To think I'm not "lucky" because DP does an equal share of childcare?

[SamanthaBrique]

Isn't that how it should be? Women shouldn't consider themselves "lucky" to have a partner who helps out - shouldn't that be the norm?

I was talking to two friends recently - one has two children, is a SAHM and from day 1 her DH has not lifted a finger to help with the kids or around the house. He "works very hard" during the week so that means he has to spend his weekends relaxing and pursuing his hobbies (rather than spending time with his children) while she never gets a break. She works pretty damn hard too, to raise two children during the week yet is lucky if she gets half an hour in Asda by herself, and if she needs anything she has to ask him for money as they don't have a joint bank account.

Other friend (WOHM 4 days a week) has a DP who works once a fortnight, looks after their DD once a week and she goes to nursery on the other 3 days my friend works. Yet if their DD is ill my friend has to take time off work as her DP refuses to look after her. Likewise at weekends he refuses to do childcare and he doesn't help out around the house either as he's very busy watching TV or playing computer games. He isn't exactly a cocklodger as he's independently well-off, but if my friend ever asks him to do more than his allocated day of childcare he points out that she's the one who wanted a child, not him, so she has to deal with it!

I really don't understand how some men can be like this, and it saddens me that their partners think it normal and that they just have to put up with it.

The only thing my DH does sometimes need guidance on is dressing our DD. Sees nothing wrong with patterned leggings and t shirts that just don't match! Although to be fair if I don't see it I don't care!

There was another parenting forum I had to give up reading because the a standards expected of men were just horrendous.

"We have a 3-month-old baby. Husband shows no interest at all apart from yelling at the baby when it cries. He does no changes/feeds/bedtimes/anything, spends his evenings playing Call of Duty, and strips out of the room in a huff when I try to discuss it. What should I do?"

"Oooh, men always find it harder to bond with babies. He sounds like he might have postnatal depression too. Be patient with him and stop nagging at him. Maybe you should have more sex? Try scheduling a date night!"

AAARGH.

Apparently the "male brain" also doesn't notice when the house is a tip and needs tidying. I've never bought that one - there is no inherent gene in women that enable them to tidy up. In fact it's pretty bloody insulting to suggest it, like that's all we're good for! Anyone can notice a messy house, it's just the twats who don't do anything about it.

There seems to be a lot of moaning on here about the subject. Surely if you're not happy, vote with your feet

Ah yes, men just don't know what to do. You should give him tasks. Because otherwise he can just stand in the kitchen, stare at dirty plates, but have no idea what should happen..

For balance, I know a couple where it's the woman who takes the absolute piss. She's a SAHM and her DH works FT. As soon as he gets home from work, she hands him the DC because it's "his turn". He looks after them all evening (having been at work all day) and does the bath and bed routine. Every day. At weekends, she has some kind of weird rota system whereby Saturday is "her day" and DH has to look after the DC. Sunday is "family time" where they all do something together. So essentially she gets every single evening and every Saturday to herself. Her DH gets precisely zero time on his own to unwind.

Cheeky cow once got me to babysit her kids on a Saturday because her DH was doing some repair work on their house and it was her "day off" so she wasn't willing to look after her own DC. She was actually fuming that he had decided to do the work on her "day off". When the hell else was he meant to do it??!

There seems to be a lot of moaning on here about the subject. Surely if you're not happy, vote with your feet

Unfortunately it isn't that easy in a lot of cases. In the case of Friend 1, she's not worked for years, the house is in his name, and she has no money of her own. At least she's married which is one consolation, if they weren't married she'd be entitled to nothing.

Friend 2 earns a very good salary and could well afford to raise her child on her own so god knows why she's sticking with her DP. He said from day 1 he didn't want kids and, as she did, a lot of friends told her to cut her losses and leave him as she could've found someone else. But then after about 10 years she "accidentally" got pregnant Though given they never used contraception I'm not sure why he got so annoyed at her about it.

