To be shocked by people's partners?

[ReallyLilyReally]

SO MANY of the threads i read about new parents include women struggling hugely to cope with their babies, and when asked if there's a DP on the scene who can help, they say that he's just not interested/won't do night feeds/is too busy etc and that theyve already tried to get him to pitch in and he won't.

Call me stupid, but i cannot for the life of me work out why these women have had kids with men they can't rely on for support. What the hell kind of decision making is that? AIBU to think that it's bad parenting to knowingly give a kid a useless dad?

@thepeopleversuswork
All a bit vague, though. In 21st century Britain people get to define their own roles within a relationship. Great. But too often people are not on the same page about what those roles will be once kids are involved. Who does what and when. Who gets to rest when and for how long. Agreements need to be made before children arrive. If a deal can’t be struck then it’s best to put off children or split up.

You do know most domestic abuse/ violence starts during pregnancy or the first year after the baby is born? Yes change is very quick once a new baby is involved.

^^
This. It is absolutely classic for abusive men to suddenly show their real selves just as a baby comes along, and the woman is trapped.

I sort of understand what the OP means some woman don't have a clue what the man will be like until the babies here, then you get woman like my mum who knew what my dad is like and still had 6 children with him

I agree. These threads always go the same way, talking about abuse beginning in pregnancy. But the OP didn't mean that, she meant ordinary guys who don't pull their weight.

My friends both have partners who leave them with the entire mental load and much of the physical load too. They aren't abusive, they're lazy. The reason it happened to my friends is because they never discussed who would do what after the baby arrived.

I'm assuming the man thought well women do most of it so that's fine, and the woman thought he's a nice person so he'll be kind and helpful, and even if he isn't I really want to have a baby.

I wish we could have these threads without defaulting to abuse victims. The much more ordinary picture is down to society, sexist expectations, and women's desire to have relationships and babies.

@Ginfordinner, so we are and remain what are Parents are? Makes you wonder how the world progressed and women gained rights. The men aren't brainwashed they've cottoned on to how easy they have it and don't want a change. If they'd had a father who pulled his weight, they'd have a different attitude again. Or men could just grow up and be an Adult.

I'm new here and also shocked by how many men are complained about here

This and it's getting worse. Never any introspection going on. It's a case of women are always right, have a perfect perspective on why men do what they do or don't do, and in the end, it's always the man's fault and should therefore be given a hard time to change his behaviour or be ditched.

Rarely goes a thread that goes 'I'm having issues with my oh about X. What could I do differently to make things better or could I be given advice to try to understand his oersoective'.

Men on MN are not allowed to be tired (they never do as much as us women), not allowed to be depressed, scared, insecure, unsure, fed-up or frustrated. They should however be totally patient and understanding of their partner feeling all the above.

I've been very surprised by a number of male friends that I would consider to be good sorts, going 'I have to go to work', 'I need my sleep', refusing to do night shifts, resenting the lack of their own disposable income and time, completely underestimating the toil that looking after young children all day every day involves, despairing at their partners inadequacies, and even going as far as to describe looking after their own kids without their partner as 'baby sitting'!

From what I have seen from friends, work colleagues, neighbours etc who have children far too often very little, if no, thought goes into having children. They just have them because supposedly that's what you do!

On the other hand all the child free by choice couples I know thought about it A LOT.

Also so many pregnancies are supposedly "accidents". That is rarely going to work out well.

Having children is one of the major causes of marriage/relationship breakdown. It's certainly not the lovely fun thing it's made out by many to be and more thought she be given to having children

Mine changed. Now ex, obviously. Before child was born he was all about equality and going to look after the baby while I went back to work. After she was born he was angry all the time, drinking every day, refusing to help. Fairly disengaged as an eow dad now. It happens.

Cam77 fair enough, it was a bit of a waffle.

I suppose what I was getting at with this is that even fairly progressive, well-educated people who think they have an expectation of a relatively equal marriage are often caught unawares by the reality of what rearing children means to their relationship and their working lives.

This is partly a factor of the fact that we're generally only into the first or second generation for whom there's an expectation of gender equality in child-rearing: for many of us (myself included) we don't have a good template of progressive male/female roles from our own parents so we tend to default to roles in relationships based on a recollection of our own childhoods, rather than thinking through how we want to implement our own marriages.

