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Original poster

He is your Child's father not some sort of hired help!

110 replies

ConfuciousSayWhat · 03/04/2016 21:54

If I see one more person referring to their other half as 'babysitting' or 'looking after' their child I think I may let out a little rage noise! He's the Child's father. His role is that of a parent. If you're poorly you shouldn't be thanking him for stepping in to look after said child, he should be doing it because it's what he signed up for when he got you pregnant!

I know I'm going to get flamed for this but it's been annoying me for a while now

OP posts:
ptumbi · 04/04/2016 10:16

A colleague went off on a 4day girly weekend, leaving the dc with their father. The women were aghast - Aw, poor guy, having to look after his own dc for 4 whole days!
Their father works away a lot, 4-5 days is not unusual. 'Poor wife, looking after her own children while he's away?' Hmm Never gets a mention.

Groovee · 04/04/2016 10:21

Someone lost the plot with me for when they asked me to attend something I said I would need to check if dh would be about. It wasn't that I needed him to babysit but that if he couldn't be at home then my usual babysitter was away on that date so I would have to stay home. It was all very surreal all because this woman thought I needed dh to "babysit" instead of be a parent.

Chinks123 · 04/04/2016 10:22

ceeveebee:
I only have one male colleague but when he said he had 7 children I did ask him if his wife looked after them all on her own as he works full time. He told me yes she does and has never worked etc

MrsJayy · 04/04/2016 10:30

A few women i know say stuff like this it takes me all my restraint not to shake them and shout he is not a grwat dad if he takes kids off your hands for a nanosecond

Swissgemma · 04/04/2016 10:38

Yesterday we had a big family lunch... Ds had a mid starter poonami. DH stood up took day away and dealt with it. Cue adoration from the in laws on his return. DH actually pulled them up said he wasn't helping, he was being a dad and that besides his starter was cold and mine hot!

Drives me mad when ds was 3 months we had a big party weekend at a place i volunteer. I got sick of "who has ds!""has dh got his mum over to help""is he ringing you a lot?" Grrrr dh is never asked who has the baby!

My standard answer is that ds "is with the other 50% of his responsible adults - and the more I drink the higher that percentage is!"

SOPH781 · 04/04/2016 10:38

I get told all the time how 'lucky' I am do have a DH who does 50% of the childcare duties. How he is such a 'good dad' for giving DS his bath and story at night. I also get annoyed at 'isn't he a hands on dad?' when he is seen clearing up, playing, changing nappies etc. Has any woman ever been called a hands on mum?

magratsflyawayhair · 04/04/2016 10:40

I refer to DH as looking after the kids. But if he's not there he says the same about me. It's just a phrase for who's in sole charge. But I agree about using 'babysitting' to describe parenting that's just wrong.

DoltFromTheBlue · 04/04/2016 10:42

I detest the attitude that it is all women's fault for enabling this ... That is just another piece of the same shitty dynamic. No THEY are responsible for being grown men and adults to boot and it is not some women's job to make them be that ...

fredfredgeorgejnrsnr · 04/04/2016 10:45

I agree, I hate in then people say oh dh is babysitting today. He's not babysitting his being a parent!

He's being a parent 100% of the time, you don't cease being a parent just because you're not directly supervising a child... The use of Babysitting in this way (directly supervising a child such that they are not free to do non-child things at the time, generally used when one of the normal carers is out at a child free event) is from the assertion that parental roles are not simple and fixed - the mother doesn't stay at home and look after the child all the time, the father doesn't work all the time.

If you're so adamant that it's parenting not baby sitting when you stay in looking after a child, then the corollary is that it's not parenting when you're out at work, and wohm is not a parent during that time?

BaskingTrout · 04/04/2016 10:51

I was on the receiving end of this over the Easter weekend. I run a little shop, the Easter Bank Holiday is a really busy time. DH was supposed to be working Good Friday but had the rest of the time off. DD got norovirus and was fairly sicky. She was supposed to have been looked after by GP's on Good Friday, but we decided she needed to stay at home. So DH took the day as annual leave so I could keep the shop open.

Quite a few people commented that they were surprised that I hadn't closed the shop to look after her myself, so that DH could work. Despite the fairly obvious fact that if the shop isn't open, I don't make any money!!! whereas DH gets paid for his annual leave!!

DH then got norovirus from DD but continued to look after her all weekend, even though he felt crap and I offered to look after them both. It's just what parents do, although I did say a very big thank you to him, because I know he was feeling pretty rubbish. Some people MIL were surprised I wasn't looking after both of them

MrsJayy · 04/04/2016 10:51

We have older kids people used to be amazed what a good dad he was/is especially as we have girls Shock

BudsBeginingSpringinSight · 04/04/2016 10:52

DH actually pulled them up said he wasn't helping, he was being a dad and that besides his starter was cold and mine hot!

wonderful!

My dh thankfully does just muck in, sometimes he will cook, sometimes me, he is just as likely to change nappies if he is there or me. Mil however very much sees her housework as a job so is horrified that DH does some of my work.

If she makes a cake for instance she calls it "work". DH was not allowed to cook at home, he is flourishing as a great cook, far better than me, I have no natural aptitude for it.

JeanneDeMontbaston · 04/04/2016 10:58

My mum told me about a conversation she had recently with a bloke. Bloke's son was off for a long work trip timed for just after the baby's birth, and mum said sympathetically 'that sounds tough'. Reply came: 'oh, he'll miss them, but he'll be fine, don't you worry'. Hmm

It just had not occurred to this man - or his son - that the person struggling might not be the new dad (who no doubt would miss his family ...), but the new mum!

