Who is BU, me or DH?

[OxfordBags]

My Dh has asked me to put this to the vote on MN because he thinks I am being silly about something. Here's the problem:

We have a 2.5 yr old. He is a real little worrier, gets quite anxious and timid about stuff and needs a lot of reassurance about quite small things, like someone standing near him in a shop. On of his biggest things is that every night before bed, I have to spend ages reassuring him that animals are not going to come into the bedroom and 'get' him. I don't know where he got this fear from, but it is very real for him.

Anyway, earlier, I went to the loo before we started bedtime, and I came back into the living room to find him showing DS a YouTube video of a crocodile about to attack a baby gazelle. I took the iPad away and pretended it was a game, which DS fell for. I've watched the video since and the attack itself, which DS didn't see, is really brutal, bloody and horrible. Ds has just got a crocodile cuddly toy, and DH's reasoning is that it would be interesting for Ds to see what crocs are like. As though that's the only possible way of finding out more about crocodiles

Dh says IABU for thinking this was a problem. I say he is out of his tiny mind to show such a video to a child of that age full stop, never mind to a tot who has a terror that animals are going to attack him. I must add that DH is an otherwise sensible chap, who is usually quite judgey about stuff like parents letting kids play age-unsuitable videogames, etc. I also pointed out that as it's always me who does the end of bedtime, it's all too easy for him to not worry about Ds being upset, as he won't be the one dealing with it (I don't begrudge doing this for Ds, please don't comment about that).

Who is BU?!

Thanks.

[Bluestocking]

Not looking good forOxfordBags' DH and his Nature Red in Tooth and Claw campaign, is it? I hope he takes note.

[OutragedFromLeeds]

Your DH is an idiot.

[tarantula]

I'm with notanyanymore. DH ever shown ds any similar videos before at all?

[Topseyt]

I am meaning that your husband sounds misguided, by the way. It is unnecessary to scare such a young child with a video like that.

[quesadilla]

DH. I wouldn't show anything like that to my 2.8 year old toddler who is pretty robust. Very odd.

[OutragedFromLeeds]

Wanda Your DP sounds a bit of an idiot too. Nasty cunt? Really?

[Topseyt]

Errrr, misguided yes, but "nasty cunt" is taking it a bit too far.

[OxfordBags]

He wants me to point out that his intention was not to make it clear to Ds that animals hurt and kill each other, just that he didn't think more deeply than "son has crocodile toy. Me show him video of real crocodile'. He had played a game with him where DS pretended to be hiding in the water, and then leapt up and surprised him with a kiss, so he then thought it made 'logical' sense to show him a croc pouncing for real.

He says he is also taking note that everyone is saying what I've said.

[BrokenSunglasses]

Your DH is BU, but I think he sounds nice. He just needs to find some fluff and stop being so anti, because sometimes, little children need it.

[OxfordBags]

No, he has never shown him any videos like that before. I know that for sure. We don't show him much tv or videos, and when we do, it's stuff like a Bagpuss video or some nursery rhymes on YouTube.

And he is not a 'nasty cunt'. He wasn't doing it to try to get a kick out of upsetting him, he just didn't engage brain before he acted. He is, as I've said, normally a very gentle, sensitive and thoughtful father and DH. He has never deliberately upset DS, and indeed, I don't think he has ever actually upset him full stop. He was a thoughtless idiot to not think deeply enough about the choice of vid, but he was, and is not nasty.

[pictish]

It was an ill thought out thing to do, but not malicious.
However, he should have conceded that straight away, instead of powering ahead with the I-am-right strategy. It was a sucky idea and he should sheepishly say sorry now.

No biggy.

[Topseyt]

He will have learned from this though - always watch the video yourself first to decide whether or not it is suitable for such a young child.

I don't do much in the way of pink and fluffy, or shrouding in cotton wool. I am not that sort of a mum, but I did always vet what my children were watching when they were that age. When they start going through school they soon start to shed that innocence.

[Inertia]

If your DH is rational and scientific, he really ought to have thought about possible outcomes here, after considering the baseline your son is starting from.

Your son is already scared of animals attacking him and has issues around night-time fears. Showing him brutal video evidence that animals do indeed attack, and that they go for very young animals who have no access to parental protection, is not likely to help. At 2 , he isn't able to evaluate the (vanishingly small) risk of a crocodile appearing in his bedroom- he just knows that they eat small creatures.

It's likely to exacerbate his fears and create endless night-time problems for you as parents, and there's just no need.

Daddy pretending to jump out of the water is still Daddy.

