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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Really cross - fathers don't "help" with their own children..

96 replies

Hawkmoon269 · 14/07/2012 06:11

I have been up since 4am with OUR baby. Baby is fine, just wide awake. Have now given in and got up for the day.

DH will "help" later by "letting" me lie down for half an hour. He will then make me wish I hadn't as he'll spend the rest of the day telling me how exhausting it was having both dc at the same time ON HIS OWN.

Tonight I will want to go to bed early but he'll try to persuade me to stay up and "chat".

If I'm really lucky, he'll get up with our baby tomorrow morning. But will then be "exhausted" all day and bloody bang on about it.

Grrrrrrrr.........

OP posts:

DrDolittle · 14/07/2012 09:16

AThingInYourLife - what I am shocked about is that there are so many of them out there. Just reading through the relationships thread (as well as AIBU) says a lot - many many barstewards out there, procreating then fcuking off to someone else's arms to start the whole cycle again. Kids are so much fun (when they are not being little sods) - they really don't know what they are missing :-(

MissPants · 14/07/2012 09:20

Are you me OP?! wonders if I name changed and posted this and forgot

4am feed this morning with DS and he wanted to play till 7. Managed to get him to drop off and decided to slide back into bed in the hope of another hour before my other 4 DC woke. Managed 30 minutes before DS woke hungry but hope sprung when DH woke too and announced he needed to pee, so I asked him to sort a bottle on the way back...
He appears with bottle still cold having barely hit hot water cos he couldn't be arsed to wait for it to warm, thrusts said bottle at me and throws himself back into bed. Maybe I was expecting too much for him to offer to feed baby at 20 to bloody 8 in the morning! Too tired to even manage a glare.

YANBU!

Sargesaweyes · 14/07/2012 09:20

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

MrsMangoBiscuit · 14/07/2012 09:30

My DH is also crap in the mornings. He's just not a morning person, whereas I am. I am usually up well before DD, then sneak back later up to bring her down without waking DH, 6 days a week. On Sunday, he will get up with her, if I want a lie in, I get one, if not I get a few hours to myself. DH will also help with night wakings, and mucks in equally at the weekends. Not being a morning person is no excuse to shirk your responsibilities as a parent.

redwhiteandblueeyedsusan · 14/07/2012 09:32

once, pils came to dig chunks out of the ceiling help with diy. fil/h went out with dd age 18m or so. (not walking so in pushchair) when they got back, h thanked his dad for coming as it is boring looking after them on my own

silence and tumble weed and opend mouth shock followed.

he was forever saying he had changed a nappy for me. really? i am pretty sure I do not wear nappies

AThingInYourLife · 14/07/2012 09:54

DrDo - are there really so many? Or does MN give a skewed perspective?

Certainly I don't know any men like this. Although I live in the most homophobic place in Europe (so they say) and I don't know any homophobes.

I get accused of being a man hater from time to time because of my disdain for this kind of inexcusable laziness.

But selfishness, laziness, uselessness, childishness are not attributes I associate with being a man. Experience tells me that men are hardworking, resourceful and responsible.

So confronted with such utter failures of human beings I feel nothing but disgust.

And I always wonder, "how do they feel when they look at themselves in the mirror?"

How do you lie in bed while your wife runs herself ragged looking after your children and not confront your utter worthlessness?

Huansagain · 14/07/2012 09:58

I don't think you can use the Relationship boards on here as an example of real-life.

As its 99% women posting, and women who are having problems.

I'm one of the 1%.

BertieBotts · 14/07/2012 10:01

No, but not every mumsnetter is posting on the Relationships board and yet there are still many women posting who are experiencing this. I think it is very common and I think that's sad :(

AThingInYourLife · 14/07/2012 10:03

It's not just Relationships though.

Lazy fucker husbands are a common theme across MN, and mostly not considered to be a proper problem.

Because they don't "get it" or "see dirt" or whatever ridiculous excuse is made to avoid confronting the reality that your spouse is a last, useless twat who treats you as a skivvy.

Original poster

Hawkmoon269 · 14/07/2012 10:07

redwhiteandblue Thank you. That really made me chuckle!

OP posts:

DrDolittle · 14/07/2012 10:14

Yeah maybe MN relationship board isn't representative of the whole population, but there are literally dozens of new posts every day..... But given many people who are with total arses do not post on here, there must be many more than just dozens per day in the real world.....

