To be sick of women's attitudes about their oh's competenence with their children?

[rhondajean]

My blood is boiling! Come tell me I am being totally unreasonable.

In the last week I have read countless threads all of which focused on fathers perceived inability to take care of their own children, make decisions a out parenting, basically be an adult.

I can't decide whether half on MN is married/living with idiots or whether there is such a level of arrogance among some women that they cannot accept they are not irreplaceable to their little darlings for a couple of hours, or even days.

C'mon, slap me down!

Hop if he is unwilling to take responsability for his own children then he is failing as a parent. What is depressing is the number of posters asking if it is ok to leave the kids with a parent at x age for the first. There is an underlying assumption that the parent will not cope based on gender not experience.

hopandskip when 2 people have parental responsibility then nobody 'can put my foot down'

As someone who does about 30-40% of the childcare in our house (as well as a ton of other stuff, before I get accused of not pulling my own weight) there is nothing hard about looking after two toddlers as a man (or as is sometimes charmingly written on these threads "owning a penis"). On the other hand, it is certainly true that men get less support in this area. When I used to take them to things like "Gymboree" etc, it was remarkable how often all the mothers headed off for coffee together afterwards and the one or two guys were just left there (and I am not a shrinking violet).

What is very hard, though, is for someone who does 5% of the childcare to be able to parent as well as someone who does 95%. It is a question of both practice and also knowing what foods are currently in favour, favourite TV shows, which cuddlies have special significance etc etc. I do have huge sympathy for fathers or mothers who work full time with a stay at home partner who are suddenly expected to "man up" and take children that they don't know very well for extended periods.

Some women are responsible for enabling the lazy and selfish behaviour of their husbands.
It's not luck to have a partner who is a decent and competent human being - it's making the right choice in the first place, if a man is incapable of looking after himself, cooking, washing/ironing etc. he will not make a good partner or parent. If he thinks that housework/child care are "womens' work", he will not make a good parent.

It really is that simple - choose an emotionally mature man who respects women and you won't have a problem.

I've read a lot of those posts too and just thought, 'what's the worst thing that could happen?' And any woman who tries to reduce/control contact with a separated Dad, especially if citing supposed 'useless parenting' as a reason is a selfish, arrogant bitch, imo.

I hope men are capable of looking after babies/children because I wouldn't accept anything less than 50/50.

hopandskip what is this 'danger' you speak of?? We are talking everyday situations here... Not necessarily abusive.... Just regular stuff!

I think the sort think like Hectate, that it should always and everywhere be 50-50, is shortsighted and dictatorial, and actually a bit silly.

What is wrong with people having a different set up to your own? For a lot of couples it works well to have a division based on the individual's strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes rather than a strict 50-50 division.

The idea that there is only ONE way to live, and that everyone should live like this shows a serious lack of open mindedness, imo

It does not bother me at all how other people divide the chores. Their choice. i am interested in reading about different ways, but do not believe that the ne and nly way to do things is my way.

Surely if someone is so irresponsible and incapable that they aren't a safe parent - that will have been obvious about them long before they had children?

They won't have been able to hold down a job, perform tasks that require fine motor skills, cross a road without getting knocked over, make decisions, keep themselves safe, wash up...

If someone manages to keep themselves safe and sound and is a functioning adult - they can look after a child! If they aren't a fully functioning adult - that will be apparent before someone chooses to have children with them!

I do not accept that someone who can hold down a job, cross the road, drive a car, make a meal, make decisions about their own life, use a computer, manage a bank account, iron a shirt... can't look after a child.

and if they can't do those things - How the hell did they persuade someone to breed with them? you'd have to be a grade A masochist to hitch your wagon to someone who couldn't master even basic skills!

Chandon. you make me laugh.

Do you think that 50/50 means that I take half the ironing and he does the other half? Or I peel half the potatoes and leave the other half in the sink for him to do?

tomorrow, I shall hoover half the living room and leave out the vacuum cleaner for him to do the other half.

Hecate and mother inferior are spot on.

My DC's have a very good time with DH when I go away for the weekend.

