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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To not want to drop this even though nothing can be done about it now!?

104 replies

Notimefortossers · 04/12/2015 17:35

I have 3 DC. DD1 is 7 and DD2 is 4. On a Friday DD1 has a club after school meaning she needs picking up at 3.45 and DD2 still needs picking up at 3.15. Normally I just pick DD2 up and let her play on the playground for half hour while we wait for her sister.
Fridays are also my DH's day off from work. He has DS1 (10 months) at home for the day while I drop the girls at school, then go to work for 6 hours, then pick them up.
Today DD2 had an appointment at 3.30 straight after school so I told him I would pick her up and take her to that and he would have to pick up DD1 at 3.45.
I get home with DD2 and there not here, after a while I start to worry as they're getting late. They get back at 16:20. First thing DD1 says is 'Daddy was 15 mins late picking me up'.
I am fucking livid! I run myself ragged making sure this kind of thing NEVER happens to my kids. Makes my stomach turn thinking of her being the last poor little forgotten kid being taken to the office to phone her parents.
He is acting like it's no big deal! She's here, she's alive, she's safe and the teacher was fine about it. NOT THE POINT!!! He just says he thought it was 4pm. Well if he thought that then he's an idiot because he's picked them both up on Fridays before if I've needed to work later AND I clearly told him 3.45 TWICE today! Why does he have to be so fucking useless?!
I obviously can't scream and shout at him since the DC are here, so I messaged my mum to vent and she replies 'I know I got a school from the school to pick her up' (She's her emergency contact) She was just leaving when they rang to say he'd turned up.
This week he actually said to me that he wants to stay home with the kids and me go to work (I assume he meant for him to go part time and me got full time, since I DO bloody work thank you AND do every other fucking thing around here!) Ha! Joke mate! You think I'm letting you take over child care for my kids to suffer! Also feel like that just totally undermines everything I do, like it's easy. If he can't cope with one tiny pick up and do that right how would he cope with the endless school trips, charity days, swimming lessons, karate, opticians, dentist, doctors, homework . . .etc etc etc etc and the list goes on!
I really want to have a right bloody go at him after the kids go to bed, but what's the point? It won't change anything! It's happened now hasn't it?

OP posts:
Original poster
Notimefortossers · 04/12/2015 19:50

That is the general dynamic in this house too Grumpy and Diane . . . when my car breaks down I'm very glad I have him! But I wouldn't have thought getting one pick up time right would have been too taxing. And the fact that he is saying he wants to be a stay at home dad is frankly laughable. I'm having another baby in 4 month anyway so will be on maternity leave so even if I thought he could handle it there'd be no point yet.

OP posts:
Original poster
Notimefortossers · 04/12/2015 19:52

Thanks jw35 When I posted my OP it had just happened. I'm much calmer now

OP posts:
Grumpyoldblonde · 04/12/2015 19:53

Was your child scared? worried? if so then that is your strength in the talk. He obviously loves his kids, so if you can say "Hey, I know mistakes happen but 'Jenny' was really upset and embarrassed/worried/nervous" you might get through to him

Original poster
Notimefortossers · 04/12/2015 19:58

From what she said she was 'a little bit worried' Grumpy. But that was in front of him and she's very sensitive to other people's feelings so I imagine she wouldn't have wanted to make him feel bad. I'd need to talk to her more on our own about it to get the the bottom of how she really felt (she's like an onion ;) ), but I don't want to keep going on about it as she seems basically fine, I think I ought to just let her forget about it

I will apologise to the teacher myself when I see her next Friday and I have apologised to my mum

OP posts:
Senpai · 04/12/2015 20:10

I will apologise to the teacher myself when I see her next Friday and I have apologised to my mum

Why? By then a week will have gone by. It was 15 minutes, that's hardly a huge inconvenience. She was with an adult, and she wasn't in any danger. I'd stop fretting about it.

In the mean time talk to your DD about what to do if a parent is late again (and with two babies coming up, that may well be a possibility). Reassure her that she will be picked up, let her know who she can contact, and give her something to do, such as doodling or starting some light homework.

AskBasil · 04/12/2015 20:15

I think it sounds like this guy is the bog-standard sort of husband who coasts along and doesn't do his fair share of household chores.

