to think people should be able to cope with their own children alone?

[alisunshine29]

I have two daughters aged 5.5 years and 9 months and can and do do everything with/for them. I have friends with similar aged children who wouldn't dream of giving the kids a bath/taking them swimming /shopping/out for the day without their husband or mum there to 'help They also expect husband/mum to take kids if they're ill themselves/take time out to help with kids if they're ill. AIBU to think it's a bit daft if a parent can't cope with their kids and basic day to day things alone?

bunbaker sounds like your dh has a pretty good deal there.

Seriously though. Is it poss to take two tinies swimming without help?

My DP works away during the week.
I'm just recovering from the flu - debilitating flu, literally could not get out of bed.
My 4yoDD spent three days this week sat next to me in my bed eating cream crackers or whatever she could find in the fruit bowl.
My aunt and uncle live locally but they were too busy to help.
In the end my MIL traveled three hours to come and stay with us so that my DD could eat.

OP, what the f?

i wouldn't even think of taking my two small children swimming without another adult (at the swimming pool we use sometimes, a four year old drowned last year: he had gone swimming with his father and 7 year old sister and his father was distracted by his sister briefly). but i probably qualify for scorn because i found it extremely difficult to do the bedtime alone when the youngest was under one and bf. 2.9 year age gap, stroppy dd1, and i am not naturally organised.

yabu for thinking everybody is the same as you, and all children are the same as yours.

YABVU

Surely you have the imagination to figure out that everyone has different children/coping thresholds/family set-up/health situations?

There is also the fact that your oldest child is in school, which effectively means you have one child to cope with for a fair chunk of the working week. That's very different to someone with a 2 year old and a baby, for example.

I have a 3 1/2 year old and a 1 year old. DP works away at least 4 nights a week and I work 3 days and squeeze some freelance work in around the kids. I find it hard going. Yes, I can manage bedtime/bath-time/meals on my own, but when I do have another pair of hands around it makes things much more pleasant.

For example, DS2 tends to wake around the time I get up for work and will quite often start screaming blue-murder to be got up. So I'm trying to sort out breakfast for DS1, get myself dressed, get DS2's milk ready to a backdrop of hysterical screaming - this does not make mornings restful. Add to that the fact that DS2 has usually done an epic poo which needs sorting before breakfast, while he thrashes and wails because he's hungry, and the fact that DS1 will be yelling in the background that he can't find his spiderman t-shirt, it's a wonder we actually leave the house at all!

When DP is home, the morning is positively pleasant.

The swimming thing - I've only recently started taking them both on my own because I've found a pool that has no deep-end and DS1 is confident enough to splash about while I tow DS2 around with armbands or in a seat. Getting ready afterwards is still pretty stressful though.

Having said that, I do know some people who simply choose not to cope alone. It's not that they can't - it's that neither of them want to. They simply don't like looking after their children alone and will guilt-trip family into helping out so that they can do other things. But that's slightly different - it's more a case of trying to get out of looking after their children at all, never mind single-handed.

YANBU.
I have 4 children and DH works away in the week. Some people do seem very dithery. I do the best I can, just get on with it.

I didnt know you had another baby kungfuu - how lovely [whispers whilst wearing mackintosh - It is I, omni]

OP you are being a bit smug and/or jealous which is not a good combo.

However I will tell you what does annoy me as am in that sort of mood and work is not going well - women who cant do anything at the weekend on their own because their partners or dhs cant look after both dc. So if they are away for example then the dh is unable to take their child to a party as its all too much. Thats DOES annoy me. Mostly because I then have to take 3 dc to the party - picking up useless partners child on the way.

I understand where OP is coming from.

Some people do have expectations and a learnt entitlement. It's similar to that age group of women who never learnt to drive and expect everyone to squire them round. Because their husbands acted as chauffeur, they stand by the car not even opening the door, won't attempt to navigate and sit there like the Queen. They expect to be helped, just as some parents have every expectation that granny or whoever will come to all appointments, shopping, provide infinite childcare etc.

But OP included people who are ill. Illness. i.e; I just spent three days with flu unable to get out of bed or feed/care for my daughter. Sorry did I lose the competition of Supermum because I allowed MIL to travel down to stay with us so that my daughter could eat something decent.

AIBU to say to my 16.5 year old daughter that she can't smoke in our house? and that if I find tobacco etc in our house I will bin it?

OP, Two of my children are similar ages to yours and tbh it is a pretty easy age gap. Babies are simple and a nearly 6 year old can be reasoned with and pretty reliable behaviour wise too.

I also have a independent 2 yo and a cuddle bug 4 yo (who takes more parenting than the other three put together !)

I take my four out on my own on school runs, shopping, kids park etc but I also enjoy going out with my parents and DH.

I think it boils down to, if you are use to doing things on your own, it is no big deal but if you are lucky enough to have help, it can be taunting to initially do without it.

I have to take my four everywhere on my own, often on foot. So I am practised in doing this and I have my ways of handling this number of children (using a combinations of slings, reins, prams, threats and treats)

However my husband worries about taking four out on his own and prefers to take two of the older ones if he has a choice, lol.

I'm with mummabug. In fact we've had the same week it sounds like. I am just starting to recover from flu now, on Tuesday afternoon my son (8 months) was sat in the living room on his own watching a sing and sign DVD while I hurled into the loo. The following day my MIL came to give me some respite and ds some attention.