But it's still true that I spend a lot more time with them than he does, and am mainly responsible for both their everyday needs and making decisions which affect them.

He brings in more of the money which is an important contribution too, and is good for speciality help such as with the computer.

He's better at tidying than me too - but tends to save that for special occasions such as before a party. Still useful though !

George, I'm not talking about my situation, I'm talking about parents who are irresponsible.
Anifrangapani, you don't know these poster's situations though. Maybe the father was reluctant while the baby was young (as a lot of fathers I've known are to begin with), or is seperated and hasn't got round to seeing the child much, or maybe the father has acted in a way that has concerned the mother slightly about safety or awareness.
I don't see an assumption about fathers who have been very involved from the beginning (50/50 like someone else said it should be).

Exp is quite useless with our dc, not very hands on, cant seem to feed them anything other than a sandwich or happy meal. Doesn't do anything with them apart from watch a dvd. When we were together he wouldn't lift a finger around the house, expected a lift home from work but dinner to be on the table as soon as he got in which wasn't easy as i was the one dragging the dc out to pick him up from work.

New dp is great though, hands on with the dc, actually gets off of the sofa to play games with them, runs around the house playing hide and seek with the dc. Almost had a lie in this morning as dp offered to get up when the kids woke up. Helps around the house and he doesn't even live here and they are not his dc.

Maybe yabu a bit, but think some men really don't bother. I know of a few married couples where the husband thinks his only role is to go to work to earn money, gets back home expecting to be fed straight away, then will sit down to play computer games and not even interact with the children.

I agree Hecate, why some women breed with such useless lumps of flesh is beyond me.

It's rubbish to suggest that you don't know what kind of partner or parent someone will be , their family set-up and their circle of friends is a fairly good guide and if you don't know their attitudes towards child care and housework then you have no business setting up home with them.

I completely agree. My DH is a fabulous father who takes his parenting responsibilities very seriously, and enjoys it. I think he's the more natural parent out of the two of us, tbh. But we complement each others strengths and weaknesses as well. He does just as much round the house as me as well. I'm not lucky, this should be normal, surely. It's sad that it isn't.

I've just been in hospital for a few days and the number of people who asked me who was looking after my DS was phenomenal. His father, of course, who else? [N.B. I appreciate this isn't a given for LPs].

The hospital stay has also demonstrated that he can, in fact, use a washing machine, despite his protestations to the contrary. I'm sure I'd work out how the oven operated if our situations were reversed though...

I think a lot of women are very anal about how the DCs should be looked after. Anything their DPs, DMILs etc do differently is automatically wrong.

I think it's actually a symptom of their lack of confidence in their abilities, not their DPs.

DH more than pulls his weight here. Where does MN stand on the DH who continually rings the DW at work because he doesn't know what to do with his DS or what to give him to eat/when and what size nappies to buy?

My husband and I do things 50/50, but within that we have our own rolls. house work is split. He works full time I work agency now. My job would always have to come second to his. If he is off work his secretary has to scrabble around trying to cancel clinic appointments and then face the fairly understandable complaints of the patients who turn up and can't be seen.

I do trust him with our children but his father was not an ideal parent and he worries he would follow the same patterns. He takes them out alone ( one at a time)happily and would be ok overnight but he wouldn't chose to if it could be avoided.

If something happened to me I have no doubt he would fly his mum or sister over to help

Not in this house. DP was a SAHD for a year (I went back to work after 8 weeks). He's brilliant with DD and we are totally interchangable.

Hecate how do you decide on what consists half the potatoes - number, weight, volume or surface area.

I want to stress bela, that I mean can't and not won't. I don't believe there are men who can't. And I believe that if they can't - that will be obvious from the start.

However, there are those who won't. And that won't necessarily be obvious. They will start off being great. Useful, competent - and you won't see the lazy arse that thinks it's your job until they've got you barefoot and pregnant!

I am talking about this idea that men cannot. Physically cannot be a competent parent, or as competent. That is a big load of hairy bollocks.

Ani.

It's half when I say it's half