To ask if your dh/dp can look after the children independently?

[Neonprint]

Can your dp/dh/father of your children look after them on his own? Two children aged 18 months and 4.5? Or just tow under 5. No additional needs or SEN.

If so for how long? What set up support would be needed if any? For example getting clothes out, sorting food etc. If he did look after them alone would he manage well or just cope?

Is this something which happens regularly in your home? Or would it be like you owed him something and he'd be a bit put out?

To be full transparent just having a conversation with a friend and she felt it's normal her dh can't really (doesn't want to) have the children on his own. When she is out of the house. I don't think this is normal and most fathers can do childcare independently even for pre school age. I look after the kids I know although I love them it's not easy!

I think she thinks what men can do and what they should ideally do are different. So is it unreasonable of me to think a father should look after two children that age? Not sure if I'm being unrealistic?

Yes DH has always been able to look after DS.

I actually think most men can, but their wives/partners want everything to be perfect and just so, and because they are often more relaxed, their wives say they "can't" look after the kids.

My DS is 18, so not quite the same, but I was away visiting my mum last weekend (yes bending covid rules a bit, see other thread on overnight stays before 17 May) and when I got back neither of them had eg thought about washing masks for DS to go back to college on Monday. But they survived!

@Ragwort

Do these useless fathers ever think what might happen if their wife was seriously ill or died, sadly happened to a neighbour of our's, the wife was killed in a car crash and the father obviously had to bring up the three children.

When I was a kid (80s) I knew of 2 families where the mum had died and the kids had then been sent to live with their grandma in one case, and aunt in another.

It's depressing to think that 40 years later this could still be the case for some useless fathers. It would make my vagina shrivel up and die.

Our children are older now (12 and 17), so don't need looking after as such, but when they were little DH would have been fine on his own. He wasn't confident; always preferred me being there - I worked with young children so not a lot phased me, and I think he often compared himself to me, as in that he couldn't do something as well as I could. That's just because I was used to managing with much more than my own children, there was nothing wrong with his parenting skills!

Thanks for all the replies. Sorry I'm busy for the next few hours so will read through later. But I agree with all of the people saying of course. But I didn't want to be an annoying person without children who has no idea!

The answer to this is that the only way a man learns to manage small kids by himself is to learn to do so. We have teens/ young adult s now but DH worked condensed hours so I could work a couple of days a week and he and my parents shared the childcare. The longest he managed alone was a weekend I went to Scotland for a been weekend. I chose to stop breastfeeding youngest in preparation for the weekend, so he would have had a 4,2 and 1 year old. I got back to local station on Sunday evening and there they all were waiting to greet me. They had all had a lovely time but were very pleased to see me home.
If women do everything for the children, they cannot suddenly expect to go off for a day and expect their partner to just know what to do with the children. This needs to start day one and your partner should be as capable as you of understanding and meeting the needs of his children.

YANBU men are just a capable of looking after children on their own - the problem is that so many of them act incompetent in order to get out of it because they are lazy fuckers.

The only support a father needs is for day to day life is:

1. Childcare for working hours, which he can arrange.

Same as a mother does.

1. Someone to vent to when the kids are driving him mad. Same as a mother does.

My DH is a more than competent parent and we share the load.

The only time a parent should need any additional support is at times of illnesses/Sen/poverty/crisis etc.

Yes he can and the longest he has done it solo was 2 weeks while I went on a holiday. they were 2 and 4 at the time.

DH is perfectly capable of looking after our 5 kids, 3 of which were under 5 years old until recently.

I was a doctor in training when mine were small, so would disappear for the weekend to do an on call.
The hardest for him would have been when they were 7, 5 and 6 months, I guess. But he managed just as well as I would have done.

I don’t think having a penis gets in the way of child care.

Mine would be fine with the older one but I think having the baby as well for an extended amount of time would be tough. I imagine he’d cope with both, drop offs and work etc if he had to but would be very stressed. Absolutely fine for a day or so.

