Men with babies...

[Ploppymoodypants]

So, I know I am being unreasonable, and no one has done anything remotely wrong, but this happened today.

Went bank holiday clothes shopping with DD who is 6 months old. She is v content but started getting a bit fed up in a shop so I took her out of pushchair and jiggled her about to cheer her up amid the chaos whilst DH tried on clothes. All fine. However then DH offers to hold her so I can try on clothes. Brilliant, good teamwork. But with 5 minutes he has been approached by various women and men to chat to him about how cute his baby is, and ask him all sorts of questions about her, and him, offer him a chair to sit on. They are all pulling faces at DD and finding things for her to hold. And we were in hollister so he was lapping up the attention from the 21 year old shop assistants. But to be fair the guys were just as chatty and DD was giving them all her best gummy smiles. Now is this a thing, or did DD suddenly look much cuter with DH holding her, or maybe I just looked harassed and unapproachable?!

It's got nothing to do with how you looked and everything to do with society's hilariously low standards for fathering. A dad holding his own child in public is a positive Saint and the Best Dad Ever, and to prevent any need to exercise his dadly powers at all women will proffer him assistance at every turn. Mothers, on the other hand, are just assumed to be a) competent and b) of extremely low value

This happens to me. Our dd is also 6 months we were walking around m&s food I had her and nothing Dh holds her and every woman in the shop speaks to them 😂

Aren’t women genetically programmed to be attracted to men who are (or appear to be) good fathers?

Even the young hot male hollister shop assistants were chatting them up 🤷🏼‍♀️
Even DH commented on it when we left and said, well if ever he is single again and needs to go on the pull, he will just take DD with him 😳! I was all 😕. It was like that episode of Friends where Joey and Chandler bottle Ben to attract hot girls 😁😩

That should be ‘borrow’ Ben. Not bottle him !!!

This sums it up really

I always got approached when mine was a baby. Some people have open, friendly vibes and people like cooing over babies.

This happens to me too but only due to the fact I look around 15 and dh looks his age so everyone assumes I'm a teenage mother (nothing wrong with that) who deserves to be judged and shamed and that dh is a lovely, doting daddy 🙃

Don’t get me wrong, I do get approached often and when I have been out and about BF people have been nothing but kind and accommodating. It’s just that this was sooo obviously different both DH and I were 😳

I feel your pain OP

Ds2 was 4 months old when we went on holiday

On the plane dh took the first 2 hour shift with ds1 and dd and i held ds2

Second two hours i took ds1 and dd

And the fucking woman next to dh took ds2

Where the fuck was she when i was dealing with ds2 ?????

Had my baby and my cute dog out for a walk today

Took three times as long as when it's just me and the dog because every woman stopped to tell me how good I was for giving mummy a lie in (transparent wenches)

My stepson was asked for the loan of his baby at the Army/Navy game once by a group of guys as a pulling aid. It worked then they handed him back.

Try getting DH to wear her in a sling. You won't be able to see him for the crowds of people congratulating him on his fabulous parenting.

You however, will just get people pushing past you and moaning that you're taking up too much space. Or 'spoiling' her by carrying her.

My OH took our DC to forest school alone, the ladies running it made him hot coffee, took boys off & helped loads.

Guess what happened when I went, every week apart from that one time.

This despair with this on social media. I do hundreds of nappies, feeds, nap times, trips to the park etc. DH says he got up one morning with DD, fed her etc and he's inundated with comments of how amazing he is, how she's such a daddy's girl etc.

It's got nothing to do with how you looked and everything to do with society's hilariously low standards for fathering. A dad holding his own child in public is a positive Saint and the Best Dad Ever, and to prevent any need to exercise his dadly powers at all women will proffer him assistance at every turn.

This, so much.

It drives me fucking nuts. Every Saturday I take 10 month old DS to a 'swimming' (splashing around and singing songs) class. I take him alone, DH tidies up the house a bit and gets lunch on while we're gone. Everyone else in the pool is a dad - every one has a partner who sits watching at the side and changes the baby before and after the class. Twice now one of the dads has come alone and the mums have been queuing up to change his baby for him, because obviously he couldn't cope alone. No one has ever once offered to hold DS or help me, including the time that an idiot left the baby gate on the changing room open and I had to chase after him when he crawled off and I didn't have any trousers on .

My partner has the opposite when he’s out alone with our daughter, he says everyone looks at him like he’s nicked her!

DH used to do the weeks shop at Tesco on a Saturday morning with DS1 in the sling when he was a baby. I got to have a lie in. You'd better believe every cashier and female member of staff in that place used to fawn on him like he was the second coming.

Wow what an amazing Dad! (sarcasm BTW) this is what society thinks when a man holds his child for 5 mins.

Every.Single.Time my DH does any form of parenting when we are out and about a woman will comment that they are such a daddy’s girl. It drives me mad.

I once left my toddler DD with her uncle in a pub garden briefly while I went to the loo and then got a round in. DD was pottering around singing to herself handing him stones while he sat, messing about on his phone and occasionally talking to her. Omg the amount of people (well, women) who cooed over DD and her uncle and told him how good he was being with her, how lucky DD was to have such a lovely uncle etc etc.

Don’t get me wrong, he is a nice guy, genuinely cares about his nieces and nephews but hands on and involved he ain’t.

It's not you, it's that people generally think fathers are shit so get all excited when they see a good one. It's ridiculous. My DH and I shared parental leave when both our kids were born and he now works part time so he can spend more time with them (so do I), the women we know think he is some sort of god, while the men think he's pathetic. People are stupid.

DH gets it all the time, even from the health visitor when he took DS to get weighed while I had a bath. Oh you're sooo good, erm what about the fact I'd been up half the night, while he slept and had bleeding nipples to bathe, while he took DS to get weighed (5 minute walk) and for a coffee?? It's usually women sadly.

Happened to me too. Me and DP got on a busy bus with dc. DP sat at the back with DS (4) and DD (1) while I was at the door with the folded buggy and a couple of bags. 10mins into the journey I could hear a woman singing "the wheels on the bus." As the bus crowd thinned I could see DD sat on the knee of a woman who was happily singing with her, while DP tended to DS

Definitely a thing!
My DS gets quite a bit of attention when we are out due to the amount of hair he has makes him look like a mini toddler. But my DH takes him quite a bit especially in a carrier. The number of times I've heard aren't you lucky to have such a hands on dad (to me we are both parents so when he's not at work it's 50/50) or he gets more cooed over than normal. Supermarkets are the worst DS hates them and cries all the way around when it's me I just get glared at when my DH has him he gets about 20 offers of help!

Unfortunately it's apparently not the norm for men to show they parent babies!