To be sick of being told how lucky I am

[FirstTimeMummyDS88]

Myself and DH have 2 children together DS1 is two and DS2 is 5 months and I'm really starting to get irritated with people telling me how lucky I am when're DH does something with our boys or around the house

Some examples

1. On the phone to a friend from work a few nights ago, I'm still on maternity when she asked if the boys were still up, I replied his DH had our boys to bed while I tidied up toys downstairs and her reply was "aww isn't he good doing that for you"

1. Last week I went outside to water some flowers in the front garden when a neighbour asked about the boys, I told her DH had took them out for a walk and she replied "it's nice of him to have them for you while you get a break"

1. In supermarket yesterday when the cashier must have noticed the picture i have of the boys as my phone screensaver and asked "they doing ok being stuck in?"

I told her they've been getting out almost daily walks and we're quite lucky to have a big garden so they're doing ok, she asked have I been taking them to shops and I replied no that DH was giving them lunch and putting them down for their naps while I get the shopping done. She replied "your lucky to have a Husband who babysits"

AIBU to think it's ridiculous in this day and day for people to think that a father doing his fair share of the work in raising his children means I am some sort of blessed wife who had a gift from god bestowed upon me.
He doesn't babysit, he is being a father!

I realise I'm probably being ridiculous getting annoyed by this but DS2 is teething and I've bot had much sleep and I forgot to get wine when I went shopping 😫

My mother always went on about what a brilliant father my DH was, drove me mad. How lucky I was that he was so engaged as a parent and did so much with them etc. I told her it wasn’t luck and we both worked very hard in our parenting roles, but she never got it. Think ultimately she just wanted to wind me up.

I apparently have the most amazing DH in the world. I'm always being told so. What's hilarious is when he does show his faults people have a go at me that he's not perfect! 😂 I won't list them here as he is a lovely man but definitely not perfect. What's really annoying is the people who act like they're wondering why he's with me or even worse that I tricked him into marrying me.

Interesting that there’s quite a few posts on this thread saying that people only complement men who actually parent their kids as it’s still relatively unusual. If you are that traditional then wouldn’t it be equally unusual for mothers to go out to work / be the main breadwinner? Yet funnily enough I can’t remember one single occasion where my husband has been told he’s ‘lucky’ because I go to work and help provide for the family. So - a women takes on a range of varied responsibilities = unremarkable, a man doing it = what an amazing father

Clytemnestra2 - congratulated? Ha. If you are a woman who goes out to work, you are not amazing, you are a horrible mother who sends her poor children out to day orphanages, for strangers to raise. I mean, why bother having them?

Nobody has asked my husband that. Funny.

'Well he is their parent' usually stopped people asking further. But it did used to piss me off when people came out with this crap

YANBU at all. Men get praised when they do, women get slated when they don't. Pisses me off.

If me and my partner have kids, he'll be taking on at least 50% of the responsibility, probably more actually.

I earn more than him, a lot more. Whats the point in me taking a pay drop to reduce childcare costs when he could instead? Makes more sense for him to do it. Plus my job actually gives me regular pay rises and chances of progression. His has no chance.

If anything in our relationship, it would be me taking the children to give him a break.

Yanbu. This would irritate me too.

I used to get comments about how wonderful DH was for working part time AND looking after the children/ house after school. While I was working up to 98 hour weeks while studying for exams.

When I went part time and he went full time, no one mentioned me being wonderful for doing the same!

My partner is currently doing virtually everything around the house, as well as taking 2 year old DS the second he gets home. I'm 39 weeks pregnant, have barely been able to walk for weeks due to feeling like I've been kicked in the crotch, absolutely bloody knackered and, most of the time, in a terrible mood.

If someone said that to me, I would agree with them. I know I'm lucky. If they said it to me because he washed up once or had DS for an hour, I would think they were a soft touch and hadn't negotiated the household chores very well. I still wouldn't be cross though. Just think "more fool you".

I do often say I can't come out because I'm babysitting. People ask whose kids. "Mine. What do you mean it's not babysitting if it's your own kids? Their dad gets praised for it regularly!"

Gets some people thinking. Though many people I know do talk about babysitting their own kids, as in they can do what they want in the house in the evening, but can't go out because kids are there. Exactly as if a babysitter were there.

I really disagree with "they're only being nice" - if the person telling you your DH really thinks they're unusual, then surely you're doing them a favour letting them know it's their lazy man who's the outlier? A friend of mine married another friend - he's a bit of a thoughtless twit rather than actively sexist. He didn't change nappies of their first baby. It was only when various mums expressed shock to her, and then she asked his dad's football team mates for confirmation, that he made the effort to change and was a lot better with baby 2 (and since).

YANBU just because you didn't pick a shit dad for your kids. You should say it too. You should say, no he's looking after his own kids and leave it like that.

I get why you are irritated by it, It says a lot about social conditioning and expectations.
However they dont mean it unkindly, its more than likely they had little support from their dh when their kids were small.
Trouble is it inadvertently reinforces low expectations of fathers

YANBU, saying it’s ‘lucky’ to have a partner who does childcare/housework shows a belief that really these things are a woman’s responsibility. It’s lovely if men deign to parent their own children a little bit or ‘help’ with housework but we can’t expect it of them, what with all their important male responsibilities to deal with. Or their penis gets in the way or something.

The bar for men is so low. So pathetically low. Those responses aren't the fault of the women who said them but the men that they've seen and known as fathers and just shows how many women have only ever see men half arse fatherhood and get applauded for it.

Yes your husband should be parenting as much as you do but you must know from reading on here a lot of men don't. So yes a lot of people will think you're lucky.
Children (or mine anyway)always come to me even if it means they have to walk past their dad or ask him where I am. When they were younger it would be for things like drinks or snacks and I was like ask your dad.
Even now it's mum what's for tea or mum what time is tea?
Why? I'm not the only parent in the house and funnily enough when I'm not there they do mange to ask their dad.
So it's not just adults who assume men "help out."

This would and does piss me off. My mum and mil are the worst culprits for it. I often get told I am lucky that dh will do the bed and bath time routine. I am not sat on my arse doing nothing at this point I will be cleaning the kitchen and running the hoover around the house before the kids go to bed. No one ever says my dh is lucky to have a working wife who pays the household bills and does 70% of all childcare. He is a good dad and when we are both home our parenting is 50:50 but it annoys me that he gets praise dor simply being a dad whereas I should be a martyr because I am the mum.

*for

This drives me mad.

I am currently working full time from home whilst COVID has my husband down to working one day a week.

Our neighbours/his parents STILL bang on about what a great Dad he is and how lucky I am because he’s looking after our children whilst I work.

Unbelievable.

You should check your priviledge

What do you mean, @user1471500037?

@user1471500037

You should check your priviledge

Expecting what you put into a relationship to be put in by the other person is not privilege, it should be the norm. Of course the reality is a lot of people are being abused, or taken advantage off, we all know that. That does not mean we shouldn't still expect equal share to be the norm. That is not privilege, that is something we all should expect and strive to offer.

@user1471500037

You should check your priviledge

Are you on the right thread?

You should check your priviledge

Or others should check their standards....

I have friends who moan like hell that their partner does nothing (and I really do mean NOTHING) around the house. It just doesn't compute to me. We are no longer living in an age where we are kept (usually). So why would you accept the life of an unpaid skivvy?

A lot do though.

You should check your priviledge

Its a "privilege" for men to look after their own kids?! Nah sorry you can piss right off with that mysogynistic BS

My partner once said to me he’d babysit while I did x, that comment was corrected pretty quickly.
I guess gender roles and parenting of children is still pretty much archaic in some people’s opinions.