It is how it should be. I have to admit that I've never met any of these women who comment aboutique how lucky I am that DH does his "fair share". He's always been a hands on dad even when he had a wobble about being a dad.

That being said, we don't do equal amounts. I did the childcare, he worked and we both did our fair share of the house work. Now it's me who works and he does the childcare but we both do the housework equally. That being said we both can go out knowing the other will be able to care for the kids and just have to check that the other hasn't got plans that we've forgotten about. If we both worked out of the house then the childcare would need to be split but that's not the case right now.

I feel for the women who have to fight for their DPs to look after the kids. It's time for us to move forward with the times!

I was thinking about how, growing up, I saw my mum do everything around the house. My dad never even changed a nappy until my mum had to go into hospital for something and he never cooked. Yet my mum's father was a very hands-on dad who did a lot of childcare and he was an excellent cook too - both these things were fairly uncommon in men in the 1950s. So how did my mother get the idea that it's normal for men not to do childcare or housework? To this day she's convinced that my dad can't cope without her and if she's going away will stock the freezer up with meals for him. He doesn't demand it either, nowadays he's quite capable of sorting things out, but she's convinced he can't do anything for himself!

I get told I'm lucky all the time because DH takes ALL THREE children places BY HIMSELF.

Just what the hell they think I do all day I don't know...

See, my parents were pretty equal. My dad changed our diapers and took us places and cared for us, and when they watch my DC he does the same for them. So it just is what's done to me. FIL will watch the children but doesn't do diapers and doesn't know what to feed them. He WILL feed them but it's always some wonky meal.

I wonder if it's a generational thing as FIL is 78 and my dad is 56. FIL is very much a "women do the child care" sort though he does enjoy the kids once they're out of diapers. :)

YANBU op. My DH does more than his fair share of everything in the house. Even though I work part time and he works full time he'll still do housework on his days off, and we take it in turns getting up with DS when he's up stupidly early. But it just seems normal to us.

On the other hand I have a friend who's husband does NOTHING. Literally nothing.
I was telling her about when I was ill after coming back from holiday and took myself off to bed while DH did all the holiday unpacking and washing while looking after our 2 year old, and she said her DH doesn't even know how to use the washing machine! I was

Plus we went to a baby shower a while back and she said she wasn't sure if she could get child care, I said oh is (her DH) working? Oh no she said, but he won't be able to look after DS on his own. Again I was

This is how it should be and women shouldn't settle for less.
My DH does his full share of childcare and house work (he cooks, I clean, roughly) and it works. We both work full-time and both our jobs are equally important. I breastfeed both children still but he still has a lot of other things to do with them and sometimes it is tricky for him (esp when they were even younger as bf was then such a quick answer to everything) but he gets on with it as he dots on his children. We have more or less equal leisure time too. He's a fab husband and dad. He is how a man should be imo. It should be a partnership, at times someone may have to work harder and the other should support but it swings round and some other time the roles will be reversed for various reasons.

Nothing to do with luck, you choose a partner who's not a twat.

^^this! My DH took my DD out yesterday as I was fucking about with about 500 ingredients for a fancy recipe preparing dinner, and he ran into some other mums we know who said how "impressed" they were that he was with her on his own and I was at home on my own. FFS he is her father! These women's husbands are just a wee bit twatty.

I am a SAHM btw (though hopefully not for much longer). I obviously do all the childcare while DH is at work. In the evenings we share the responsibility and I actually think DH does more with DD at the weekends than I do. He wants to - he loves spending time with her and feels like he doesn't see her enough. Neither of us would have it any other way.

It's the women who allow it to happen that are also twats. If they have children growing up in households like that, then what sort message is that giving? It's going to pass down from generation to generation.

