To think you don't sleep with your phone off if your children are elsewhere

[eslindanunez]

Have been up all night with a vomiting toddler. I live on my own with her and her dad sees her once a week on a Sunday. She started throwing up about midnight last night and carried on doing so for a few hours. We cosleep so the bed was covered in sick, so was I, so was much of the bedroom and the living room and she needed a few changes of pyjamas so that in itself was quite difficult to deal with it as she wouldn't let me put her down. I tried calling and WhatsApping her dad to ask him to come over so that he could at least hold her while I changed the bed and had a shower and just for moral support ( was quite worried as she's never been sick before) but his phone has clearly been turned off as the messages haven't even been registered as read. That's still the case now at nearly 8 AM. Am I being unreasonable to think that if you're somewhere other than where your children are (he also has two other children from a previous relationship) that you don't just turn your phone off and go to sleep? Because things happen and obviously this wasn't even that bad but it could've been a lot worse! I can't imagine being away from DD and not having a means to be contacted should something happen.

Why not just call the landline, keep calling, and calling.....

Welcome to the world of being a single parent! I think you need to call your Mum if feeling in need of advice rather than your ex. I keep a bowel handy in the bathroom and plenty of spare bedding in the cupboard to cope with sick. It's hard bringing up a child alone but mine is 4 now and has no contact from his Dad. Your more than capable of dealing with most situations alone, its not great but your the mother and if your child is ill they want you not some Dad they only see once a week. Turn to your friends and family for help as they will support you.

I sympathise op. My daughter is much bigger now but I remember nights of tummy bugs and it would have been a nightmare alone! I'm bad (seriously bad) with sick but even if I wasn't I can see another pair of hands being helpful, even just moral support.
Hope she's all better now x

A loving mother surely wants to care for and comfort their sick child. I have always been happy to stay up with mine and do everything necessary to make them comfortable and secure.

There is nothing wrong in parents recognising each others respective roles in providing the best possible upbringing for their children.

Why do so many mothers on here feel they must set arbitrary tests for their own - and sometimes other people's - husbands?

My husband works hard to provide a comfortable life for his family. Often, he finds his work difficult and stressful. He doesn't expect me to drop everything to help him on a case.

I am at home looking after our children. That is my job. One I honestly believe is easier than my husband's.

I think some contributors need to think about the reasons why so many relationships fail and why so many children are left in single parent homes.

Furthermore, if a man is sufficiently dissatisfied with family life to leave home, his wife can hardly be surprised if he is in no hurry to return to clean up vomit.

I just read a thread about sexism and movies and now I read several posts by parents who are chastising a mother who is tired, alone and frightened who wanted her ex to help with their child.

I expected the same concern for a frightened mother that was had for the female population being portrayed as high-heeled whiny idiots. This is real life not a silly movie and women are stronger, just like family, if we support one another.

My dh worked out of town for many years off and on. I know how difficult it is to care for a child alone. If nothing else, I called him bc I needed moral support while I bathed baby and me and sorted linens and sometimes wanted to cry along with baby.

OP needs advice, kindness and support. She does not need to hear from the mothering elite who can change nappies, clean vomit and pole dance at the same time. Her ex should answer bc not all illnesses are benign. If he is a selfish man who doesn't want to be a good father, I suppose this is a good time to find a support group/ friends/relative of some sort to help out with advice at the least if unable to get to OP physically. What if she needed meds or hydrating drinks? Those are also under the father's help definition. Having a child one day/ week should, if he is a decent person, include helping if the dc is sick.

I hope you are better now, OP and if he is a person who is not to be called upon in emergencies, make plans for next time. Make a Sick Kit.
Have everything you will need in a safe spot so you can take care of both of you without depending on him. DC comes first, emotions, etc. Sort out after dc is feeling better and you get some sleep.

I thought this was going to be about keeping your phone on when your teens / young adults were out at night

I think there are 2 separate issues in the OP - keeping your mobile phone on, on the off chance there will be an emergency in the night, is a completely different question from whether a non-resident parent should be available to help out in the middle of the night when a child is ill.

Yes I keep my phone on due to my DS being at uni and might need me. I count it as a blessing he can get in touch with me at a moments notice.

However I would not call his father that i no longer had a relationship with to deal with a bit of sick etc.

"ILostItInTheEarlyNineties"

Has op come back to say that he had turned off his phone? How did parents in the Early Nineties cope without mobiles and people being generally far far less contactable anyway?

