AIBU as a father to expect to take my 2 1/2 year old daughter away for the weekend?

[Rob92004]

I would like to to take my 2 1/2 year old daughter to stay with my brother, his wife and their 4, 6 & 8 year old children for a weekend.
My wife will not let me take her claiming she is too sensitive and I cannot care for her properly (We have been married 7 years, and I am 44 fit and healthy!)
All opinions appreciated! Thanks.

What reason is she giving you for not wanting you to take her Rob?

Why do you have to get up in the night for a 2.5 year old, doesn't she sleep through now? Is this a part of the problem with the sensitive issue? It would help if you could tell us your DW's reasons or excuses.

Quite simple really. Wife is a SAHM. In her subconcious, If you take the child away for the weekend you have underminded her role as principle carer despite the fact there is a younger child for her to project on to.

I can't be doing with all this 'mummy is right' bollox. Equal parenting is what is called for.

Other peoples relationships are complex hence not really worth delving into too deeply as you will only ever get one side on any forum. As this forum is female dominated you will get female opinions - and a slight flick through other threads should tell you that there is a certain subsecion of this board that are absolute man-haters. Why they bother with men, other than as sperm doners and cheque books is beyond me.

Don't split hairs, nancy!

I'm interested to hear that the DW is starting nursery in September!

Thanks for the update of info, Rob, but what I'd like to know is what your DW's reaction to the posts on here is. Have they moved the discussion between you on in a positive way? Or is she still anti the whole idea?

Is there a particular reason your DW is not included in this weekend visit? Why aren't you all going together as a family?

Perhaps your DW isn't explaining herself very well - perhaps she has a strong bond with her DD and can't bear to be seperated for the weekend and so is making excuses?

mitmoo my 5.5 yo still rarely sleeps through...

Sorry, haven't had time to read the whole tread, but some thoughts (as a man who was a SAHP and took and takes his kids to family on both sides a lot).

Obviously you'll cope, can't see the worry. Different places will have different routines anyway, that's part of the point of going away. Might be better to go somewhere closer for a bit just in case, but as you say have to start somewhere.

But my experience, particularly of taking kids to my partner's parents, was that the strange inverse world of male parenting applies. If you cope, everyone will think you're ace. If things go wrong, it will be her fault. And her not being there may be seen in itself as evidence of her failings as a Mum, or decried as a huge shame. Basically, it's a lose-lose for her, and the fact it's your family only makes it worse, and perhaps harder for her to talk about.

I think a lot of reassurance is justified-not just about care of your DD, but about care for your wife, about what you'll say, stress and how you'll protect her from all this in her absence.

Sorry if this has all been said before. YmaybeBU.

Sorry. It's just that what you're doing in some ways is the 'junket' of childcaring.

If you want to relieve pressure on your wife, try and take a morning off work and take your daughter to an environment (mother and baby group?) she is familiar with and where your wife's status as Mum is unquestioned. Take her to the Health Visitor, the shops on a Saturday afternoon. Build the trust, not with your DD but maybe with your wife?

If things go wrong, YOU KEEP QUIET ABOUT IT!!!!!

It isn't lose lose! How can she be held responsible if she isn't there? He isn't 'ace' if it goes well, he is just being a normal parent for his own DC.
It is the old double standard. One parent can do whatever she likes with 'her sensitive DC' and the other has to get approval from 'senior management'.

not with your DD but maybe with your wife

I can't believe this thread!! Why on earth are you having DCs with a man and continuing to live with him if you can't trust him with his own 2 yr old?!!

troisgarcons very good point well made. A lot of women have a martyr/control complex when it comes to their children, they have a baby and it brings out the worst in them.

I'm quite a controlling person, some of the things my Mum does when she's with the dcs does my head in, too much TV, flapjacks, cakes,crisps, ice cream at every opportunity etc. BUT they love her, her and my Dad dote on them and I can turn a blind eye to a day of cbeebies if it means me and dh get a much needed bloody break from time to time.

@exoticfruits

The question is not 'is she responsible if not there', but whether she senses that this is how she might be treated. Because I sure as buggery think it is how mothers, especially SAHMs, are treated, and I never even suffer from it (just look up thread-if child is sensitive it is her sensitivity to blame).

Look, I've both stayed at home when an SAHP while my partner took the eldest away, and taken the eldest away. This is how I think the weekend might look:

Dad goes off with daughter. There are three adults who are friends in a child-friendly environment and the children entertain each other and have a great time. When they are asleep laughs, reminiscences and the odd drink are had by all adults. Everyone, including the daughter, is happy.

Mum stays at home with the breast-feeding baby. She talks to no other adult all weekend, perhaps indeed nobody since she has a pre-verbal child. She is physically knackered (I was just paranoid about the EBM running out), totally alone and unable to turn off in any way.

And on top of that she may sense that he is viewed as a bit of a hero (look up thread, it's all 'perfectly lovely' and 'really kind'). And he is certainly more likely to be be seen that way because a man and because it is his family. And he had all week for adult interactions and for a role other than as a parent, and she hasn't.

And so you have a really toxic mix where the parent who is suffering most is precisely the one who is seen as being treated exceptionally well, almost indulged by an OP who works so she can stay at home (interesting way of putting it, given parental care has been decided on she is also staying at home so he can be in employment)

What worries me most is that I can imagine many valid reasons why she is pissed off, and he can see none. And I'm a total emotional idiot.

@exocticfruits (again, sorry connection crashed)

You also misunderstood the point you quoted in bold. I wasn't suggesting that she needed to trust how he would treat the kids, more how he might treat her and her role in his life in that situation. I've walked the tightrope from his end, been patted on the head and told how good I am and how lucky DP is, and it takes trust to let someone represent you in this way, and a belief that they do understand your life and role.