I don't know any man who fits in the category of "total arse", but who knows what goes on behind closed doors? I can tell you nearly everyone in the infants playground is a woman, that I am the only man at play group with my toddler, very rarely do i see dads with more than one child at a playpark and that the divorce rate is pretty high (and that some of the parents at my daughter's school are divorced/separated). Pretty much, women appear to be the default chld carers - even in my area, which is pretty alfuent. People in my area are surprised that I can cope with two young kids out on my own, many of my friends rarely do this, people on the street make comments like "he wants his mummy" when my toddler is tantroming over me saying he can't have an icecream an hour before lunch.....

So maybe MN isn't representative, but I am pretty convinced that society still sees children as women's work. And I am pretty sure that lack of equity in household jobs, including child care, is contributory to the high divorce rates.

EugenesAxe · 14/07/2012 10:21

NapaCab

It's tiring being a SAHM to two under threes and if my husband didn't do his share at the times we are both in the house I would go nuts. I appreciate the hours he does but my 'job' doesn't end at a specified time... I move off the children and onto the housework when he gets in, and at weekends. Except when I'm moaning on MN

purplesprouting · 14/07/2012 12:03

Dr dolittle, I agree. I have been amazed at the utterly useless fathers and husbands I have found inexplicably married to capable, fab women.

These marriages are or have failed...

I didn't expect this my male friends are fantastic at both roles. I believe very much that we are all as capable as we want to be and that parenting gives us stuff to both enjoy and endure. And on that note I am off to wash more vomity clothes, my dh is off doing the shopping.

5dcsinneedofacleaner · 14/07/2012 12:04

My dh goes t to work in the week (he works for himself though so can go in late etc if needed) so if he were to go in late so that for example i could have a lie in (which he did when the baby was little or if they are ill) then i would class that as heling with them as he would not normally be expected to do that. If he does things with them on the weekend i wouldnt class it as helping as such.

LucieMay · 14/07/2012 12:16

My dad is a lovely kind generous man but my mum did most of the child rearing for all three of us. He had his own business and usually worked six days a week (including weekends) to provide for his family and my mum stayed at home with us until we went to school. Whenever my dad was with us, he was friendly and lovely who talked us and gave us time but he had very little of it- if he wasn't at the shop, he was doing the accounts, paperwork etc. I get on very well now with my dad as an adult and he said the other day that now he is retired and my mum passed away ten years ago he has far more to do with his grandchildren, particularly my son, than he ever had with us when we were small. He said that he sometimes regrets not spending more time with us and working less but I said he didn't need to feel like this, that mum loved looking after us and he worked to give us a stable comfortable upbringing. He was a fantastic hard working role model and gave all of us a hard working ethos. I consider him to be as an important a parent as my mother, just in different ways.

Gay40 · 14/07/2012 12:33

I keep saying it again and again. Stop choosing selfish silly man-children to breed with. Real men do not babysit or help out with their children. Real men parent their children.
Why haven't the ground rules for childcare been agreed beforehand? You don't wake up with a baby, you have months before it arrives to sort this shit out! Why don't you enforce the previously agreed rules when the baby is born.
Why do you put up with these selfish fuckwits?
So do you know why these "men" cannot cope with children on their own? Answer: they can, they just choose not to.

Gay40 · 14/07/2012 12:37

Next piece of advice: if your partner cannot be arsed with your first child, DO NOT have another with him. Find a real bloke.

Moominsarescary · 14/07/2012 15:45

Bloody hell that breed word again

CouthyMow · 14/07/2012 16:29

How I explained it to my Ex-P :

There are 28 man-hours work involved in looking after a DC (or more, 4 in my case) and work outside the home added together in each 24 hours.

There are 24 hours in a day. 8 hours worked by one person outside the home leaves 20 hours work to do in that day. This is more work than there are hours if both parents are to get any sleep.

There should be 8 hours taken off for housework / childcare done alone by the SAHM. that leaves that leaves 12 hours worth of work. Which should be split equally between the two parents, leaving each of them to do an additional 6 hours a day in the home, working together. Night feeds ARE included in the 8 hours a day that the SAHP works alone, if she is BF, thus leaving possibly 6 hours for daytime childcare and housework before the rest should be split equally.

He finally got it when I explained it like that. Over a year after we split up...

Huansagain · 14/07/2012 16:42

I'm glad he understood it.
You've baffled me

inabeautifulplace · 14/07/2012 16:56

Did it take him the whole year to work it out couthy mow?

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