To think DH is missing so much of the good stuff

[UnbelievablyChocolatey]

Let me start by saying DH is a wonderful man and I love him with all my heart. However, since having DS who is now 10 month old, some of DHs behaviour is really starting to bother me.

One example. Every night we are meant to bath DS together, as DH works all day so it was always meant to be something pleasant for us to do in the evening. But it always ends up being me bathing DS whilst DH is busy tidying up from tea or something like that. Bearing in mind that after bathtime I then give DS his feed and I put him down to bed. So he could always tidy up then.

It's the same on the weekends. If I nip out to do the shopping or something I'll get home and DH will have football on and be tidying up or something along those lines, and DS will be playing. (Our house is already spotless may I add!)

I just feel like he's going to regret missing these early memories. Tidying and all that can wait. Our DS can't. Or am I just being daft?

Agree with poster above. There's no right way to parent.

Mind your posts make me sad, you don't trust your husband to look after your children. Do they realise this?

littlebear- you make me laugh.

My kids love spending time with their father.

That's not what I said.

They may love spending time with him. But you don't trust him to look after them. It's a very different thing.

Of course I trust him.

All these dads who have never changed a nappy or bathed their children, what happens when their baby has a poonami whilst in their care? Do they literally wait for their partner to turn up and clean the baby

I'm sorry but you don't otherwise you wouldn't have said

Our children are not crash test dummies for my OH to practice on.
It has been easier for us and probably better for the children that I have had the hands on responsibility for our babies.

Whatever little bear. You obviously have some agenda that you are trying to pin on me.

All these dads who have never changed a nappy or bathed their children, what happens when their baby has a poonami whilst in their care? Do they literally wait for their partner to turn up and clean the baby 

I think the consensus is they don't get left alone with them until they're potty trained

What about the situation when both parents are in the room when a nappy needs changing?

I remember when DS had his first poonami, we had never experienced anything like it before We were at home chatting to friends who had a slightly older baby so were well experienced with such events and found it quite amusing to see our shock. DH happened to be cuddling DS at the time. Should he have passed him over to me, instead of cleaning him up himself?

Ah. An agenda.

No. I just think that fathers who aren't able to (or allowed to) take care of their basic needs are lacking.

I totally agree with you LittleBear. It seems to be Mindtrope's (and indeed honeybee's) style of argument to say something quite clearly, get questioned on it, then assert they said no such thing.

It gets a bit wearying after a while.

Our children are not crash test dummies for my OH to practice on.
It has been easier for us and probably better for the children that I have had the hands on responsibility for our babies

How do you think any of us work out what we are doing? We just get on with it. Some men will duck out of the responsibility and let the mother do everything. But also some mothers won't let fathers do much at all and then act like its their fault that they can't do it.

The idea that men who are hands-on parents are "hen-pecked ninnies in pinnies" is just idiotic.

*poghogger- my OH undertakes a lot of boring things that I don't get involved with.

Decorating, going to the dump, checking the tyre pressure on my car, bleeding radiators, unblocking drains, cleaning the freezer and fridge, clearing out the garage, ironing, home IT, cutting the lawn, gardening, replacing lightbulbs, ( big job in our house- we have 92 light fittings), going to work, earning a good salary.

I do none of that stuff.*

This continues to baffle me. So do you have household help then? Because how could you avoid some of those things with your husband working an 80 hour week and travelling a lot?

DH does some stuff generally I don't do - like the somewhat traditional "men's jobs" you describe. But like your husband, mine works long hours and travels a lot. He is on the west coast for a week for work at the moment. During that time 5 (yes 5 blast them) different smoke alarms went out of battery - one at 4.30 am, the xmas tree needed to be dragged to the street for a 6 am pick up, and 2 lightbulbs went out. Also the starter on my car went on the blink and I had to sort it out. If we divided work along the lines you describe, I'd have been sitting in darkness in my living room with a constant bleeping noise, a dead xmas tree on my porch and no means of transportation.

How do you manage if a light bulb goes out when he is travelling or your tyre pressure goes down?

Most families I know have broad jobs that men and women tend to do.

Of course I can do these tasks, but tend not to.

Christmas tree- was put out this weekend and already collected.

