To notice a new brand of 'cool wives' on mumsnet

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They are not 'cool wives' in the original sense, I.e. because they let dh go drinking with leggy blondes on a school night and rock into bed hammered at 2am.... but they are so damn competent as mothers that they are fine for dh to go away for a week without notice leaving them with five under 5s, cook dinner every night while simultaneously batheing the children with a baby in a sling breastfeeding etc etc.
Is it just me that has noticed this new trend of 'I can manage it blindfold, stop complaining op and suck it up'??

I still like my ace concept of 'mumsplaining' which I just thought of on another thread ahem

Insane fixes which are presented as totally fine- as if the mum in question hadn't already tried their best.

Of course some of us handle stuff that's harder or handle it better. But I don't think just pointing out that "stuff isn't so difficult really, i do it like this, why not just do it like i do" helps someone who's posting for help.

Yanbu.

It's not about being competent or organised or single parents.

It's about if you've got a dh that rolls in at 6pm after a day in the office then it's no hardship for him to cook dinner half the week.

I especially love it when people tell others to just 'put the baby down and they'll get used to being left'. No sorry, some babies don't just give in and get used to it. Some scream and cry and be sick.

In real life you put the baby down start dinner, the baby then screams and cries, snot running down their face, then they do an explosive poo, dinner gets burnt.

But don't you all have a slow cooker? And batch cook on weekends?

I thought it was MN law.

I'm definitely not a 'cool wife' but if you saw me with my baby you'd probably think omg how is she so calm or whatever.

My baby sleeps, he doesn't often cry. He gets upset if he's hungry and that's it.

I'm incredibly fucking lucky that I seem to have a very chilled out baby.

It's nothing I do, I haven't sleep trained or anything he's just like that.

If he didn't sleep through the night or he was very cry'y or clingy I would probably look frazzled and knackered and stressed out.

I do only have and only want one though, and obviously that makes a difference. I do look in awe at parents who have 3 under 5 and are forever cool calm and collected.

But you have to remember you don't know what their life is like behind closed doors. Also on forums like this people romanticise how good their kids were sometimes as a pp has said.

Tbh I do everything in the house because dp works long hours, and I'm fine with it and shit gets done, but again that's because my baby is happy to be put down and will go on his play mat or jumperoo or whatever.

It doesn't make me a cool wife it makes me lucky that I have a baby who will let me get on with shit!

There's often a vocal group on any post about maternity leave who seem to believe the purpose of maternity leave is for the woman to take on all domestic drudgery. Why this would be the case is never explained (so the poor man can take time out to recover from the trauma of witnessing birth?). Any woman who treats maternity leave as being about caring for the baby, and expects her partner to still pull his weight with domestic chores is castigated as 'lazy'.

I also think women who cope alone due to being single parents/partner in the army etc are slightly missing the point. It's easier to care for yourself and children when it's just you making all the decisions, then it is looking after yourself, your children and a demanding manchild who feels he can dictate how and when things are done.

In the TAAT the op wasnt saying she couldn't cope with herself and her kids, she was doing so. She was just questioning that she should also on top of caring (and cooking) for herself and kids be expected to cook for her partner everyday. That's nothing to do with being a 'super mum'.

I chose to mother my children, but not my perfectly capable adult partner (and he would'nt want me to!).

DH managed dinner and childcare on my work days. Does that make him cool? Or do we only give sarcastic labels to women?

Depends Buttered, did he come on MN to boast about it and mock people who are struggling?

To the person who thought it was dangerous, four children on a bicycle mum wasn't on roads when I saw her. Here it's possible to travel quite a long way without going on roads, using paths alongside canals. And the very local roads would be OK anyway. (It's possible to get to lots of different places using only local roads and canal paths.)

This thread has actually got me thinking about the 'I just get on with it' type posters.

I find a lot of the time the women who boast about their lack of complaint tend to be the ones who write lengthy, detailed posts describing just how hard they have it compared to the OP of the thread. Like seeing everything they do written down makes them feel good about themselves.

I have no doubt that there is actually quite a bit of underlying resentment in a lot of posters but it's simpler to 'just get on with it'.

It would explain why they go out of their way to make the women who actually admit that they are struggling feel shit about themselves.

Maybe it hits a little too close to home?

This thread is ridiculous. Spite, passive aggressiveness, one upmanship. And now, now you think these terrible cool wives actually need help! So starting a PA thread about them, great job there... you've just 'given them a taste of their own medicine' haven't you. How very clever.

Ooh my first biscuit in five years! Yum yum!!

Did I tell you I make organic oat biscuits every day while breastfeeding and singing Greek nursery rhymes while my husband travels the world in a hot air balloon? All my children have wonky heads too. But that's just me, I just get on with it

Mistress I think my frustration with this thread is that parents are being put into camps; those who are getting on with it are cool and smug and those that are having a moan are struggling.

Like I said upthread most of us us just muddle through.

I think my frustration with this thread is that parents are being put into camps; those who are getting on with it are cool and smug and those that are having a moan are struggling.

But that's not what the op was saying at all. The op was saying that when some posters mention struggling with partners who aren't pulling their weight, up pop women saying that they've manage to single handedly raise 23 kids blah blah blah, so the op should stop expecting their capable adult male partner to actually do anything, and should just get on with it all themselves.