Look, basically what I find so weird about this is that it reads like a divorce thread. Why? Because both partners (as reported by the OP) are arguing about their rights, their relationship with the child and about the child's happiness, and never talking about what they want. The OP has never once asked 'why is the reasonable person I love being so seemingly unreasonable, what is missing in my understanding of her life, can MNers help me, how do I raise the issue?', or even said what he thinks the weekend will be like for him. Instead he's spent the thread constructing a rational, cogent argument for her BU, so he can point her to it when he brings the glass of water after she's breastfed the youngest.

I've never given birth, I've never breastfed, I've never been a mother, so I have no way of understanding directly what she feels. But I'd be trying to find out. And if I weren't, and were making the issue into one of my rights and my daughter's happiness without seemingly even trying to understand my DP's motivations, unreasonable is simply the most printable thing I would think it fair to call me.

Perhaps he will do that adele. But first he wanted to know if was being unreasonable in wanting to do what he suggests.

But that depends precisely on what she feels about it in terms of her role as his lover, partner, adult human being, not her role as carer and mother. It isn't a separate question where you build a 'childcare' reasonableness argument and then go on. He is unreasonable to want to leave a struggling partner isolated, he is reasonable to want to give a partner who wants a break from caring for two children the chance to have one.
His partner doesn't have a veto, but she does have a voice other than as a carer.

I didn't think it was about her being isolated at all, I also remember that she doesn't have a problem with the brother. She has been invited, but doesn't want to go, fully understandable with a chaotic household and a new baby. A 2 and half yr old is very different from a new baby and will most likely thrive on a bit of chaos, change of routine and being the centre of attention with older DCs. I would have thought that it would have been lovely to have some quiet time on your own with a baby, time to concentrate on them and not have to make sure that an elder sibling isn't jealous.
OP was merely asking if he was reasonable-sad when a father thinks he might not be reasonable to have 2 nights away with his DC. The overriding impression seems to be that he is quite reasonable.

Obviously it isn't in the DCs interests to get petty, and I'm sure that he wouldn't since he asked the question in the first place, but you have to wonder how DW would feel if she had to ask permission to take her to her mother's and further permission to leave her mother in charge (things she does)or if she had to phone up and say 'is it OK if I take DD to friend x for lunch, the house will be messy and there may be small bits of lego around but I will make sure that I am not to busy chatting to watch her'. I bet OP would be called controlling or worse-and yet he is expected to do this.

Unless you have extensive experience with babies, both parents learn together. Apart from bfeeding they can both do it all, I don't know why men let themselves be sidelined by the mother-who suddenly appears to be the 'expert' telling him how to do this that or the other. When mine was 2yrs I went away for a week with my eldest and left DH at home with the 2 yr old. He was an equal parent-I didn't need to leave instructions as if he was a 16yr old babysitter!
If the 2 yr old wasn't happy to be left then I would have had to make sure that he did lots alone with daddy to build up-not say 'he can't cope without me'. I'm sure that a lot of women secretly (or maybe not even secretly) love the fact that they are needed and they are the one who can't let go.

Exotic- don't know about you but I'm loving the way this thread is going!

First of all, the nay sayers are darkly predicting all the things which will go wrong- dad wont be able to cope etc. Then when it becomes glaringly obvious that dad is actually a perfectly competent hands on father, they start bleating that actually it will all go too well and they'll have a fabulous time and poor mum will be left (through her choice mind you!!) at home feeding the baby.

Dear god.... Only on mumsnet !

Good luck Rob. I think you sound like a fantastic dad and your wife has nothing to worry about.

I speak as a mum of 2boys,4 and 6, who are currently on holiday with their Dad...I am joining them at the end of the week as I have less holiday. It is wierd being on my own and the house is very quiet...but there is a bit of me that could get used to it from time to time!

I'm sure that half the problem with mothers wanting to keep their DCs 'sensitive' is that Dad might cope brilliantly, the DC has a ball and is proved not to be 'sensitive' at all.
I went to stay with my aunt when my brother was born, my aunt had to come in the middle of the night and take me home in the morning. All this was early and not according to plan. My parents were worried, I was a home lover, and they hadn't prepared me. I had a lovely time and wasn't keen to go home! I had 3 older cousins, on school holiday who entertained me-a baby brother was a poor sustitute.
When I had a young baby, being home alone with them would have been bliss.

exoticfruits

"I'm sure that a lot of women secretly (or maybe not even secretly) love the fact that they are needed and they are the one who can't let go."

Nail on the head, clearly they do! they think being "the mother" gives them some sort of innate seniority and expertise, it's bandied about non stop in our society. All about "only Mum will do" and "mothers instincts" and the claptrap that people like Oliver James spouts. We are all conditioned into bowing down at the sanctum of the supreme household being ie "the mother" and you see threads on here where dads are treated like intruder alien paedophiles at baby and toddler groups.

Women do themselves no favours whatsoever with this, I've heard a woman recently when handed her toddler screaming by his dad after a failed attempt at a father son walk, in that intensely grating faux woe is me (barely concealed smug self-satisfaction) "oh dear! only i will do it seems!". Woemn actively cultivate this in some instances.

I'm constantly being told how "lucky" I am because dh does bathtime/trips to park/cooking meals/full weekends without me with kids. His male friends exclaim in disbelief. If he is alone local mums flock round him to make sure he can "cope". But no one ever says that to me when it's the other way round.

He's just explained because the house is a mess and she doesn't want to take a 3 month old there. You need to tell her you will be taking her and you will be coping. I'm not sure why your wife feels she can grant you permission. You share parental responsibility.

"oh dear! only i will do it seems!"

And they love it! There is a smug way of saying 'my DC won't go anywhere without me' as if this is a good thing-rather that giving their DC the confidence to go out without them.