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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to wonder why the hell anyone would stay with a "man" who doesn't "babysit" the dc???

128 replies

WoodlandHills · 03/09/2012 10:46

On saturday night I invited 2 of my female friends round for a few drinks and x-factor

Both in a relationship, both got dc with their dps.

Both their DP's were at home, yet one of my friends bought her dcs with her as her dp didn't want to "babysit" (her words) and the other one didn't come in the end because "her dp won't have the kids" Hmm

I didn't mind my friend bringing her dds, they are sweet little girls and no trouble at all. but I just find it disgraceful that their so called "d"p's won't even have their OWN kids. Its not the first time this has happened either. We went out in town the other week for another friends birthday and she had to ask her MUM to have the girls as her dp wouldn't. so he sat at home kid-free while his MIL had his kids. disgusting.

Reading this back, it sounds so ludicrous to me, like I have made it up Confused if I go out without dc it wouldn't even cross my mind to think DH would mind staying in with the dc, and vice versa.

Oh and this has reminded me of my own personal bugbear as well, ITS NOT BABYSITTING WHEN ITS YOUR OWN DC. Ok useless dads?????

OP posts:
Alibabaandthe40nappies · 03/09/2012 17:27

word I would agree with that.

I'm a SAHM atm, but DH is gone before I'm up in the morning, and when he gets home it is amid the chaos that is toddler and preschooler bedtime. We get perhaps an hour together in the evening, but not even that most days.

nickelcognito · 03/09/2012 17:43

well, at the moment, DD is my PFB, and being EBF, I can't leave her for more than 2 hours at a time!
Grin

I have left her with DH for an evening once when I went belly dancing.
she didn't even notice I was gone, but she did pounce on me for food as soon as I got back.
(previously I had taken her with me so I could feed her if necessary)

But, when term starts back, DH will be in charge for the evening every week.

hopefully, as long as she gets out of this clingy phase - I just went up to the bank and shops and was gone about an hour. She was very annoyingly clingy and whiney for me after about half an hour.

Just discussing it with DH - if she's asleep when I leave (see, we really are in cloud-cuckoo-land at the moment Wink ), then when she wakes up hungry, she'll be really upset.
if she's not, then she will get antsy and bored, hot, bothered and hungry.
I'll be expressing some milk in the next few days (if i can get my boobs to myself for long enough!), and freezing it.

See, this is what we worry about when I need to go out - DD being hungry - as a couple, we are both equally capable of looking after DD.
and equally willing to.

OwlLady · 03/09/2012 17:47

gosh does this really happen? Shock Shock

cybbo · 03/09/2012 17:48

Sometimes it's the women who can't bear to leave their kids or are such control freaks they wont , then blame the husband who is too weak / lazy to say ' you go out, I've got it covered'

OrangeandGoldMrsDeVere · 03/09/2012 17:58

But word that isn't the case for a lot of couples. People are different.
Me and oh have never felt the need to do that.
If anything we see too much of each other.

Why assume what works for one couple will work for another? Why criticise the way they do things?

Oblomov · 03/09/2012 18:02

I agree with cybbo.
I know plently of mums who blame it on their dh/fp.
Then eventually it comes out that these mums refuse to let anyone look after their own children. I find this frighteningly obsessive.
Some women : "didn't have kids to let someone else look after them". By that I mean working different shifts to their partner, so no childcare. But this means no time with their dh/dp. And I don't mean time to time, I mean all the time. So where is the marriage, exactly. The family time? There is none. Sometimes practically none at all. And they do not leave their kids overnight, and they do not hire a baysitter. And it seems very ott child orientated.
But I think this is more common than some of you may realise.

mummyonvalium · 03/09/2012 18:03

This has never happened to me or any of my friends. I am surprised that it happens in this day and age at all.

wordfactory · 03/09/2012 18:05

orange I didn't critisise anyhting.

You're being far too defensive.

TheDoctrineOfEnnis · 03/09/2012 18:08

YANBU.

OrangeandGoldMrsDeVere · 03/09/2012 18:08

I didn't say YOU criticised ME.
Maybe it's you who are feeling a bit defensive :)

2rebecca · 03/09/2012 18:09

None of my friends have husbands like this. I don't see what's wrong with the term babysitting used for your own kids, "I've got to babysit as x is out" is quicker to say than "I've got to look after the kids as x is out". To me if you are looking after kids and can't go out because you are the sole carer you are babysitting regardless of whether the kids are yours or not.

birdofthenorth · 03/09/2012 18:09

I am unsure why people like this of either gender have kids. If you can't occasionally look after them by yourself then wtf wyd I the event of ending up a single parent?

