It is expected women shall be 'good' mothers, but good fathers merit compliment.

I often hear this about OH with his children. I view it positively; it's becoming more the norm with men. Not everything, in my opinion, can be won with a battle. As more men become hands-on (and I truly see this as a majority) it becomes expected.
At my age I see more and more woman becoming mothers (hopefully my turn soon, I desperately want it). They were among the first to recieve this treatment from their fathers, and they expect it for their children.

It's so annoying, isn't it?

My brother and his wife are really easy to compare in terms of the amounts of work they do, because their work is a part-time job share with each other, so they're required to be doing exactly the same work for exactly the same amount of time. SIL breastfed DN for about a year, and during that time DB would do more of the night-time nappies and would get up with DN early on so SIL could get a lie-in after being up during the night.

My mum is still desperately worried because he 'does so much'. Every time she sees him change a nappy or do anything that isn't playing with the baby, mum thinks he is 'doing too much' and wonders why SIL wouldn't do it first. And she goes on about how promising his career is and how sad it is if he ends up jeopardizing it - and FFS, it's exactly the same career as SIL's is!

Whew. Sorry, glad I have the chance to say that, as she rambles on to me about it and I get fed up with politely disagreeing every time.

Thanks minipie, yes crack sadly you are probably right. Although of course women have a right to expect loving respectful partners who also do their equal share of housework and childcare.

Eats I think she's saying that some other people regard abusive partners as more acceptable if they do housework/are involved parents - not that she agrees with that...

crack I am not sure what you mean by that? You would rather have DV and an involved parent? You know you could have an involved parent and no DV?

And you sound very unhappy in your relationship.

And what's more, doing any housework and or being an involved parent trumps any dv or abuse ime

No men should be doing 50% of everything. Unless your partner is disabled or very ill, there really is no excuse for them not doing so.

Thanks.
It's just so bloody infuriating. I read minipies post and has to stop myself thinking oh that's good about her dh
Men doing 50% of everything shouldn't be celebrated as being a huge achievement it's so bloody undermining to women

So sorry to hear that crack.

Exp thought he needed a medal because he changed nappies. He works away for a month at a time but didn't feel he needed to do all the nappies when he was at home (doing nothing)
I know what wife work is but I think I will cry if I read it

I agree bling. It has to be men and women who share the "parenting impact" at work if in a two parent two job family.

This attitude is totally prevalent. I work in the City and it infuriates me how in the team there are a couple of women who have to leave to do nursery pick up a few days a week (not every day - they tend to have dh's or mums etc who help too) and while there isn't a huge issue with it, there's definitely a sense of "oh, xx can't do that because she has to pick up dc" ie it's a hardship for everyone. Which is ridiculous. One of the men comes in late twice a week because he takes his dc to school those days. And honestly you'd think he was a freaking saint, "oh yy has to take kids to school but do t worry, he'll sort it out as soon as he's back. He's such a committed father,".

And what annoys me the most is that I wish more me. Did what he did but that it wasn't so weird and that women who don't didnt get penalised for it.

We don't have DCs yet, but DH is much better around the house than most of our male friends (as in, he does 50%, they generally do about 20% ).

My view is that this doesn't make my DH spectacularly great. It makes all the other DHs spectacularly crap.

I do appreciate what he does and thank him for it, but then I also expect to be appreciated and thanked when I do stuff for us both.

I live in an area where men often do this I know a fair few singke dads with full custody and other than an odd few most are confident going out on their own with kids.No one here thinks its impressive,its just normal

this is really interesting and winds me up massivley despite the fact that I'm sure I will have done it myself AND the fact that I do more housework and child related things than DH. It is so ingrained. I just hope we can counter this before my DS and DD grow up.

Related - recently I ahve noticed that DH and DS go off and do "boy" things while DD and I stay at home and do "girl" things, well "wife" things. This has grown out of DH taking DS out to burn off some energy while I had a lazier day with baby DD. But she's older now and so we actually have to work to reverse that. DH is starting to take them both rock climbing and is trying to teach her to ride a bike so he can take both of them out cycling.

Recently we went on holiday. One morning DH took our baby down to breakfast so I could lie in for an hour (after I'd got up, fed the baby changed him etc so not actually a lie in and had been up numerous times in the night which he hadnt but y'know). You'd have sworn he deserved a father of the year award the way the staff and other holiday makers reacted.

And TellyBug many women object loudly to their male partners doing little with housework and childcare, although not all. But sometimes the only solution a woman has is to leave her male partner or put up with the situation. Of course it doesnt make for a happy relationship, but it is not easy to leave if you are a mother with young children.

Yes I have seen this in action many times. Men praised, although not usually to their faces, for doing tasks that women do and nobody comments.

Because women are "supposed to" do these things and be good mothers; whereas fathers are somehow being heroic for doing exactly the same.

BeeBee these are young men I'm talking about.

But why should they bother if mum is a mug and does it all herself?

Since DS was born we've heard this lots. It drives DH more mad than me, it's demeaning to both the mother and father.

Tellybug- Maybe its the younger generation of dads are way more hands on but in our nursery dads in their teens/20s are always picking the kids up.Men are always on their own in town with young children.I think more men are hands on than not nowadays.

Men always 'babysit' don't they?

I think women are their own worst enemy here. I don't have any DC yet but my friends (of friends really) attitudes beggar belief. They are the sole carers and occasionally their partners help out. Occasionally. Nursery drop offs and pick ups are always their domain and the kids are never picked up by dad. If DC falls ill and needs to be picked up from nursery c it's mum who leaves work to do it. The fact DC also has a dad that could pick them up never occurs to mum. Women in my team at work see just as bad. "Oh DP's boss won't let him out of work..." Has DP even asked his boss? I can't imagine any of them would ever consider dad taking some time off work for child rearing. The very very rare occasion these women need their DPs to pick their children up after work, the men almost always let them down. And the women just shrug their shoulders.

This shit will not fly when DP and I seed.

It drives me bananas.

Cantthink, you are right, it is patronising.

This rings a bell. DH is okay round the house and had chores to do as a child, but when his stepmum moved in she designated them as "women's work" and took over (she also overfeeds men but that's a whole other issue).

I was complaining about him not being more hands on to her once and she snapped: "Well, at least he doesn't hit you. My ex used to beat me up or rape me twice a week!". I just felt so gobsmacked and sorry for her, that she honestly thought that a relationship that didn't involve violence was as good as it gets and that I should do more than my share without a murmur and be grateful for any "help" I get.

Poor woman. She thinks that running around after FIL is brilliant after her ex.

Kerala - that rings a bell with me.

I found the different attitudes to myself and my DH helping out in school, by the predominantly female staff, quite interesting.

Due to our DD having quite severe problems at the time we took it in turns to do stints as unpaid TAs. It was almost laughable the way DH was treated; regular hot drinks brought to him, staff-room biscuits, congratulated regularly on how amazing he was to be giving up his time. The response to me was polite and helpful no more - giving up my time was much more expected.

The truth was, it was more of a big deal for DH to give up his time than me as he is freelance and there was no income that month, whereas I'm a SAHM, but the staff didn't know that - I could have been taking time out from a career.

Even if I had, I still think it would have received less comment - mothers are assumed to be the primary carer no matter what other obligations they may have, whilst society seems to still be a bit in awe of fathers for just being competent.