For example: my ExH and I discussed this before marriage and we "agreed" that there would be an equal division of labour when we were rearing children. Because he had verbally signed up to this I didn't really question it. More fool me. And then, like so many other people on this thread, when the shit hit the fan he couldn't cope with it and defaulted to more or less refusing to get involved with child-rearing, even though I was earning 2X more than him and had a far more stressful job. This is a familiar story.

But the broader question is how we educate ourselves men and women to get a much more robust appraisal before children arrive of what is actually involved and who will do what.

My guess is that a lot of people are reassured by vague commitments before having children and, because they are in love and there is momentum towards a wedding etc, don't want to probe too deeply. You can argue that its women's job to be more thorough around this, maybe that's fair. But I think the whole of society needs to get into the habit of having this discussion and having it very explicitly and with a great deal of due diligence, before marriage/kids, the whole shabang.

It's not about blaming women for not seeing red flags, its about creating a culture whereby its absolutely normal for both parties to be super clear and detailed about what their expectations are before entering into these commitments. That doesn't provide a guarantee and isn't an excuse for awful posts like this. But hopefully over time it will inculcate the idea that you have to have nailed these things down to some degree before you leap into the abyss....

I don't disagree with you Ponoka. I am lucky that DH had lived on his own before he met me as he was brought up very much by a mother who considered that household chores were "not man's work".

DH used to stay with her for a week at a time in her later years to care for her and she used to tell him off for doing the vacuuming because it was no job for a man! But, unfortunately I do know of men who still think this way because that is all they have ever known. DH is 67 BTW.

Well said lynsey91

Women are taught that love is enough, it isn't.

What thepeopleversuswork said.

My (less eloquent) version: there are not enough good men to go around. The social and cultural pressure on women to settle down and have children is immense, and it’s not that surprising that a lot of women make significant compromises to do that. The bar for being a “good man” is set incredibly low, and there are virtually no consequences for failing to meet it. Result, men make messes in their relationships and families and barely suffer as a result, so why the hell would they change? Whereas women suffer at both ends, for either opting out of marriage and parenthood, or for trying and failing.

karencantobe

nailed it.

This is the absolute heart of it. Men are brought up to be much more pragmatic about relationships and marriage, from a self-interested point of view. This isn't necessarily ideal but it does tend to protect them from the hearts and flowers bollocks that women are fed.

We would all do ourselves a big favour for starters by abandoning the ridiculous industry of romantic mythology around marriage and the loathsome cult of the wedding.

Every week a thread pops up on here from someone asking why her long-term cocklodger hasn't proposed to her yet and insisting she can't possibly take matters into her own hands because "he wants to propose". It enrages me but the fact is we feed little girls this shit that love will make everything right and you need to just leave it to prince charming.

We need to teach girls in particular a much more pragmatic and hard-headed approach to choosing a life partner. Does he respect you as an equal? Is he prepared to respect your wish to be financially self-sufficient after marriage? Will he play an active role in rearing kids? Because a nice eternity ring, a church wedding and a weekly delivery of a dozen red roses will pale pretty quickly if he's a lazy, entitled sod who cant be arsed changing his kids' nappies and expects to be out every other Friday until 5am on the lash.

@ReallyLilyReally
I feel exactly the same way as you. I know a lot of this goes on and don’t understand why the women have chosen these men to be their husbands and have kids with them and then moan about how they can’t cope with life etc. It’s their own fault fgs!!

Sometimes you don’t know how a man will cope with parenthood until you actually have a baby. I have two Dc. Oldest with my ex and youngest with my partner. My ex was useless, during my pregnancy he seemed like he’d be a really good parent, he wasn’t and he wasn’t a good partner either so we split. He struggled with the settling down.

OH is the complete opposite. He used to worry during my pregnancy, never seemed excited about it. I think he was just anxious because he was such a brilliant father from the start. He is a hands on dad, always helps out. Some days he does a lot more parenting than me.

That's it. You don't know what people will be like before children. DH is still useless and DS2 (his first, my fourth) is 8! He told him off for trying to open his multivitamins this morning, then snapped at me for defending him. DS2 has ADHD and is likely to go hyper if you tell him off for something he should be doing.