My dh was quite reluctant at first as I'd been at home for the long stretch of maternity leave and he felt I had things all under control whereas he had to work things out from scratch. But he still did it. He started with an evening each week in charge while I went out when dc1 was 4 months old (dc1 was breastfed but took expressed milk, something that made a world of difference in terms of me being able to leave the house). It was eye opening - no you can't reliably get work done, no she won't just go straight back to sleep if she wakes - but he survived. He's taken them abroad by himself to visit his family, had them for weekends while I've been away, and now I'm working weekends he's in charge (and somehow gets more housework done than I do, while also taking them exciting places). He doesn't always do things the same way, and sometimes he forgets stuff because he's not quite as ready to go as I am or he'll forget they get hangry if they miss their snack. But they all survive, and we're all of us the better for it.

My DH looked after baby independently straight after birth as I was out of it from drugs (I woke periodically to admire and BF baby but he did first nappy, dress, skin to skin etc).

He first took DC out alone for a few hrs at about 3 weeks?

DC is now a toddler and nothing would change whether DH or I are doing the childcare/housework.

While nothing in life is a dead cert, we’ve always done housework equally and I expected nothing less re child or I wouldn’t have had a child with him.

Yes. He is the eldest and has 6 younger siblings. When he left school he spent a year as a nanny for his mum (they didn't call it that though). When mine were little if I was away overnight he might have had questions about clothes but in a conversational way, not in an "I can't manage" way.

Of course he can. He does everything I do, now they're past tiny newborn stage (and he did everything bar feeding them back then). He's a man, not a child himself.

The amount of general enabling of selfish, pathetic men is shocking. I think as very small kids often have a preference for their mum, some men use that as an excuse to do fuck all forever.

I suspect it isn't that he can't look after his own children independently, and more that he doesn't want to look after his children independent so it's much better to get in the cycle of doing very little and then saying "but I can't... you're better with them than me". Or, he will have them but he will behave in a way that increases the mental load on mum so she finds it such a hassle to prepare things for him that in future she stops asking.

Men who refuse to do basic adult responsibilities and basic parenting are ridiculous.

God I hope so considering he’s the SAHP!

As a pp said, my dad (who was raised in a very patriarchal society) took me and my sister on days out and would take us to swim in the sea for hours no bother.

Our youngest is only 3 months and breastfed, refuses bottles or dummies. So I haven't been away from her for more than an hour or so.

However my DH is perfectly fine being left alone with our eldest, who is almost 2. He doesn't do that much housework/laundry, which pisses me off, but he looks after her perfectly well on his own. If I'm off out for the evening (pre new baby) he would cook her tea, brush her teeth, bath, bedtime story etc without any "help" or preparation from me.

So I'm assuming that once our youngest is old enough to be away from me for longer stretches, he will be perfectly fine with both of them.

Your friend can do better. Men like that aren't as stupid and pathetic as they look.

I should bloody well hope so as we are foster parents and SS would take a very dim view of me saying "I can't leave the children as DP can't look after them by himself". The only time he had a mild wobble was when we had two babies who were four months apart in age but then he gave his head a wobble and got on with it. The kids might not be dressed in outfits I would put them in and he might do things differently to me but they would be safe, dressed, fed and have naps when they needed them.

Long term the wheels would fall off and he'd start to struggle because I handle all the "other" parenting stuff but he's always been capable of keeping them fed, clothed and clean alongside making sure the house doesn't resemble a before picture from a cleaners website for days at a time.

I wouldn't have had DD2 if he'd been inept with DD1 and probably wouldn't have stayed in the relationship

It's not normal for a parent to be incapable of caring for their own child without underlying disabilities.

My DP can fully cope with the kids, how bizarre an adult man can't look after kids!

Yes my Dh can look after the kids independently for any length of time because I didn’t marry a selfish half wit.

My husband takes our two children abroad three times a year without me. They are 7 and 3 but he has been doing it since our oldest child was 2.5 years old.

Men are perfectly capable at looking after their own children. Unless they can’t be bothered to of course.

Of course!
My DH was an active parent from day one.
I've never prepared bottles, food, clothes etc.
I just leave the house 🤷🏼‍♀️

assuming the DH/DP in question wasn't themselves in some way mentally or physically disabled then of course they can do this. There is nothing intrinsically required for childcare that men aren't capable of. Your friend is suffering from the effects of centuries of cultural misogyny categorising it as "womens work", or may be just unable to relax and trust her DP to be able to cope. An important part of equal parenting is to start off with the principle that the mum is not "in charge" and giving the dad instructions that they are supposed to follow - the dad is capable of understanding the childrens needs for food, activity, clothing etc etc and making appropriate preparations and decisions without reference to a "line manager"!