Am I soft or is DH living in fantasy land?

[Playduh]

DS - three, been told by both parents that we can have the paddling pool out.

He's been waiting relatively patiently as I unpack shopping and DH makes coffee.

DH takes his coffee into garden, enthusiastically followed by DS.

DH sits down. DS starts asking for paddling pool. DS has waited about fifteen minutes now (he's three). DH says no, starts drinking coffee and reading paper.

I'm now making food for a party we are having this afternoon. DS now crying hard and comes in to ask me to put up pool.

I suggest DH put pool (five minute job with the hose and electric pump) up now and relax after when DS is happily playing in the thing.

Massive tantrums now coming from DH and DS, party food not making itself.

Apparently I am bossy, indulgent, a martyr and constantly undermine DH's parenting.

AIBU to go to into town and hide, leaving the two of them to it?

The way I see it, mum is busy doing a job that needs to be done.
Dad wants to chill out.
Child wants to play
Child must wait for however long it takes for Dad to finish chilling out. Dad gets what he wants immediately, while child has to learn to delay gratification. Child does not know how long it will take, as you can't see what is happening (putting shopping away, you can see the pile going down and maybe even help. Dad reading the paper, no such indication.) Dad is the only one who is able to indulge his own wishes.

Or, Dad puts up paddling pool as child has already waited. Child plays and is rewarded for waiting. Dad sits down with coffee to read paper while child plays - two people are now doing what they want with hardly any extra time involved.
why is this such a difficult thing to do? Yes the child needs to learn to wait, but he'd done that. Dad seems to be the one who had decided his chilling out couldn't wait a second longer.

You can have the cup of coffee after you have taken care of the 3 yo surely, Beachtrowel? He could have had a nice, uninterrupted twenty minutes to himself if he had done the right thing first. But he wanted something else.

babybythesea, mathanxiety - I agree with your summaries.

Regardless of how much a 3yo needs to learn the discipline of waiting, I would jolly well know that the only hope I'm ever going to get of reading a newspaper uninterrupted when I'm also responsible for supervising a 3yo is to ensure there's something suitably absorbing for them to do. (Well, that's true of any 3yo I've known).

It seems obvious that you would inflate the pool and then put the 3yo "in charge" of filling it, as I assume most children would be delighted to have that responsibility - hopefully, that buys a few minutes to read the paper.

harshbuttrue1980 - infants have no ability to distinguish needs from wants. Learning this comes through sensitive parenting - and it's not an easy lesson to learn. This is partly what the "terrible twos" is about.