I've thought this for a while but a post doing the rounds on FB yesterday brought it back to mind. A dad had sent a child to nursery wearing just dungarees, no top or jumper. Everyone was making comments along the lines of ah, he tried, bless him.
I wondered what people would have said if the mother had done that. Would they have found it sweet or just thought that a parent really should know how to dress a child?
My MIL is firmly of the frame of mind that men's mistakes are cute and funny. She expects me to share this view. If, for example, DH was supposed to pick up DS when I have had DD three days previously and he totally forgets what time school finishes doesn't leave work on time and arrives twenty minutes late, that's really endearing and he should be let off for his mistake.
I initially thought it was a generational thing but it seems not. A friend was unable to move from her bed following major surgery. She got a call asking when someone was coming to school to pick the kids up. She rang her husband who was meant to take care of this. He was thirty miles away, having forgotten. Cue all her friends bar me doing the whole, bless, so cute, so funny, don't be too hard on him thing. if she totally forgot her kids, would they say that?
So many other examples I could give. Why does anyone think it's sweet when men cock up? Why is it funny and endearing when my DH leaves the children's coats three hundred miles away in mid winter? Why does he get a verbal pat on the head? Would I? I doubt it. And guess who had to sort that one out?
If I make a mistake, I sort it out. I don't expect people to say that it's cute.