This is not OK surely?

[Bobbins2015]

DH has declared that he will not help homeschool the children. We are both working from home. He told me from day 1 it was up to me but he wouldn’t help. I am left to juggle my work around trying to see to the kids. In the last few weeks if I ask for help, the school work doesn’t get done or he just takes them out for half an hour. Seriously pulling my hair out.

Don’t ask, tell him. Draw up a timetable and put his name next to half of it. If he doesn’t teach his ‘subjects’ then he takes responsibility when they go back to school.
How do men just get away with this? Presumably he doesn’t pick and choose bits of his paid employment and he shouldn’t pick and choose at parenting.

I've said I'm not homeschooling mine. I am working from home and my dp is working out of the house. I am not a teacher and am finding it hard juggling full time work and not having dp around without the additional homework as well.

Is he working from home? That might put a different spin on things. I know dh does calls and meetings etc in the mornings but he's available in the afternoon, which is too late as online school is mornings. He helps though with work set out. What about switching around the home schooling hours to when he's available? Or is he just a lazy shite?

work out hours for all household family tasks, and allocate evenly

So he doesn't want to homeschool? That leaves him with cooking and laundry maybe?

Are your working hours reasonably flexible? My org accommodates zoom meetings with dogs, cats and children.

I would do the home schooling on my own, not every couple has the perfect and correct ways of doing things. Your husband could do other more exciting things with the children in the lock down.

He's telling you that deep down he thinks that his work (money, career, identity) is really important and yours is not.

He's a sexist prick who has been exposed.

ABSOLUTELY FUCK THIS.

There is no excuse for this. Ever. Even if he did 25% of the school stuff it still wouldn’t be enough.

In what world is this justifiable?

And does he often patronise and belittle you by lecturing you about “your grand ideas”?

Sounds like my ex husband.

EX.

Ps now more than ever you guys need a routine else this will all get much harder should lockdown extend to a third wave

So he's not saying he won't do anything, it's that he doesn't want to stick to the structure you decided everyone needed?

So if you were working outside the home what would happen?

Reading between the lines, the reason he's not doing it is because he doesn't think it needs doing. This is just some project his wife has made up and expects him to be contribute effort to, despite him never agreeing it was necessary.

What, exactly, have the school said needs to be done by parents?

(I have a DD in primary, and neither of us have done anything except make sure she's sat at her desk in front of a computer with access to Google classrooms, at the appropriate hours.)

To be clear: in our case, the school have not asked parents to do anything significant.

There is a difference between home schooling and remote schooling. If this is remote schooling, it's the school who are supposed to be checking that children are doing their work. (It should always be the school. It's nice some parents want to help, but it should never be a requirement.)

The children need to be fed, watered and supervised to a degree during the day. Does he mean that's all down to you to do that and provide activities etc regardless of schooling AND work from home? So what if he does all the housework, that can be done any time and doesn't interfere with his daytime work. You should both share the daytime stuff as well as the nighttime stuff. These are different times for everyone not just those with important man jobs.

Christ.

Why is he such a knob?

What, exactly, have the school said needs to be done by parents?

Another one wondering this. How old are the children OP? You say young primary, but what year. Our Reception children are being asked to do very little, mostly phonics and reading. Our year 1s a little more, but nothing that I would describe as "grand plans".

You're both working from home, so whilst a schedule would be helpful, school will not be expecting much home learning to be taking place.

Primary around here are not expecting much from the children but obviously you need to supervise and keep them alive while WFH and from what you said it sounded like he refuses to even help with this? I can only assume he does not want to supervise as they are not biologically his, so he feels it is your job to WFH and sort them out?

Thank you so much everyone. Our conversation earlier today was one of those ‘did I just hear right?’. And your responses on the whole tell me I’m not over reacting. I’ll try to answer your questions.. school have been brilliant and there’s no pressure to submit tonnes. Both children are of an age where they need a bit of direction; plus I want to help them. Neither myself or DH are inundated with work but I have definitely had much more than him. It will get busier for him shortly but he’s had hardly anything to do up till this point. I’m running the days basically while he does as he pleases. He will flit in and tidy up, make lunch etc. Like I said, he is helping in other ways. What really got to me today was the declaration. This is a pattern of behaviour with him, and with me it’s pure resentment. The joys of lockdown eh.

Oh and they are biologically his. The fact that some of you think that they may not be because of his actions makes me very sad. You are all right and I am a mug.

School have suggested 3 short activities a day. Nothing onerous.

I would be inclined to say that it’s fine if he doesn’t want to do structured school work in his 50% of the childcare time, and what sort of things will he be doing with them during those hours while you work - so that you can make sure not to duplicate it too closely while you are watching them for him

His opinion is that his work is his priority
So it's all about him then?
So what he's saying is he doesn't give a shit about his kids education - or their future potential of getting at least an 'important' job as his?

He's a selfish dickhead.
Tell him he doesn't get to opt out of parenting his own kids.

Well sounds like he is being helpful in other ways, so why don't you do the 3 short activities and let him sort meals, general tidying and taking them out?

Is he saying (a) he won’t help at all, not even getting them sat down, sorted out, checking in that they’re still working etc or (b) he won’t actually teach them and spend the entire session by their side working with them?

If (a) he is a useless waste of space, what did he think being a parent meant? If (b) I personally think it is still opting out but if the school has said this isn’t required and he’s probably seeing a lot on social media of people taking very different approaches to homeschooling, maybe he thinks you’re going way overboard? If they are under 8 though he should prioritise their learning over his own leisure time and can surely find 1-2 hours a day to do this?

If he is very self important about work have you considered getting him to commit to 1-2 extra hours schooling a day on the weekend instead of during the week? This is an idea a colleague suggested and I’m amazed it isn’t more common - treating two weekdays as the weekend for the kids then spending a few hours on the weekend doing some dedicated schooling without any distractions.

If they're young primary, they need entertaining, supervising, feeding etc as well as home schooling. If you're both WFH, you need to split shifts and one of you work in the mornings and one the afternoons, obviously taking any time limited work meetings into account.

The other looks after DC, does the schoolwork, plus plays with them, feeds them, and takes them out for a walk or whatever is available to your locally.

How on earth does he think that it is reasonable to ignore his children like this and expect you to pick up the slack?