Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5

Original poster

Aibu to think a father should know

110 replies

GilmoreMe · 07/03/2019 21:31

How to get his own child ready for school?

DH has recently changed jobs so he is at home later in the mornings and is able to do the school run. I have taken some earlier shifts at work because of this change in circumstances.
DD is four.
The night before an early shift I have to lay out all uniform because he doesn't know where it is kept ( been in the same place since she started school and he has been shown), pack her lunch and make drinks because he doesn't know what she likes or what she is allowed to take, pack bags and make sure she has everything she needs - not a lot, just reading book and log and spellings book and pe kit twice a week- because he doesn't know what she needs on what days (there is a timetable on the fridge).
Is he absolutely ridiculous? Should he know these things or at least be able to learn these things. I mean I had to work it out!
I had agreed to an early shift today but had to rearrange because he said he simply couldn't get her ready for world book day
I think I need to let him get on with it but at the same time feel bad that dd will not have what she needs at school and will turn up looking a mess or not in appropriate uniform. (Unbeknown to me, he had our neighbour do her hair a couple of times because he couldn't brush it or put it in a ponytail)

OP posts:

Original poster

GilmoreMe · 08/03/2019 08:12

It's not really a new routine now either. I have done at least 3 early shifts a week for the last 4 school weeks

OP posts:

Itwouldtakemuchmorethanthis · 08/03/2019 08:15

I wouldn’t bother remembering what an or cant go in a packed lunch if I didn’t make it.. Just write it on a piece of paper and stick it somewhere useful.

You are both making really heavy weather about getting one small child ready for school.

Muddysnowdrop · 08/03/2019 08:21

No one has a clue what to do on WBD. I’d give a pass for that, but for a normal day? Hell no. I complain to my dh regularly that he leaves too much stuff to me but he manages to get two children out to school three times a week without fuss or incident. He needs to put time aside to plan what he needs to do, just like he’d do with anything that he actually considered to be important.

GregoryPeckingDuck · 08/03/2019 08:23

He knows perfectly well (you’ve told him haven’t you). He just knows that if he feigns ignorance he won’t have to do it. Just stop.

MadAboutWands · 08/03/2019 08:24

Stop!
Seriously stop arranging your oufe around him so he doesn’t have to make any effort/learn how to look afetr his own child.
Keep your early shifts
Don’t prepare anything for him.
And most importantly, don’t be there when he is gett8nng his ds ready for school.
If he actually wanted to, he would learn. As it stands he has managed to make you do all the work for him so he only has to supervise his child to get dressed and eat. And now has even managed to convince you to change your work around him because he can’t even be bothered to take his child to school!!

Be aware too that his expectation of you u doing all the work or organising yourself around him always and never him around you is something that will spread to other areas in your life (if it’s not already the case). Today it’s you cancelling an early shift because he demanded it. What will be next? You cancelling meeting friends so he can go out with his own friends? You having to change jobs so it fits round him etc???

You have a choice. Either you put your feet down now and let him get in with it. Or you will know that for the rest of your dc life, you will be the only ever responsible fo him, having to work around your DHand his every wimp.
What do you choose?

FiveLittlePigs · 08/03/2019 08:25

In my opinion he should make it his business to know these things. He has access to the same information that I do

Exactly. But because he sees it as your job, he doesn't bother. You are enabling him.

MadAboutWands · 08/03/2019 08:29

Come on. The doesn’t know despite receiving the emails because it’s not his responsibility. Which means he doesn’t care an will nit make any effort to remember.

If he was to take a peanut sandwich to school, then I wouod make sure HE is the one to go to school and be told off. Not you.
He is the one who is organising to pay for the school dinner she will have had etc...

On the ground that you want to protect your dd, you are teaching him he can get away with murder. You are also teaching your dd that men/fathers can’t read and can’t be held responsible for their own child.
And I get that it’s hard to know that your own child might be put in an uncomfortable place because of him. But I actually think thebtrade off of having a fatvthat I loved and formyounto have aervthatbis actually helping is woth it. Don’t let him treat you as a maid that can be ordered around. Which is exactly what he has done. See your u changing your shifts because he can’t find the clothes for his own child!!

mathanxiety · 08/03/2019 08:31

Write him a list of what needs to be done and where everything is, and then step wayyyyy back and let him fail if necessary. He can manage the time and juggle the requirements himself.

Don't make a big song and dance about it if (for eg.) he packs the PB sandwich and it gets taken away. DD won't starve for one day. He is only looking for attention and for you to swoop in and do everything for him.

ChooZac · 08/03/2019 08:32

YANBU!

BertrandRussell · 08/03/2019 08:39

“I do not enable my husband. I am doing the things I'm doing so our daughter doesn't suffer the consequences.”
Practically a textbook definition of enabling. He won’t (not can’t) do it, and is prepared to let you believe he will let your dd suffer if you don’t. So you do. Thus allowing him to get away with it.

PiebaldHamster · 08/03/2019 08:52

You're enabling him.

