person

I do ask my dad and he happily babysat my DS and other grandkids without mum, BUT I would say he's just a bit worse at caring for small DC than my mum.

DM was the primary caregiver at home for 10 years when my siblings and I were small, and was a primary teacher for decades. She's brilliant at keeping young kids busy and spotting when they need something etc. My dad is just less knowledgeable about what is typical for young DC. However he's been brilliant with the older kids, especially the sporty ones, volunteers to go along to watch matches, takes them on various outings etc.

Because feminism and equality can't erase biological instincts.

I tend to think that it’s not that they’re “dodgy”, it’s that women don’t trust them to be competent. Because they aren’t.
Men with serious jobs display zero common sense when it comes to children. If you say “can you dress the toddler please” and then have to field 6 questions about where things are and they still dress the kid for a winter walk in shorts hen you might as well have done it yourself. If every time you go out you have to answer 4 phone calls asking what they’re supposed to feed the kids then you tend to go out less.
Some of them are actually incompetent, some of them are lazy and I swear some of them are useless on purpose. And some of them are capable of being useful but then expect a medal and a parade because they managed to look after their own child.

Insightful. Not the case in our house.

I think it starts with maternity leave. Me and my OH did shared parental leave together for the first 6 months and although I breastfed both of our children until they were 13/14mo I wasn’t the default parent. Now my OH doesn’t work and I do - I suspect that wouldn’t have happened if he’d had the standard 2 weeks paternity leave. I think it all starts there.

In my case the default parenting fell to me because my husband simply wouldn't do it.

It's all very well saying "go on strike and make him do it" but he still wouldn't do it and all that would happen then is that I'd have neglected children who never got their teeth/eyes checked and we wearing too small shoes. He didn't do it so I had no choice but to do it myself.

It's always a woman who does everything.

My kid has one GF and he’s utterly useless - as a father he used to be a provider, does some cooking and nothing more.
my DH is hands on however I notice that is reducing as our child grows for some reason - he was doing as much as I did when DC was a baby; now I’d say 20% and way less patient.

And have you noticed something major? It’s ALWAYS women doing it to each other!!

Because women grow babies inside of them and risk their lives giving birth to them. They therefore (generally) have an inextricable bond and life long vested interest in that human being's welfare, which isn't comparable to that of most men. And yes, I do know it's "not all men".

You again?

The current generation of grandfathers did relatively little childcare of their own children so it’s not surprising that their daughters and sons don’t feel especially comfortable handing over grandchildren to them. Coupled with the fact that the grandmother is often rather keener than the grandfather.

Now that does not mean things will never change. Current fathers are a lot more hands on than fathers did 30/40 years ago. There is still a big imbalance of course for many reasons (the length of maternity vs paternity leave for example). But it’s a lot more equal than it was and I expect that when today’s fathers are grandfathers they will get viewed as much more capable with grandkids.

I think it is because most people will turn to THEIR primary caregiver to support them. My dad was a stay at home dad which was rare but he does more childcare for me now than my mum. My MIL doesn’t have anything to do with my kids because she wasn’t a good parent to my husband. I think this will change now that a lot of dads are more hands on. Very stereotypical of course!

My ex took the second six months and did fuck all 😐 I will never forgive him.

Women having kids with their fathers and FILs is a bit of a niche concern tbh, with bigger issues at play...

I mean, on Friday my son is being cared for by my husband and he's taking him to see Grandad. And my dad was the absolute number one help out of all four grandparents when he was a newborn. It was like being followed around by a butler when I dropped a muslin or need a nappy or cushion handed to me. He still is the best help tbh.

So I don't have skin in the game. But I'm not blind to generational differences between the sexes. My husband is more hands on than his dad ever was, and my FIL had the example of the square root of fuck all from his own dad.

If hate for my son to be judged one day for something that he could have been taught or set example by me or his dad.

Women generally have more interest in babies and young children than men do. Many women want to SAH and look after the children but not so many men do. Also, it’s just nature. There’s no need to fight it.

I think Mumsnet needs to get ahold on these threads, they’re ruining AIBU. This is now the fourth in the past week.

Sorry - but this faux naïveté is ridiculous. Come on.

Erm, also a bit naïve … and not really anything to do with who should look after them once they exist.