AIBU to think that it's bad parenting to knowingly give a kid a useless dad?

Nope. I'm amazed every time I come on here at the shit shows that some people choose to have more than one children with.

I would have held horrible, victim blaming, naive views like that too... when I was a teenager and the world appeared black and white.

My husband was exactly how you describe before we had DC - supportive, helpful etc. but that didn't extend to parenthood as he was conditioned to believe it was "women's work". Of course he never told me that and I could never have known until our DD was born. It rocked my world that the man I had consciously chosen to have children with (he always wanted them) would be so utterly useless with babies. It was a very, very difficult few years and I was tortured with regret, sadness, disappointment and a ferocious anger that I'd been "duped". All of which lead to ill health for me - physical and mental. But thank you for telling me I'm a bad parent, that's really helpful... I'd work on your empathy and critical thinking skills OP.

It's not women's fault when men are useless. Anyone who thinks it is has a serious case of internal misogyny.

Know this: if you want kids you will practically raise them by yourself. It doesn’t matter that you live under the same roof with the father of your kids. He will be present in the flesh (more or less) but will not engage with childrearing. Not fully or not at all.
And I know some women will reply that but my husband adores our kids and he is very hands-on blablabla... (and you are very very lucky if you have a husband like that) but it’s more the exception and not the rule.
Only have as many kids as you will be able to raise up alone if anything happens. Because shit happens and if you find yourself alone with four kids to raise you not gonna like it.

I feel like when starting a family there are million things you need to talk bout. And then there are millions things that you didn't even know to talk about and then a million things you didn't realize that required a conversation.

Potatobug I can see how you've got to that point: I have felt like this in dark hours and I'm also sceptical when people celebrate their "hands on husbands". But you can't expect society to progress if you basically prime girls to treat all men as sperm donors. We have to get past this mindset as a society and catastrophising doesn't do this.

I would agree with you though on one point: I think every women should ensure she has the financial resources on her own to raise children. No-one should ever rely wholly on a man financially.

Works both ways. My ex went completely loopy after the kids were born. Totally obsessed with the children to the point that she has no life of her own and is slowly driving them away from her (although she can’t see it)

She is completely nuts and is no doubt doing all sorts of long term mental harm to the kids but has completely shut me out of their lives.

No way I would have children with her if I could go back in time, but there was no real evidence of what a total looney she was before the children

Ever heard of the patriarchy, OP? Women's choices are often limited. What do you do when you've got a baby in your arms and he won't do anything? Ever tried to set up home on your own with a baby and probably very little money? Ever handed your precious child over to a useless twat who won't look after them properly for half the week? Do you think a vulnerable new mum would give up her home, her relationship, her financial stability, her life or do you think she would just do the night feeds and the dishes herself? Have you ever had a child? Do you know how relentless it is? Do you remember the expectation vs the reality? Do you think either party knows what they're in for?

Ginfordinner
I think in some cases you can absolutely blame the man’s mother for bringing him up to believe that women are here to serve men. Other posters have complained about partners whose mother has mollycoddled them so that they are utterly brainwashed into thinking that they cannot and should not be doing “women’s work”

While I see where you are coming from and I agree that it is a contributing factor; I don't believe the blame rests with their mothers or fathers either.

By the time we reach adulthood we should have progressed in our human development to have full autonomy (self governance), to have separated from our parents in terms of having figured out our identity, formed our own separate moral beliefs, our own values. Figuring out who we are, what we value, what we believe and deciding on what parental values, belief systems, morals etc. do we keep, discard or modify; is a developmental milestone in our adolescent years. We are all shaped by nature and nurture. Nature (our personality and temperament we are born with), nurture is the influence of the environment we grow up in: immediate family, extended family, friends/peers, community, culture.

An adult man should be responsible for how he views and treats women because he is a self governing adult. His mother is not responsible for her adult son's behavior. She is responsible for how she chooses to influence him. He is responsible for how he chooses to respond to that influence.

The way that society mollycoddles men and excuses men and bestows entitlement upon men would be a contributing factor too. But it does not diminish personal responsibility of the men themselves and how they choose to respond to societal expectations.