Every now and then the simmering resentment that his partner feels about his exploitative, entitled behaviour, boils over about something that is in itself not a terrible thing, but represents the sum total of lazy, entitled shitty behaviour at that moment for his partner and causes her to respond with what seems like disproportionate fury.

That is why when a man posts something like the OP, posters don't have the same reaction, because most posters are not stupid enough to believe that the behaviour takes place in the same social and domestic context. Most women do not coast along doing the bare minimum of housework they can get away with, dumping the lion's share on the other adult in the house and expecting praise and ego-stroking when they do actually lift a finger. Most women do not expect their husbands to tell them what domestic work to do and how it needs to be done, before they will do it. Most women do not describe the domestic labour they do, as "helping" their partner. That is why if a woman does something like this, it is not usually part of pattern of entitled, selfish behaviour. There are exceptions of course, but they are rare.

Many women have husbands like this. They don't see a solution to it, so they grimly embrace the attitude that men are just not as good at housework as women, even though organising a household uses a similar skillset to the sort of project management and other skills used in the workplace; and they invest a lot of time telling other women to calm down and not be angry about the fact that they live with men who don't respect them enough to do their fair share of the invisible, unpaid labour which has long been characterised as "women's work."

YANBU to be angry about it OP. Having a row about it is not the solution however, because your DH doesn't see it as a big deal and will carry on doing it. So it's just a meaningless row.

mumeeee · 04/12/2015 20:17

I'm sure your DH would manage being a stay at home Dad. He might get things a bit wrong at first or do things a bit different to you. However he will learn and the children will be fine.
You would just have to let him get on with it when the time came.

AskBasil · 04/12/2015 20:17

Oh and also I smiled when I saw that the teacher didn't mind.

Teachers are often more tolerant of Daddies turning up late, than Mummies.

Daddies are busy and important. They're probably late for a good reason. And aren't they marvellous, collecting their kids at all. What good daddies.

Mummy is a fucking flaky bitch who should have been here a quarter of an hour ago, has she got no bloody respect for my time?

AnnaMarlowe · 04/12/2015 20:20

Notime - from what you said you are infantilising him.

Put on your big girl pants and have a row if necessary. Don't avoid the issue and let resentment grow.

Original poster
Notimefortossers · 04/12/2015 20:24

expecting praise and ego-stroking when they do actually lift a finger

Haha! So him! Feel like a twat having to (metaphorically) pat him on the head and tell him what a good boy he is ;)

mumeeee You're wrong. He would not manage. Part of me would love to watch him give it a go, just to give him some sort of level of understanding of what it takes to keep things going around here. However, we'll never find out because I will not allow my children to suffer for a social experiment

OP posts:
TonySopranosVest · 04/12/2015 20:24
Original poster
Notimefortossers · 04/12/2015 20:29

I'd agree Anna I'm allowing him to continue like it, but don't really feel I've got a choice. Of course, I could do as you suggest, man up and have the row.

Ugh. I so hate it though and what's the point if it's not going to make any difference anyway?

I'm much more prepared to do battle with him if it's something that effect the children, but very unlikely to do when it's something that only effects me.

When I think about having the conversation, I already know exactly what his responses will be . . . and it seems like a pointless exercise

OP posts:
Original poster
Notimefortossers · 04/12/2015 20:30

AskBasil That's the reason I want to apologise to the teacher myself. She may well have been fine about it outwardly to DH, doesn't mean she actually was ok about it though and I'd like to gage her reaction for myself

OP posts:
ButterflyUpSoHigh · 04/12/2015 20:34

You are right to be mad. My Dd's have never once been picked up late. I cannot abide lateness it is so disrespectful. In future he may think more carefully.

Witchend · 04/12/2015 20:58

I found my dc loved me being late. Rarely happened but there have been occasions when it was unavoidable, and though I'd have called the office to let them know, I always turned up to find them thoroughly enjoying it and more put out by me fetching them than the fact they are last.

If you don't do it regularly you do forget the times. And sometimes you have a oopsy...
A couple of weeks ago I happily dropped ds off at 6.45 wondering why everyone had been dropped early. I came to pick him up at 8.00 to find everyone had gone. Yep, I was quarter of an hour out. That's the timing of a different club. Don't know why I forgot, he's done that often enough, and I've never got the wrong time before, nor for any other club.

And I. Asked dh, who was having a day off to pick up the girls. Dd1's only been at the school for 4 years. He not only didn't know the timing, but didn't have a clue what time they finished.