Totally agree re "babysitting". In our house we say mum or dad is "tagged in"(as primary carer) for the night!

0lympia · 03/09/2012 18:09

@ socknickingpixie, yes, in answer to your question. My x would never 'babysit' the children. He comes to see them less and less frequently. I stay out of it. My son can be a bit of a handful and once when their deadbeatdad showed up to take kids out for a pizza, he wanted my mother to come out too, basically to do the grunt work, 'control' my son.

wordfactory · 03/09/2012 18:09

That'll be right orange Grin.

bogeyface · 03/09/2012 18:10

I was shocked when a friend of mine had this problem. But he was an utterly selfish prick anyway, he would go out whenever he felt like it without a word to her, went away on lads holidays etc and then flatly refused to allow her to do anything like that because "who's going to look after the kids?".

I ask H before I go out if its ok with him, in case he has something planned and he does the same with me. But thats courtesy, not asking permission or asking the other to "babysit".

Socknickingpixie · 03/09/2012 18:15

olimpia i was once married to a bloke like that he viewed himself as dad of the year but would only have all his kids togather so the adult one would look after the lo's and the next day he would piss off to golf leaving me with his kids all day till they had to go home, if the mums dared to collect them early he would kick off as it was his time.

thats why we are no longer togather and had no kids togather

PanickingIdiot · 03/09/2012 18:16

He sees parenting as her job, he's just there to (grudgingly) assist.

I have the impression, based on this and many other similar threads on here, that there are many fathers like that. Which begs the question how these blokes end up with kids? Do they want them? Why? Or is it the wife that talks them into having children? Maybe I'll start a thread about it one day, though I'm not sure I'd get honest answers.

ThePieWhoLovedMe · 03/09/2012 18:28

More fool the women who put up with it.

My OH gives me a lift to where I want to go before 'babysitting' (I do the same too!)

expatinscotland · 03/09/2012 18:39

It's like when people refer to a partner pulling his/her weight in life as 'helping'.

Margerykemp · 03/09/2012 18:39

I sometimes wonder if there DCs were unplanned and the men are behaving like this as a kind of passive aggressive revenge.

amothersplaceisinthewrong · 03/09/2012 18:45

Each to their own, but I would not have put up with a DH who would not look after his own kids. From the outset my DH was expected to do his share and stepped up to the plate like a true man. As I bottle fed from the outset, I had a regular night out with friends, afternoon shopping etc et while he babysat and so did he and we could get in babysitters and have grown up time.

bogeyface · 03/09/2012 18:55

Margery you may have a point.

My friends husband was like this when their DDs were small. They were both planned but he said afterwards that he only agreed because she really wanted children and therefore "you wanted them you look after them". He refused to do anything to take care of them, would only let her go out if his dinner was done, the kids were in bed and all the housework done. My ex would cheerfully do all that himself if i was out, I didnt take the piss but we did everything between us and he saw that once he was home, everything was 50/50. My friends husband always referred to him as "Hen Pecked X" until my friend pointed out that my ex got a damned sight more sex than he did because a) I wasnt tired all the time like she was and b) i actually liked my husband whereas she couldnt stand hers :o

They did stay together and now their DD's are grown up he is fine. Personally I would have kicked him to the kerb years ago!

CailinDana · 03/09/2012 19:00

In the case of my friend, their DD was very much planned and wanted, they had to go through fertility treatment to have her. Basically her DH is a dick and she has low self esteem so she puts up with how he treats her. She's had a very tough life and is a lovely lovely person but doesn't know how to stand up for herself at all. She does get annoyed sometimes at how her DH behaves but she puts up with it because if she complains he doesn't listen so the only other option is divorce which at this stage she isn't willing to contemplate. I don't see them lasting another ten years though.

LurkeyLurkerson · 03/09/2012 19:25

Irritates me no end. I have a friend who's currently heavily pregnant, got SPD and exhausted from looking after her energetic two year old, Lucy*

I say to her 'Oh bless you, I hope you stay in bed and get some rest this weekend'

Her husband says (sarcastic tone) 'Oh really, are you coming round to look after Lucy then?'

Me 'Errr, no, that would be your job' Hmm

  • not her real name!
TiggyD · 03/09/2012 20:03

Because some women are idots.