Would you consider this spoilt?!

[KentMum2008]

Back story, DP and I have been together 2 years. I have 2 children aged 10 & 8 from a previous relationship. 6 months into our relationship, DP took on the family business and has spent the last 18 months turning it into a successful career. It was difficult at times, it meant a lot of long days, late nights, weeks working away securing contracts etc. But when the new financial year started, he had made significant profits, enough to be able to take on an employee. He now has the luxury of being able to choose his working days/hours which he fits around my work days so he can do school runs etc.
Last month I was offered the opportunity to do a temp job in a field I've always been interested in, but it's a tricky field to break into without experience. Initially I wasn't going to take it, the hours made it difficult for me to do school runs and as it's Monday to Friday, DP couldn't always be around to help out.
Then the day I had to formally accept, DP said he'd had a think and wanted me to take the job because I'd spent the last 18 months supporting him while he whipped the (failing) family business into shape. He drives me to work in the morn, then drops the kids off at school. If they have a job on, he then joins his employee for the bulk of the work, returning to pick kids up and pick me up from work later. He usually sorts dinner too and has occasionally hung out the washing by the time I'm back. We're both very happy with this agreement, it's only until August and it will massively boost my CV so that once the DCs are in secondary school, I will have better career prospects.

Here is my AIBU. No less than 5 of the women I know/work with/chat to in playground have made comments such as 'oh isn't he good?' 'He's spoiling you, ferrying you and the kids around' 'my husband would never put up with that' 'and they're not even his kids, he must be a saint' 'he does housework too, you must have him well trained'

He's not a fucking saint, he's just a decent person who appreciates that I supported him when his career was taking off, and now he's doing the same for me! AIB spoilt? Or are they stuck in the 70's?!

YANBU!!! I get v v v annoyed with this too. OP, your thread reminds me of something I heard recently, can't place where just now, that for all the gains of feminism with more and more women "leaning in" more (=taking on more previously "male" tasks), western societies have largely neglected to encourage men to do the same with what was (therefore unfortunately still "is" in many circles) a primarily female set of tasks - e.g how many employers offer/encourage "paternity" leave vs "maternity" ? - we've had the good fortune that both mine and DH's employers class it as "parental" leave irrespective of gender, but this is still seen as progressive rather than normal where we live! In any case, at individual level there are obviously wonderful exceptions, as this thread shows, but unfortunately it's not the majority yet. Let's hope it will be so by the time our children are adults!

You have hit a nerve and brought back memories for me here.

I always took my DC to toddler groups and we got to know another mum and her DC quite well. A few years later, she was my DSs teacher. This coincided with me being away from Monday-Friday. DP had made changes in his work hours to accommodate doing morning school runs and then picking them up from after school club.

DSs behaviour took a dip, I put it down to the teacher being a very familiar person to him and him being comfortable enough to misbehave a little. She took me to one side and 'had a word with me', telling me it was because 'Mummy is away so much'. I replied very tartly that it would not even enter her head to suggest a dip in behaviour was because a Daddy was working away and she did at least have the decency to look shame faced. I told her why I thought he was playing up and well... continued working away. My DSs behaviour improved, with no change from home.

DP has always been hands on, very involved in the DCs lives. When DD was 15 months old and DS was 3 months old, I was rushed to hospital for emergency surgery. I stayed in for nearly a week. I did not have to write list or give him instructions, he lived our lives with us.

We may be lucky but we are not spoiled. I think it should be more the norm and it is sad that it's not.

It's so completely normal round here for husbands and wives to work round each other that I can't imagine anyone batting an eyelid. So I'm finding it really odd that OP knows so many people who do!

He's not great or you spoilt or lucky - you're both just doing what you would expect partners in a relationship to be doing.

Why do posters think they are lucky that their partner is hands on in the family. Can men not cook, clean, made the bed, do the laundry etc? In many cases they don't because their wife/partner assumes she has to do it and don't organize family life properly.

I think it's different depending on where you live sadly. My friends in London all lead similar lives to ours, but where I live now the vast majority are SAHMs, with partners who work in the city. I won't say all, because it's not true. Interestingly, the families i know who share Childcare/housework etc didn't grow up here, they lived in London or a big town nearby and moved here when they married/had kids. I wonder if this part of Kent is a secret 50's throwback town

Parker I don't think I'm lucky that DO aid hands on, but I know we're lucky that he has the luxury of choosing his own working hours and still making a decent living.

Gaaaah DP is*

I wouldn't consider you to be spoilt Op, you do sound like the have a lovely relationship though.

I had a mum at toddler group say, she'd be embarrassed if her dh had to cook when she was a sahm, this was in response to me saying my boyfriend was making dinner that night! I'm hoping to drop it into conversation this week that he does all the ironing, despite me being home with baby and him working!