I was mildly amused, and repeated this to a (male) friend who told me seriously that it's actually much harder to be the parent going off to work than the parent staying at home, and he knows because he has his daughter every Saturday morning while his wife goes out and it is fine.

TimeToMuskUp · 04/04/2016 10:59

MIL and her family often tell me how under the thumb DH is because he does laundry and cooks. His Aunt told me when I was pregnant with DS2 "you know, the men in our family aren't very good at helping out, don't go expecting him to change nappies, it's not who our family are" and even went as far as saying he shouldn't be at the birth because it's not a man's place, and told him repeatedly that he mustn't be in the room because he would faint and make a show of himself. He was there for every minute (except when he got locked out of the maternity unit while I was in the bath. I could hear him hammering on the door and shouting "she's having that baby and I want to be there so I can prove I won't bloody well faint"). He's a great Dad, no question. But nobody congratulates him and says "she's a great Mum, getting up at 4am and still managing to have supper on the table".

He got up in the night with them when they were small, he changed beds covered in puke while I held tiny poorly bodies, he left me cups of tea on the bedside table and got up at 4am with the foolish DS2 who refused to sleep. He's not special or different or unusual, he's just doing what a Dad is meant to do. I flatly refuse to be grateful because he's special. I'm simply grateful that we're a good team and setting a positive example to our DCs.

MrsJayy · 04/04/2016 11:07

Mum used to be surprised dh stayed up for last night feed while i went to bed made sense to us i was up during the night on work nights so he did the 11pm feed

TeatimeForTheSoul · 04/04/2016 11:22

Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Reading this thread I feel at home. My DH acts normally too i.e. he is shares all aspects of parenting and family life (tbh he probably does more than me at the mo but reason is long story). We live in little village and I'm one of few mums who work and it seems normal for Dads to do very little.
Thank you for helping me feel normal again Smile

BudsBeginingSpringinSight · 04/04/2016 11:23

your right Team.

Its strange for me as all the men are/were self sufficient, dad excellent cook ( fil cant cook at all) men in my family able to put a wash on etc, if they see something in the floor they will pick up, not step over it...

DH is great - however there is still that background ...whereas men just "do" in my family...its nothing different or special.

BudsBeginingSpringinSight · 04/04/2016 11:25

I remeber at a baby massage thing, all the mums did it, and then the dads had one session without us.

After a mum said " my dh said yours was amazing when it came to the nappy changing, he said he was really good"

I didnt know how to respond.

mangocoveredlamb · 04/04/2016 11:39

We had an interesting conversation with my parents and two of my brothers over Easter that was veering dangerously in the "you are so lucky your DH is so hands on" direction. I was quite sharp about pointing out that actually as we both work full time it's really 50/50 on everything else because we are both normal human beings and it's not really luck at all. They were all quite surprised the DH agreed with me!

Caprinihahahaha · 04/04/2016 11:41

"I'm simply grateful that we're a good team and setting a positive example to our DCs."

Timetomuskup - could not agree more!

The thing that irks me is that we still have people modelling this shit for their children.
It's right up there with the 'men can't buy presents' bollocks.

Who knew that a penis inhibited so many perfectly straightforward thing?

Caprinihahahaha · 04/04/2016 11:42

My DH stopped working for a year and we were both at home.
One day he came home from walking the dog and my mum said admiringly 'oh DH is so great. Did you want a drink, you must be tired'

We both pointed and laughed at her.

coldcanary · 04/04/2016 11:52

Just thinking of a couple of times where DH has been on the receiving end of odd praise now.
I had to work over a weekend a while back and DH decided to take himself & the DC's out for a longish walk. So him plus our 3, aged at the time 18 months (on reins being held by DS), DD - 7 years and DS - 11 years. Both him and DS got praise from total strangers for being 'in charge' of the girls and asked where Mum is. One woman gave him sympathy when he said I was at work! He was actually quite insulted because he felt like these people were insinuating he couldn't cope on his own.
My friends hen night was another time - a night away for me leaving him with our eldest 2 was apparently shocking and 'how would he cope?'. Very nicely thank you Confused funnily enough he can travel with work for a week at a time overseas and I get sod all praise apart from MIL who reckons I'm a saint to put up with it

mrsmortis · 04/04/2016 12:05

I travel for work (3 nights a week mostly). And the reaction of the people I work with when they realise that I have daughters. And then when I answer the 'where are they' question with 'With their Dad' people then go on to assume that we must be divorced!

I know that our lifestyle is not the norm, but no one would bat an eyelid if it was DH travelling...

TimeToMuskUp · 04/04/2016 12:05

I go away once a year with friends for a long weekend. Last year we went to Nice and it was gorgeous. MIL phoned twice to check if DH was ok because she couldn't get hold of him on the landline. I explained that perhaps they'd gone out for the day, she relied "don't be absurd, he wouldn't survive with them both outdoors" as though they're slightly feral tigers rather than small boys. He copes perfectly well and has only ever said the words "that's it, I'm fetching Mummy" once during a particularly awful bath time.

Men can cope. The ones who can't are choosing not to cope and frankly, I wouldn't have married one of those buggers in the first place.

SueTrinder · 04/04/2016 12:06

I just had this at work last week. I phoned someone up and she immediately said 'hold on, it's the school holidays, who's looking after your children?' 'Em, their Dad?'

Mum is always telling me I'm 'so lucky' that DH does housework/childcare. No, I wouldn't have married him and definitely wouldn't have had kids with him if he wasn't prepared to do his fair share.