Light bulbs? We have 92 light bulbs in the house, I notice two need changing, no room is reliant on a single bulb,
My OH checks my type pressure regularly. If it needs pumping up when he isn't here then I do that.

Did you change the starter on the car? I am guessing not.
I have RAC membership and a family friend is also our family mechanic.
I suspect that someone else did that fix for you.

Smoke alarms are maintained by the fire brigade.

Mindtrope, the difference is that the starter on the car doesn't care if you leave it unattended or if you call in a stranger deal with it in cases where the usual fixer is not available.

Presumably you know enough practicalities to deal with anything that could need immediate dealing with in the house- e.g. where the stopcock is in case of a sudden leak? Or would you have to get a man in?

The starter on the car doesn't want any kind of emotional attachment with you and does not require you to be able to reassure you in an emergency.

A small child otoh needs dealing with very regularly, it cannot wait, and needs to feel that the person dealing with it is happy and confident with what they're doing. If the "regular" carer becomes unavailable through illness or any other reason, it is enormously helpful to the child to have that same relationship with the other parent, too. And for everyday, it is a great advantage to know that your dad wants to spend time with you and doing things for you, that he thinks looking after you is important. The starter on the car really, really doesn't care.

In the cases of SN, I appreciate that things may be more complicated and you have to do what you can- but this is not about male and female (unless we think women cannot have SN).

And incidentally, surely all children who are born immediately become test crash dummies for their inexperienced parents, whether those parents are male or female?

cory I was responding to another poster who raised the issue of the car.

Mind I feel a bit sorry for you for getting the responses you are getting, at the end of the day your marriage works for you and you are happy in it, surely children with two happy parents is the best upbringing they can have?

I know lots of extremely successful men.

Many of them are very hands on with their DC. DH has been a nappy changing, baby cuddler since day one.

Of course there are some men who absent themselves from all but a bit of Disney fathering.

Cory - I don't think anyone on here has said that their husband would point blank refuse to do nappies or baths etc as a point of principle. They are just saying that, in their case, it tends not to happen.
If you think about the reality of it, in my case, it's quite easy to see how my DH rarely changed nappies (seeing as we're on the nappy theme)! So maybe during the week he's spent a night in another Euro country and maybe another one somewhere else. The nights he is here he's coming in after 8pm. I'm not going to start on him to do this or do that when he's just walked in through the door after 48 hours away or longer. In the case of small babies, he's not the one getting up in the night because I'm breastfeeding so what would be the point if that? Then when the weekend comes, maybe we're out and about - the changing facilities tend to be in the women's bathrooms / I'm the one who packed the changing bag / he doesn't know the baby might be getting a rash and needs a certain cream etc because he's not been there / it's just easier to do it myself - and so on.

I'm not saying it's ideal, just trying to explain how these situations can come about.

My husband doesn't cook which is part laziness and part cultural hangover because his Iranian mother didn't ever teach him basic skills. Some behaviours are more intransigent in people than others for all kinds of reasons, so you make a decision about whether you accept them or not. Many women would not put up with this, I'm very aware of that, but as a SAHM with a cleaner twice a week, It doesn't feel like to much for me to cook for my husband. It's the wider picture and the overall balance that counts.

buster- thanks.
The truth is I take other people's criticism over my family with a pinch of salt.

OH and I are very happy, our kids are very happy, they are loved , well cared for, listened to. Our kids are teenagers and our home is fun and calm.
If some posters think this is a bad environment then that's their problem.

madinche- this is how our family works too.

RE the nappy changing- yes it's just always simpler for me to have done it.
As the primary caretaker and having much more practice it's simpler for me than OH.
And I am not going to wake a 2 year old at 8pm just because daddy has come home.

And with feeding- I never used formula and found expressing a faff. So OH never fed our babies either.

My DP is an extremely hands-on father. He says himself that his attitude de parenting comes straight down his maternal line and that he is a Jewish mother ;)

However, I don't think he ever gave a DC a bath in the evening when he had come home from work. There is nothing sacred about baby's bath time and it's quite tiring. Perhaps your DH would like to lie on the sofa and have a cuddle with your DS instead. Or play aeroplanes with him?