[AgentZigzag]

I don't think he's a nasty cunt, if he's not doing it to harden up your DS then he's just not good at seeing the possible consequences of showing violent things to small children.

He'd only be a cunt if he did it on purpose and knew but didn't care whether it'd hurt him or not, and that doesn't sound to be the case.

[maras2]

I have no idea about that stuff that you wrote about him ie.' anti-fluff ' and ' science minded '.He sounds a bit thick and rather cruel to me.There is no ' grey area '.Don't show the child this carnage .It's wrong.

[AgentZigzag]

Tell him you're putting a YouTube ban on him until he can show he's responsible enough?



That'll learn him.

[ayahushca]

"Nasty cunt".

Lovely. just lovely.

[IthoughtATMwasacashpoint]

Just a thought OP. Is it possible that your DH showed DS the video in a slightly misguided attempt to reassure him that his toy crocodile was more than capable of fending off any random animals waiting to attack him?

[OxfordBags]

Inertia, that's almost exactly what I've said to him.

He also says he had forgotten that Ds has night-time fears about animals, as he does spend most of his waking hours pretending to be various creatures (Ds, that is!).

His own parents were (are) rubbish at not thinking about what is developmentally-appropriate info to give or show, or about emotional stuff. Like the other week, I had to stop FIL explaining about death and decomposition in stark terms to Ds when he asked what something on the path was (a dead shrew).

He is otherwise a brilliant Dad, no complaints about anything else, and he says he does now see that it was a really stupid thing to do.

[OxfordBags]

Maras2, that's being a bit hysterical. There was absolutely no cruelty behind his actions. He didn't want Ds to see lots of blood or understand what killing is, he just thought 'video of crocodile' and stupidly did not think more than that, which he should have. My Dh is more on the pathetic end of the nice-nasty spectrum, if I'm being a bit mean. And 'carnage' is totally OTT. Carnage means the mass slaughter of large numbers of people, usually in wars.

I'm not downplaying how bloody misguided this choice was, but people calling him a cunt, cruel and wanting to expose our son to 'carnage' is spiteful and silly. And untrue. Grrr, I hate it on AIBU when posters lay into someone's OH and then the OP defends him, when it's clear he's a wrongun, but a few posters really are being excessive.

[cashmiriana]

He's very... How can I put it... Anti-fluff. Very realistic, very rationalist, very science-minded. He doesn't always see that there is a grey area between being sickeningly twee and over-protective and telling a toddler facts that are too mich for them to handle. I have recently had to ask him not to explain what 'dead' means in overly-straightforward ways.


My DH is the same. If the children ask a question, he goes straight in with an adult level scientifically correct response. This is, possibly, just about ok with a 14 year old (though there are still some things I want to protect her from/ discuss in a more supportive way) but not great when he e.g. starts telling an 8 year old about exactly what the Nazis did. He genuinely doesn't stop to think that an appropriate response for a child of that age is "they killed people" and not a detailed description of the workings of Treblinka.

He thinks I am over-protective. I call it parenting. We have the odd row. The children are fine.

[Thumbwitch]

Glad he's accepted he's been unreasonable. Perhaps that will give him pause for thought next time he feels the need to explain something in scientific detail and perhaps you could get him to do the night time sit and soothe for a change, might imprint it better on his memory that your DS has fears!

My DH could quite easily have done the same, the difference being that DS1, at the same age, was a bloodthirsty little soul and wouldn't have minded. However, now he's nearly 6 and has more understanding of what is involved, it would probably upset him more. Sometimes I think that some men/fathers just don't have the inbuilt judgement factors that we do (but then some do, just mine and all my friends' DHs don't.)

[AgentZigzag]

In what ways was your DS a 'bloodthirsty little soul' at 2.5 Thumbwitch?

[OxfordBags]

cashmiriana, he's not quite that bad (well, Ds is only 2.5, so there is time!), but he has already tried to explain about stars and the planetary system in a really adult-level way. It hasn't upset Ds,but he keeps asking me about planets, because he just can't understand the info he's been given by Daddy. As I said, his own parents were exactly the same, so it is a learning curve for him. He doesn't always know how to think of creative ways to describe big things,because he's never had that himself. He is so soppy in every other ways, and makes up really sweet imaginative games with him, so it's a real shame that he could be so daft.

[OxfordBags]

Thumbwitch, he does have that inbuilt judgement about things that are scary usually, it's precisely because it was so out of character for him to nearly expose Ds to something scary, and also out of character to not accept his fault, that I was moved to post.

I still nurse Ds to sleep, that's why DH doesn't do the final bedtime section. Not desirous of comments on that, thank you, lovely posters.