Pixie
I'm not saying no one should ever have children with a second partner. But if you do, you should be very aware that you cannot be there for everyone. Most people make this work and are adult about it. But some seem on intent on clinging to their 'right' to be unavailable, crying about 'well, I could have been in the theatre' and thinking that's a bullet proof answer.

Interestingly, most women who have children with new partners add those children to their existing family. Most men start a separate family. Which is fine if they're still fully responsible to the first children and reasonably contactable. Less fine if they're all "waah, I was in the theatre."

But Merchant how on earth are you supposed to add them to your existing family in the way you suggest, i.e. them all living with you, when 9 times out of 10 they're the NRP?

You're not supposed to do anything. You do your best. But some people think it's their god-given right to fuck off and live a new separate life and are genuinely convinced that being 'busy' excuses them from parental duty.

think some contributors need to think about the reasons why so many relationships fail and why so many children are left in single parent homes

Furthermore, if a man is sufficiently dissatisfied with family life to leave home, his wife can hardly be surprised if he is in no hurry to return to clean up vomit

Honey, you sound like some sort of surrendered wife.
Men leave families and often abandon their kids because society allows it. We don't make men fully accountable, financially, physically and emotionally for their children. We don't condemn them for starting new families and neglecting the original one.
And we seem to think that they cannot or shouldn't be expected to cope with a full time job and actively parenting their kids.

Sharing the load (mental and physical) is not about setting 'arbitrary tests' for our husbands. It's about ensuring our husbands are as invested in our children as we are and that no one gets resentful at having to do all the parenting while the other does nothing.
I would imagine the happiest relationships are those where parents and children feel fully involved in each other's lives and invested in their welfare. That requires more than 3 hours contact once a week or indeed giving financial support but no physical help. Imho a pg woman shouldn't be desling with a vomiting child in the middle of the night when she has a husband right there to help her and the OP should be able to call the baby's dad if she needs help, not her mum, who isn't the child's other parent.

You are being unreasonable. One of the consequences of deciding to separate from a partner and having to parent a child on your own is that you can't rely on said partner to come running when you are having a hard time.

You have no idea if that was her choice Geordie.

Indeed. Having no support, that's the wages of sin that is

What a load of bollocks.

If a man is sufficiently dissatisfied with family life to leave home, his wife can hardly be surprised if he's in no hurry to return

What an odd way to view separation/divorce. The man hasn't divorced his children and any man with an ounce of compassion would want to remain supportive of his dc.
It wasn't to "clean up vomit" per se, it was an inexperienced mother panicking and needing help. Is it too much to expect him to have a phone on?

Women should expect support from the father of their children and are entitled to ask for it.

Marriage isn't about bending over backwards to accommodate your husband's needs in the fear that he will become dissatisfied and leave if any parental demands are put on him.

Are you suggesting that relationships fail because women are asking their partners to take some parental responsibilty, to share the load?
It's the woman's fault?
Wow.

And some women choose - for all sorts of reasons and it's not for others to judge - to move away from the ex and then he and the DCs lose touch with each other but she can't expect help no matter what the emergency. Why should the ex not then form a new relationship?

If an ex has chosen to move hundreds of miles away with kids then I doubt she will be ringing up in the middle of the night asking for help. So I don't think that is relevant to the OP. I suspect though that more women are left than leave. That said, everyone has a right to end a relationship - I'm sure there are lots of men out there being denied a proper family life with their dc but I also suspect these men are a minority. The relationships board is full of women whose feckless exh don't want to step up and be fully involved parents.
I'm sure many of those women end up moving away because they need a support network which they are not receiving from their children's father.

I don't think anyone has said that people shouldn't find new partners, only that they cannot form new families at the expense of the original ones.

If a woman has moved away and cut contact with the father of her dc then that's an entirely different situation. Although in principle distance isn't a reason to "lose touch" with your children.

I'm not sure what point you are trying to make Andrew?

Of course both parents can form new relationships.

I am talking about moving away after the split. Some women do and some men do and it's up to them. And of course they can form new families. Who is going to stop them?

YANBU. I never turn my phone off.

As for losing touch it's a question of practicalities - time, petrol or fares.

Hell would freeze over before I stopped seeing my kids or fighting to see them. I would be unable to move on and form new relationships and pop out a second family, if I had been cut off from my existing children. I wouldn't want to. That is because I am a fully involved, active parent.

No one said you can't meet someone new if you get divorced, but a second family is not a replacement for a first one.