They are dicks. DH is similar in that he gets things done, I remember one live in landlord (we were lodgers) always going on about how well trained he was. No, he just wasn't a twat who expected me to do everything because he has a penis like her partner.
I hate the well trained thing, it's so fucking frustrating that people still peddle that shit out.

I supported DH through 5 years of university and am starting to retrain now that we have our DD and some other mums at baby group are horrified that I plan to leave DD with dh so that I can study and also that I plan to work one weekend day as soon as DD can go a decent length without a feed (breastfed). Apparently their partners can't cope with their children to the extent that some of them have childcare in place for when they are working but their partner isn't

I'm honestly shocked that some women still have these attitudes! Emboo even when DP was working ridiculous hours and had been out of the house since 4am, he'd still wash up after dinner or take the kids up to bed if it wasn't a late night you know, those kids that aren't his . And I never felt 'embarrassed', he wasn't doing it because I couldn't cope, he was doing it because he knew that helping out a) is totally fucking normal and b) the quicker everything gets done, the quicker we get to crack open the evening gin and relax....

rattie I know mums like that! 'I'll have to ask DH if he can babysit for an hour, he won't manage longer than that!' WTAF? You don't babysit your own bloody kids

Ha! What Leda said. DH is wfh so we are very lucky - he does most of the drop offs (I am on maternity and will go back in September) and most of the cooking. His mum always says how lucky I am and how I have such a great life etc. Errrrr - what about all the other stuff I do?! Your husband sounds like a lovely guy who cares about what you want too - not just him!

Yanbu. Family is teamwork, no matter who's kids are who's.

We are a blended family and I don't think DH is a saint, nor am I. We have different roles but both pull our weight.

We also give each other a break every now and again. How it should be.

And don't get me started on the DH/DP babysitting... ...

The DW is never called a babysitter. Just grrrrr!

He sounds great. You are lucky but sounds like you appreciate each other and are a great team. They are envious. He is a great stepfather

It's crazy isn't mangomay

And I hate babysitting used in regard to your own child!! One mum at baby group, once said she was going to ask her dh to babysit while she did the food shopping! I was like

Lurpak see I think the giving each other a break thing is normal too, but I know a lot of women who spend all week being SAHMs and come the weekend, the husbands are off playing golf or on the piss. They're the ones who talk about 'hubby babysitting' and they usually can't make it out to dinner until they've put the kids to bed!

Good for you OP. It sounds like you're an adult, in an adult relationship with another adult.
Those other mummies have nothing better going on in their lives than to make pathetic comments, so ignore them!
I remember the raised eyebrows when I insisted my XH changed our first-born's nappy. You'd have thought I was asking him to disassemble a nuclear bomb FFS. He survived and so did our child.

Of course you're not spoiled.

Some people do find it hard getting their heads around step-parents sharing equally in responsibility and domestic load. Especially in a situation like yours where you aren't married so he's not an official step parent, doesn't have PR, blah blah blah. But if it works for you, him, and the kids then it's none of anyone else business.

Is your job near the dc's school? I don't think you're spoilt, I work shifts around my dhs job, most families do. But I take myself to and from work, I think my dh would quite resent getting the kids up and coming out for me at 7am when my shift finishes

OP I have a similar set up.
I have supported DH when eh was travelling for work (just as our first dc was born) and did so for 6 years. I fitted my work/activities around him, stopped work etc...
By the same token, he supported me retraining (long weekends away) and then/now running my business as i work later than him.

Totally normal in my world.

However, I do know what you mean. Ive actually more or less being told that I was a bad mum for leaving the dcs with him so much! Because, surely, that was my job

I remember one night when I had to pick the dcs up from afetr school club. Dh was ALWAYS dealing with it.
I forgot arrive back home, realise what I had done and went to pick them up. I arrived abut 10mins late, apologising profusely.
The answer? Oh yes, thats men for you. Dont worry ?!?

I would just laugh at them and tell them you aren't lucky, spoilt or anything remotely similar. You are in a partnership where you are both equals. How you have both moved on from the stone ages of me man you woman. It's amazing to be treated as a person, they should try it themselves rather than being told what to do.
Then smile and walk off

aintnothing my temp job is a 15 min drive from home and school is 5 from home so 20 from work, I have to be there for 8:30 so we all leave at 8:00, drop me off and they get back to school in time for drop off. DP doesn't ever whinge about it, I don't drive and the trains are fairly unreliable, not to mention expensive so he says he's happy to do it. I think he'll be glad when I finally take my driving test, although we'll have to get a new car because I'm not driving his ridiculous monster beast of a truck 😂

Those mums' comments are quite loaded, bordering on rude. I think you have an excellent, equitable situation (of which I am personally jealous!) but it doesn't make you spoilt or lucky. You worked hard to get there. Good on both of you!

Your story also restores my faith in men! Or the power of communication. Mine won't lift a finger until I am pulling my hair out. Sigh.