AIBU over DH's routine as a SAHD?

[ShopHero]

It's been a long day and I've had bad news this afternoon so I may be just getting things out of proportion, I'd appreciate some perspective and am genuinely hoping IABU.

I work full time, out of the home mostly. DH is SAHD to our two girls, who are now both at school and have been since Sept '17. I leave at just after 8am and get in around 6pm. DD2 goes to bed at 6pm so usually when I get in DD1 is on her kindle watching rubbish on YouTube or playing Roblox, and DH will be in the kitchen tidying up or doing dinner. I had thought that it was just a chill out after dinner thing, but I've noticed when I WFH that as soon as she is in the door at 3:30 she is straight on YouTube in her bedroom and that goes on for hours, coming down for dinner and maybe to spend 10 minutes with her little sister, but that's it. She is also straight on it on a morning once she's dressed and ready for school, until the moment she leaves for school. During this time DH will be either doing a bit of housework or chilling on his phone waiting for it to be school run time.

It came to a bit of a head tonight when she came in and he asked her to practice piano. She said she didn't want to do piano any more and he said 'ok then, you can go on your kindle until dinner'. So of course she did. I didn't directly witness this as I was working in the study, but apparently he told her to speak to me when I was free, which she didn't. He then came in and told me about it and asked would I speak to her. We could be good cop bad cop etc. I went to talk to her about piano, and took her kindle off her and suggested we make dinner together instead which she did. I was meant to be working at this point but I'd just had enough.

We've argued about it tonight, because I feel like he just lets her have the kindle by default because it's easier, instead of finding actual stuff to do with her. He says it's none of my business how he parents her when I'm at work. I have hardly any free time with her and would love more to do stuff, so my perspective is skewed I know. I also know I'm a bit hung up about screen time because I hate it, and he'll go quoting that news item last week that apparently said not to worry, and says I'm getting stressed about nothing and being my usual self.

shitholiday, perhaps you should have read the thread. You might have found it trickier to cope if you'd had a severely disabled second child too.

bibbity Does it mean that his sahp role is not quite the same as the average sahp role of 2 school age children?. Did you really have to ask? Perhaps you could work out the answer yourself? Looking after a quadriplegic child with cp - oh do you think that’s a bit more work than your average sahm parent with children at school? Well, let me think about it...

The more I see about screen phobia, the more it resembles every other stupid people's moral panic. The root of it is the same - enjoyment is somehow BAD FOR YOU and must be controlled and restricted.

timeisnotaline yes, and of course I was asking it in rhetorical way to put to op that it was quite a chunk of information to leave out of the op! If dd2 needs complete one-to-one care then it's easier to see why the dh tends to leave dd1 to her own devices. It still sounds wrong. Perhaps she would be better off at after school club if he cannot give her the attention she needs? Is it a question of cannot or just does not? the op is not really clear on that.

I have a severely disabled, brain-damaged, non-verbal, non-mobile teen in my own family (catastrophic birth for which the parents have received several million in compensation). So I do have some idea.

bibbity sorry I did miss the sarcasm completely! I’m ashamed , I usually like to think I’m good at that

SGB actually a cursory search on the effect of screens on children will show you that there are reasons to be worried.
Yes atm we don't know fir sure or have a cause and effect relationship established.
But we have already plenty of infos (such as the casual relation between being on screens a long time everyday and the thinning of the cortex in children) that should make you think twice.

bibbity and timeisnotaline I just logged on and noted your comments.

I wanted to clarify that the reason I left the fact that DD2 is disabled out of my OP is that it's not really relevant to the issue with DD1.
DD2 is picked up at 8am and returned at 16:30 by her bus escort. So there are 2 large-ish chunks of time when DH is alone with DD1 and in my opinion could interact better with her. Lord knows she sacrifices enough quality parent time.

DD2 being disabled only became relevant and worthy of mentioning on this thread, imo, when I was judged by bibbity for allowing her to go to bed at 6pm (which believe me is absolutely necessary). It got my back up so I defended it.

Apologies for singling you out bibbity - when I read back I was actually judged by a load of people! Like timeisnotaline I also missed the sarcasm in your post, I thought your questions were meant genuinely. I just love the support to be found on this site!

OP, hope you manage to make a shift - it's hard to keep them off screens, but beneficial to do alternatives. We've all different levels of tolerance for things so go with what you feel & monitor it, but human interaction is better where possible

Kindle? So a book? Most people would be happy thier child was reading!

@tae19 read the whole thread. Kindle FIRE.

@ShopHero I hope you can get your DH on board with making the most of those 2 chunks of time with DD1. I can't believe that he won't recognise that her choosing to spend every minute possible on her tablet isn't worrying. You get to point where she'd be better if in wrap around school care as at least she would be interacting socially!

Perhaps DH was very defensive because he knows you are right but doesn't want to give up the "easy" option.