So he should know that dd can't have products containing nuts and more recently things containing sesame seeds. However he claims he doesn't know these things so if I just leave him to it he might pack up a peanut butter sandwich which will be taken away if spotted at school - dd will suffer due to his incompetence.

God, what total arsehole behaviour. You have to be a real dick to feign that level of incompetence because you think it's someone else's job and beneath you and punish your partner for, God forbid, making you care for your own child!

FUCK THAT!

Who made you a list?

'Listen, I know your game, DH, you CBA'd to parent your own child. Bullshit you 'don't know'. You're pissed off you have to parent your own child. You know who pays for that? YOUR child. I'm done. You're an adult. You crack on and if you duff it up, she'll be the one to remember that Dad left her without a lunch. The school will soon be on our backs about it. I'll just explain her father CBA'd. On you go.'

And then leave him to it.

Mummyoflittledragon · 08/03/2019 08:52

I am a sahm. When I was in hospital the first time, I left dh a list of what to do as he’d never had to do it before. Start time was 8am. He learnt. The next time I was in hospital he didn’t need the list. Dd is primary age but older.

PiebaldHamster · 08/03/2019 08:53

Btw, you have to be a special kind of extraordinary twat to get to the point where you so don't want to parent your own child and force your spouse to do it that you ignore allergy advisories and potentially endanger another child's health and life. Just, words fail.

ILoveMaxiBondi · 08/03/2019 08:55

OP make him do it the night before! He can print out the email from school to have beside him while packing the lunchbox. Honestly, you are enabling his “helplessness^ by making these excuses and continuing to do it for him.

Potplant · 08/03/2019 09:06

My ex pulled this crap all the time. Nothing more unattractive than a man who 'doesn't know' how to look after his own child.
Stop doing all the work. Don't make him laminated lists, don't label the drawers. Won't take him long to learn when he has to.

BertrandRussell · 08/03/2019 09:30

It’s absolutely fine not to know that the school does not allow peanut butter. It is the reverse of fine to continue not to know it after you’ve been told.

Ikanon · 08/03/2019 09:33

DH gets our Dds ready every morning but if he has to go in early I do it. We co-parent. He was unexpectedly in hospital earlier this year for a week and I coped. Last year I went away for a week. He coped.

Sit him down and tell him what you know. Then it's up to him what he does with that knowledge

troubleswillbeoutofsight · 08/03/2019 09:37

I wonder who showed you what to do when your daughter first went to school? Who showed you how to remember PE kit and lunch box? How to get there on time to beat the traffic etc.
I’m imagining no one showed you. Your daughter started school and you were told what time she needed to be there and what they arrangements were for lunch, PE etc. You’d probably read the school newsletter online about world book days and all that
So why does your daughter’s father need someone to show him every step. This is both enabling his poor behaviour and demeaning to him as a man
Let him get on with it, don’t do anymore. If your DD doesn’t arrive with perfect hair, no big deal, if you receive a call home to say she hasn’t had her PE kit, ask school to contact her father

Imperfectsusan · 08/03/2019 09:41

He can do these things. He doesn't want to.

WanderingDaffodil · 08/03/2019 10:06

You have to let him suffer the consequences of his mistakes.

For example your daughter loses her sandwich one day because he's deliberately being a dick. She still has eg a yoghurt, an apple and a biscuit. At four she can survive on this. Or, as PP said, she has a school lunch. He sorts out payment.

If you protect him from his mistakes he will never have to learn to do it.

She's not going to get into trouble if she forgets her book in reception. But I still don't understand why one of you doesn't pack it the night before. Doesn't matter who.

What dressing does he have to do at that age? I have one disabled child who still needs help at 15 but my other boys were dressing themselves long before school.

ApocalypseNowt · 08/03/2019 16:31

If I had never done the school run before but now needed to I'd ask a) what does dc need and b) where/when to drop off. Then I'd get on and do it.

It's really not complicated!

Iggly · 08/03/2019 17:43

Just tell him that you know he’s capable and you will not be doing it anymore as of X.

Then stop doing it.

LannieDuck · 08/03/2019 18:07

So now you've told him she can't have peanut butter or sesame seeds, he can make her packed lunch, right?

Smotheroffive · 08/03/2019 19:48

So..am I right,based on these latest posts that he didn't even know his own DD shouldn't be having peanut butter or sesame???? Does he even live under the same roof as you and DD that this vital info has escaped him!!! How can that be!!!

Does he know who his DD even is? Maybe he should carry a photo with him if he ever has to, god forbid, collect her from school. Buy him some.pocket gene testing kits, just to be sure.

Phineyj · 08/03/2019 20:06

This crap contributes to the gender pay gap. He ought to want to do better, given he has a DD. Btw your DD sounds amazingly responsible for her age. My 6 yo would not do all the stuff you mention without major nagging. So actually I think provide the stuff (food for packed lunch, clean uniform) and let the two of them get on with it. If he is really not to be relied on, probably just as well she learns that, sadly.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5

Swipe left for the next trending thread