I often get comments about the fact that I work full-time and dh works part-time. I earn more than him so it just makes sense to do it that way, yet I know quite a few other couples where it is the other way around despite the fact the woman is the higher earner. I also don't know any other couple who split the maternity leave (dh took 3 months off), which I also find amazing. It just doesn't seem to cross people's minds that the man may also benefit from having this time with the baby. It was tricky logistically at times as dd was bf and refused a bottle for ages but for me dh had as much right to that time as I did and it made so much difference to his confidence and understanding of what it means to look after a child day in day out.

The idea that women look after the children seems so ingrained in both men and women that otherwise perfectly sane women seem to feel obliged to let their husbands just not bother.

I think the women also play a role in this situation by allowing this to happen. Many people grew up in traditional homes but gave managed to not allow this setup to continue. Friend 1: why hasn't she worked in all those years given she has the equal opportunity to? Why didn't she insist on having her name on their home? She just willingly went along.
Friend 2 : seems like she had her own intentions of having a baby override her sense of making good decisions for herself. Both these women have allowed their situations to happen.

I told a friend of mine that DH was at Aldi the other day and she said "I can't imagine my DH ever shopping for food."

I do the laundry and most the the cleaning I suppose. But DH works and I'm at home. If it were reversed I'd expect him to clean and throw in a few loads of laundry.

He does bath and bed after work and usually does the dishes. (Such as it is. I mean he loads and unloads the dishwasher :o)

I know a family where sport takes precedence over absolutely everything - any match (of seemingly any sport) must be watched, he must go and play it every weekend for full days and it is sacrosanct. His participation in family life is entirely optional - so he does look after the kids, but never has to think about organising childcare when he's playing or watching sport - he just makes his plans and does what he wants. The dw can do her own things but had to plan childcare before she can accept an invitation. It's just assumed that sport is the priority, that's the default activity for the bloke whilst the woman's default activity is looking after the children. My dh is totally baffled about why so many people seem to hold sport as sacrosanct in this way; he says it's just a hobby and he doesn't understand why for some people it seems to be a cast iron excuse to dodge family responsibilities. I don't get it either.

Jeepers, actually I'm the higher earner and work part time whilst dh works full time - because his job is a 9-5 more predictable sort of job whereas mine requires a lot of work outside of normal hours. If I did it full time, if have no work life balance. So we view it as we can both being in equal amounts of money if I work three days and he works five, but this way we both have a good balance of time and equal levels of stress!

Imagine if everyone were given an implant at birth that gave them an electric shock whenever relationship asymmetry manifested.

No-one would ever be able to marry a higher earner. A SAHP would be impossible even if both wanted it. If men are generally less enthusiastic than women about having children, the vast majority of men and women would not be allowed to have a relationship with a member of the opposite sex, as their different feelings about having zero or more children would mean they were getting different satisfaction from the relationship . Similarly for sex: the vast majority of people would have to go without, only a tiny fraction of couples would have sufficiently matched sex drives to avoid the electric shocks, and then only for a short portion of their lives.

Yes, I get the 'lucky' comments too. Disappointing when it comes from women working full time. I am tired of answering that I am not lucky that my dh does his fair share.

Hope my dd doesn't end up with someone with archaic attitudes. I truly thought things would be different by now.

Theoretician, relationship equality isn't the same as symmetry. Relationships can be equal when one partner works outside the home and the other is aSAHP, provided there is mutual support and both partners have their own leisure/relaxation time. There can be a disparity in income, but a fair and equal share of the money brought into the household so that financial decisions are made together and for everyone's benefit. You don't have to work the exact same number of hour or change the precisely equal number of nappies in order to have a fair and mutually satisfying partnership.

Unfortunately it is still the norm for women to be the primary carer rather than equal parenting - my DP is very hands on with our DD but I still find that I am dominant care giver.

I think we are starting to see a shift but until things like flexible working at work, SAHDS and such like are seen as cultural acceptable then we are going to be stuck in this continual loop where women are primary (and in a lot of cases sole) care giver.