The wives aren't 'cool' because they are coping, but because they insist that the fact that they cope alone, means no other woman should ever expect her partner to do anything.

I'm not sure it's about getting on with it or not. A poster saying how easy they would find something when op is struggling is always annoying. Also ones where the op says that they are disappointed because their dh has arranged a meal in a 5 star restaurant followed by the opera but their baby sitter has fallen through only to be met with a chorus of "take the children with you! Just pop the baby in a sling and give the 2 year old a post it and a pencil and they would be fine for 6 hours out surely! That's what I did when mine were little".

The wives aren't 'cool' because they are coping, but because they insist that the fact that they cope alone, means no other woman should ever expect her partner to do anything.

Thank you Butterflies for stating it so perfectly! I'm baffled as to why so many people are missing the point.

I remember a thread from a few years ago that perfectly illustrates the phenomenon; a MNer posted about having terrible, unable-to-leave-the-bathroom-floor D&V and her partner going off on a "lad's weekend" and leaving her with the baby. Others piled in with tales of looking after children while deathly ill and how they coped without help... Completely missing the point that the partner was selfish and inconsiderate.

Oh I know and they budget brilliantly and batch cook and have millions of play dates and everything and are on the pta or pita lol

I do actually manage fairly easily though my DH works away and we have literally no family support - I don't have a halo that needs polishing I have just not found it that hard - as I am lucky DC v confident and outgoing and sporty so have lots of EC activities etc

Surely we must all have days where things are hard, regardless of circumstances.
Ffs we are all different, some cope better then others.
I do well most of the time, but very occasionally I do have shit days where I'm not well or the children.
My asd child is having a bad day/week etc etc.
There is no prize for who can come out smelling of roses.

The only thing being missed in my opinion is that these are posters who allegedly only want empathy are posting in AIBU not a support thread for struggling parents.

I tend to read posts like those in very much the same way I read similar stuff on FB. Might be true, might not. Who knows?

Self awareness does seem to be a quality that is in short supply right across social media, though.

The thing is on these threads that nobody has the faintest clue about the wider context of the OP's life situation, apart from the odd snippet that has been divulged. So all anyone can really do is to pile in with their own scenarios, as is quite natural really. This is interspersed with the odd bit of advice about slow cookers or whatever and/or other fascinating derailments. Some posters are dermed "handmaidens" if they dare to admit they don't mind cooking for their DH - or possibly now they are the too cool mums - which is it? Of course everyone struggles, just in different ways. How can you compare your life to somebody else's?

these are posters who allegedly only want empathy

The opening post doesn't mention anything about people who only want empathy. It's about people who are asking if their partners should pull their weight. Perfectly acceptable topic for AIBU as far as I can see.

Some posters are dermed "handmaidens" if they dare to admit they don't mind cooking for their DH - or possibly now they are the too cool mums - which is it?

Sigh. There nothing wrong with not minding cooking for your dp. I don't mind cooking for my Dh, as it happens, but I don't go around telling other women that just because I don't mind cooking, they should also not mind it, and to just get on with it!

Sure, but it is called AIBU and people tend to like talking about themselves - often with no acknowledgment of the OP whatsoever

I think we can all empathise with tired parents though. Most of us have been there, and I imagine there are few of us that haven't squabbled over housework or childcare when our children were small, and our parenting skills untried.

This doesn't make it wrong to suggest ways to make it easier - or to gently advise that parents need to work as a team. I have no time for cocklodgers, but equally I don't think it is unreasonable for the parent at home to do more of the domestic tasks than the one with a long work day + commute. Other people may disagree - which is fine - but I don't like my view being dismissed as "cool"

Perfectly acceptable topic for AIBU as far as I can see.
I don't disagree, but with AIBU generally comes some people who think the poster is being unreasonable, and they might use their own experience to back themselves up, which is also perfectly acceptable.

There's nothing wrong about women getting on with things, there's nothing wrong with women coping, there's nothing wrong with women finding things easy, there's nothing wrong with brilliant at housekeeping etc. Thats not what the OP is about at all, she's not saying being good or being able to cope is something to be sneered at.

It's when you have a thread where someone is saying for example, they are struggling to get all the housework done during the day as the dc are clingy, so she's doing odd jobs once the dc are settled while her dh gets to relax and watch TV. She thinks it would be nice if he helped a little every now and then so she can relax with him too.

Some responses will say he could lighten the load by pitching in by doing dishes, or playing with dc while she does a, b or c, some will say they were in same situation and offer solutions that worked or didn't work for them. Some will say they manage everything before dh gets home and give tips, some may even point out things the OP can do differently to give herself a bit of free time.

But then you also get some posts that go like

"Why on earth isn't all the housework done during the day?"
"Surely your dc nap, do all the cleaning then"
"I don't understand women who can't manage basic household tasks and looking after dc"
"Of course dh shouldn't be pitching in, you have all day to get this stuff done"
"I was at home with 5 dc and managed housework and a hot meal cooked from scratch on the table for dh everyday, it's not difficult"
"I work full time and get manage to clean and cook everyday, you have it easy"

It's those type of posters the OP is referring to,

It also sometimes looks that when a woman is doing the housework and childcare, it's easy and should be just gotten on with, whereas ask a man to sometimes do a bit of it, it's a big deal as he shouldn't have to come home and do work in house.