To think that mothers just care more about the kids than fathers do? In most cases?

Womens' brains shed useless grey matter to become more effective at adapting to the new tasks of parenthood. It's not a bad thing to forget useless guff to do things in the most effective way.

It makes sense to evolutionarily prioritise the survival of infants in a very fine-tuned way because our infants are especially useless, and we have relatively few of them.

Men don't have this, but they are just as good at the "essentials" of childcare if they apply themselves. These days, there are fewer innate dangers in child reading to which a parent can make a difference, and in my experience, men can correct the "overdoing it" that womens' brains can do.

Sometimes my friends complain about things their husband failed to do, and I can see objectively that they're being bonkers. And sometimes I'll be whinging objectively bonkers things myself.

Yeah sorry, I realised that sounded different to how I meant it! I just meant that in my experience anyway within our friendship circle, it’s the men who have jobs that don’t allow easy access to phones etc whereas the women do! Obviously not the case for everyone!

They do care less, yes. Even good fathers are quite shit in comparison to good mums. I see this everywhere around me.

I don't think it's so much as they care less, but rather that we are biologically primed to be more attuned to our children than men are. It's hard not to after they've been part of you for 9 months.

Cheese55

Im worried they’re growing up not making enough mistakes because I jump to help them at every turn! Then they hit 16-18 and you look at all the stuff they never had to figure out because it was done for them!

The poster talks about mothers who work as well though.

I like to think I've got a pretty modern husband, but I still take on a spectacular portion of the mental load, despite us both working the same hours.

This is so true, and is enabled even more by the fact that most schools/nurseries call mum first if there's a problem. I have to specify that they call Dad when I'm away for work

Oh congratulations, I hope your birth goes wonderfully and your DH continues to cherish you and your child! Just keeping holding onto that but don't be blindsided if you do see some inequality once you give birth. I know some amazing dads so it's certainly not all men!!!

So you are saying men always earn more than women still? Hmmmmm.

I hadn’t realised it was a competition.

DH worries about DD far more than me, and I’m much more blasé.

I think it is in built in mother's to stay with and protect their children no matter what, maybe because we carry them for nine months, maybe that is the deeper bond that means we rarely cut ties with our children. I mean when parents split children usually stay with mum, and some men don't seem to think too much of it to up and leave their kids when a relationship breaks down sadly. I am not saying this is true of all men of course, there are lots out there not like this.

For me, in our family, as both full time working parents we both carry the care equally I think. I start work at 5am, so my husband gets the kids ready for school and nursery before starting his work, he then picks our 2yo up from nursery and puts her for a nap in his lunch hour (he is WFH) and I am back from work (in an office) at 2pm to do the afternoon and after school care. We do what we have to to make it work. Family and house admin is another story though, that is all on me, mum, I organise all the bills, the kids clubs, school admin, organising everyone's calendars so things don't clash. And as much as it is alot, I think splitting it would be a recipe for disaster, there would be something we think the other is or has done and then no one does it, so I prefer to keep a handle on the admin tbh.

I do think I am very fortunate to have a partner willing to be equal on the childcare front from some of the posts I read on here, and I shouldn't, when you both work full time, it should just be the norm, but sadly alot of women are left dealing with the brunt of everything in family life.

I agree. Just look at how many men don’t see their kids at all/ very much once they are no longer in the relationship with the mother.

I do think it’s part biological as we do carry them for 9 months but part social expectations as well. My H loves DS but not in the same fierce way I do. I think about him pretty much every day, know where he is and what he’s generally up to. H used to come home (when DS was in primary school) and often after an hour wonder out loud where DS was! Thank goodness I knew where he was and when he needed picking up!

I think men and women are different with different motivations. It surprises me that after thousands of years people are still shocked by this.

Men get away with being shit parents, woman do not

You're right. Most men don't want kids, they just want to look as though they want a family. The don't want to spend time with their children, just want to seem like they want to. They want to show their mates pictures of their beautiful kids, but not actually have any involvement in those kids' lives.

As for providing, I can assure you that when the mother is the financial provider, nothing changes. The mother does everything to do with the kids, because that's women's work. And the reason is that men don't value something unless there's "payment". Caring and thinking about everything and doing everything for your child is not something you get paid for, and therefore in men's eyes, it is valueless, and so they are above doing it. Women should do it all, because that's what they're here for - doing everything for men.

God, I would have loved my kids' dad to be the financial provider - at least that way I could somehow have justified why he wanted so little to do with them. Alas, I ended up doing everything as well as paying for everything. Bloody brilliant now that he's gone.

I can assure you that when the mother is the financial provider, nothing changes
I second that @duckydoo234
Ime he views himself as the rightful head of the household, you have insulted him by out earning him and so you must make it up to him by taking care of all the unpaid work too.

Agree - my dad worked full time in a factory but always did more day to day housework than my mum - hoovering, washing up, general cleaning. He also did pick ups and drop offs around his shift work. My grandad (a miner) was the same; as a retiree he used to get up at 5:30am every day to light the fire and start getting things ready for the day. When my grandparents did school pick up, it was my grandad who would come, not my gran.

I agree with this. My husband is a good dad, he loves our child, is involved with certain activities absolutely cares BUT everything else is left to me. School uniform, clothes (I don’t think he has ever got clothes, maybe a few sport kits), school forms & comms, ordering lunches (I recently found out he doesn’t even have the app downloaded), birthday presents, birthday parties, dentists/doctors/opticians, arranging holiday child care.

I don’t know if it’s because I do it before he thinks about it, or he really doesn’t just think about it, probably the latter.

I will say I found the difference much more apparent once they started school, before that I hadn’t really noticed how little he did.

Oh and I work full time and I am the bread winner. Not that that should matter but looking at some of these posts it does.

I think so.

When we fall pregnant our lives change. No alcohol, less sports (some you can obviously continue with), dont eat this, eat plenty of that blah blah blah. Nothing changes for dad. We feel the baby moving, wr have to go through childbirth, and as hands on as the male is, he's on thw sidelines watching.
Once the baby is born, dad has 2 weeks off then has to go back to work, again nothing really changes for him. Whereas we deal deal with breastfeeding feeding, post party bleeding, hormones and have the baby in our care almost every minute of everyday. So i thibk a mothers bond is completely different to a fathers.

Women are much more verbal, relational and networked, so this type of parenting forum ticks all the boxes for how women care about children. Men (are supposed to) care differently, through action, activity, physicality, leading by example, boundaries and so on. When it works properly, this is how it works.

100% this. Like the man who was lazy and uninterested in you and possibly a cheater, or just very self absorbed, isn't father of the year? Get outta here. I have no patience for women like that, to be honest. I'm sorry for the kids but not for them. Perpetual victimhood is not a good look.

That being said, I don't necessarily think that constantly worrying over kids makes someone a better parent. I don't want kids, but if I had done, I would not have helicoptered them the way some on here seem to. A lot of women on here seem to think that being consumed by worry over their children makes them a better parent than their husband. It doesn't, in some ways it actually does the opposite.

It’s a shame to see so many posts about “Men do fuck all but that doesn’t mean they don’t care!!”Jesus is this the standard we set for ourselves. That’s EXACTLY what it means.

Or it could questioned if men do nothing or are that teriible why breed then keep on having chidren with these men who do nothing in the fitst place?

That’s right, when men are useless let’s blame women