But do please disapprove of me OP for accepting help rather than being a complete martyr!! And I only have one dc too, don't know my luck do I!!!

When my mother used to come down to see us, she made things ten times worse by sitting on her fat arse wanting to be waited on hand and foot while she moaned on about everyone else in the family behind their backs.

I used to so envy people with actual help. But not people who just have mothers in tow.

Depends. Sometimes people need a hand.

But a good friend of mine has one and when she's going to be gone for the weekend, her DH takes their DD to his mom's for the weekend to "have some help". I roll my eyes every time.

I agree with the op somewhat.

I had my first child, (DS) when I was 21 years old. He is disabled and needed a lot of extra care and I just got on with it, we lived our lives and visited my parents as and when, but it was just that, visiting.

I now am a single Mum to two children, both with disabilities and I receive a little extra help from my parents when they're having operations etc but other than that I live my life and look after my childen and enjoy having them.

I have friends who are in their 30s who've only just had their first child and rely frequently on their parents help as they cannot manage.

On of them had both parents move in for two months when she had her first child, she has a husband who helps too.

This same friend will go to her parents house all the time with her husband and both of them leave the parenting of their child up to her mother and they have their meals cooked for them by her and don't lift a finger to do anything themselves.

This friends mother is always complaining to my Mum about the situation, yet does nothing to rectify it. I should imagine my friend just tells everyone "What's wrong with having help if it's there?" I doubt she thinks about her frazzled mother who simply cannot cope with the extra work and stress they all give her.

I have a lot of friends who are similar and don't understand it at all. Surely you bring up your own child and have your parents as grandparents not unpaid childcare?

YABU with your comments about the ill bit. I had flu when DD was 9 months old. Not just a heavy cold but proper real flu there is no way I could have cared for a baby in that state. DH had just had 3 weeks off work with it so couldnt help and my parents were back packing round India . Luckily my aunt and uncle took DD and I in and we stayed with them for a week. Dont know what I would have done otherwise. Not had help before or since but really needed it then. I would challenge the OP to care for a baby in the state I was in....

I had my children with only an 18 month gap in age and husband worked long shifts and weekends. Had no relatives or anyone that I could ask to help out even when I was ill with flu so just had to do my best and cope alone. So I do find it a bit bad when people feel that they are entitled to have their mothers come and help when they themselves want to take to their beds. If your mum offers then that is different but if she has her own life and is busy then that is fair enough too. Our parents have already done their fair share of parenting and its their time now to enjoy the rest of their life and if that means spending lots of time with you and their grandkids then that is lovely but if they want to go off and discover themselves.....well that is perfectly acceptable too.

I think its sad when people use words like "entitled" in relation to families helping each other out when in real need like illness. Bizarre.

This thread is a bit loopy (liking Cory's sane posts though).

The OP has posted before about her DP. She has posted about a rather grim situation with her DP and his young children from a former marriage (custody issues, he's doing nothing to resolve them, so consequently is simply not seeing his children. At all. One horrible thread with the OP describing him literally hiding at a swimming pool as he realised those kids might be there. www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/a1690921-to-think-this-waa-an-awful-way-to-behave-re-estranged-DSC )

She has posted before about the fact she does pretty much everything with the kids, and wondering if she should ask him to do more.

And about the fact that she would like another baby but as her DP would not contribute any extra household costs with her not working, the baby would have to go to nursery at a very young age.

You know what? This isn't about what other people do. It never was. The OP is quietly bloody terrified that her DP isn't sufficiently engaged with their children - and if things go wrong, she and the children will be as easily 'detached' from his life as his first lot were.

I don't blame her. I'd be worried too.

I'm permanently ill... disabled actually. I can't cope with my two children alone, in fact I employ someone to do the majority of the childcare tasks, as well as to do the house work etc. I can't take my daughter out alone and I avoid going anywhere with the kids unless I have a companion.

I'm a great mum though. I adore my children.

Rainrainandmore rain

I agree

Actually... it is worth (if anyone can bear it) struggling through that earlier thread from the OP about her DP.

To be fair, she posts initially to say she thinks he should be making some sort of effort to see his young children from previous marriage - she is unhappy about the fact he is doing nothing and has dropped all contact.

However - as the thread goes on, she makes a lot of excuses for him (it all seems to be the ex's fault, wouldn't ya know - despite virtually everyone on that thread being upset and angry that with these children only 50 miles away, he seems to think it is impossible to see them and makes no effort at all).

Anyhoo - the weird thing is, THE OP'S PARTNER AND FATHER OF HER BABY DOES NOT LIVE WITH HER. He seems to be living in some sort of work related accommodation nearby - and staying over from time to time.

That's why she's doing everything herself, with hardly any help from her dp.

This is one unhappy lady, trying hard to normalise a relationship that has an awful lot wrong with it.

OP

On 24 th Feb you said you were coping alone a lot and were exhausted.

You have some serious cognitive dissonance going on and are trying to make out that it is other families who are not functional.

rain did you mean your post to come across as bullying? I think the op sounds very reasonable on that other thread. Still can't be bothered to read the whole of this one though

I had a two year old and a newborn and a husband who was away from the home for 14 hours a day and parents and PILS 250 miles away who worked full time. I coped alone, because I had no choice, bit there were days I would have almost killed for a half hour break! However, my DH was very good at the weekends so every weekend I got an "afternoon off" while he had both kids and a lie in on one weekend day! He got the same.

Of course I expect my husband to take care of our children when I'm ill.