AnnaMarlowe · 04/12/2015 21:09

It doesn't have to be an all out screaming row. Just a serious discussion.

Long term this will affect your children. You and your DH are modelling adult relationships for them. Do you want your daughters to accept the same from their DH's or your son to behave like his Dad?

Have the discussion. Be calm, don't be accusatory. 'I feel' statements.

Big girl pants. Flowers

Cuppaand2biscuits · 04/12/2015 21:13

I don't think you're over reacting at all. I arrived 3 minutes late one day this week, the juniors hadn't even been let out yer but my reception aged daughter was sobbing that I'd forgotten her.

thecatsarecrazy · 04/12/2015 21:27

Yanbu. I phoned my dh after work and said could u pick the boys up please I'm going to do some shopping. Sure he says. I then get a call on my mobile from the school wanting to know who is picking our son up.
My husband fell asleep. I wasn't happy but he knew he had done wrong and he does work late.

Original poster
Notimefortossers · 04/12/2015 21:30

I know what you mean Anna but my fear is that it will develop into an argument (not an all out screaming row, we don't have those) because he's unable to accept criticism and I don't know how to say what I feel without being critical of him? Bottom line, I feel this way BECAUSE of him! So how can that not seem accusatory?

I do take your point about the long term effects on the kids though.

Tbh having had time to reflect on it I think the wider issue is his tablet use. I am not exaggerating when I say he will sit on that thing for 12 hours a day on his days off. Don't get me wrong, 4 days a week he works extremely hard in a stressful job and does 12 hour days. I get that he's tired, but he seems to think that this entitles him to sit on his arse entirely for the 3 days that he is off, 'researching' stuff on the internet. I don't expect him to do loads, but to take 20 minutes out of his day to sort the kitchen out and pick up the floor in the living room before I come home is not asking too much I don't think.

But more than that is the fact that he's so engrossed in whatever he happens to be researching at the time (he's always got some project on) that he doesn't listen to anything I say, probably the reason he got the time wrong and gets the baby's routine wrong. It's not a very nice feeling to feel that you and your kids come second to whatever bullshit he's got going on on that screen. He seems to think of his days off as his time to rest and relax, forgetting that those 3 days are also the only time he has with his family to spend time with us and make memories.

OP posts:
BeanGirls · 04/12/2015 21:54

Sounds like you are completely over reacting.

AnnaMarlowe · 04/12/2015 22:13

Sometimes an argument is called for. 12 hours online a day (while 'caring' for the 10month old?) would be ample reason for a 'discussion' in this house.

Maybe write some points down in preparation for the discussion.

I work full time, long hours, in a stressful job and do a long commute. As does my DH.

Neither of us get to bail out of family life for the weekend.

wizzywig · 05/12/2015 07:38

Askbasil yesssssss you have summed it up nicely

CastaDiva · 05/12/2015 08:01

Yes to AskBasil and TonySoprano. The attitude that all those dear old DHs' incompetence and disorganisation is down to some kind of jolly old male inability to see dirt or remember a child's routine, but that they should get gratitude and a blowjob for managing the minimum, is far too common on Mn.

And the crux is that women like the OP scramble along doing everything for years, seething, but allowing the situation to continue, until some minor event makes them crack. The OP is obviously furious because her husband does nothing but keep the baby alive during his one current SAHP day, clearly thinks it's an easy life, and wants to quit work to do it full time - by which he means playing on his iPad - and which she feels is a minimisation of her hard work keeping on top of things.

OP, do you protect your DH from the consequences of his laziness or forgetfulness? Do you do the housework he has 'forgotten', continually remind him of scheduling issues? Who washes the forgotten breakfast dishes?

peggyundercrackers · 05/12/2015 08:41

Even long after the event your still over thinking it. Why would you want to apologise to the teacher - they will have forgotten about it by the time you see them - they will care about it as much as your DH did. You need to let go a bit and stop worrying about what other people think and let them do what they want to do.

CoraBeth · 05/12/2015 08:52

I just have to say that I think you sound a very reasonable person.

Your posts ( when you'd calmed down Wink) are very good humored :)

Your husband, sounds like someone who avoids anything he doesn't want to do. I think he has the ability to charm you, that is why you've ended up in your situation.

Good luck.