Pandemic dad having eyes opened

[AwakeAwake]

Men get paternity leave for first 2 weeks or month if lucky.
Babies usually just sleep and feed that first week or two.
Therefore men are getting a false sense of what it is to parent small baby.

My husband has never spent much time with tiny child until now working from home and new arrival in the house.
Previous children he's just been off a week, held a sleepy newborn and back to work when the real excitement kicks off.

Aibu to think that pandemic parents are getting a taste finally of how bloody challenging a baby is?
No longer can they escape to work for 12hrs and come home asking what you did all day. No longer can they pretend they don't see how hard a toddler is running riot I'm the house.

The washing, cleaning, nappies, activities, screaming, tantrums etc. All laid bare at last.

My husband genuinely looked surprised that a toddler has tantrums as he didn't see it with first, potty training doesn't just magically occur, food splatters everywhere and must be cleaned up. These are all new to him.

Paternity leave should be month 2.

You don't need to see it to know it. When we had our first, my husband worked 2 jobs to make ends meet. He was barely home. He knew what I did and understood it was hard because I told him and he believed me. I also understood how hard it was working 2 jobs and tried to make sure all he had to do at home was eat, sleep and snatch a little time with his son.
They don't understand because they're not here is nonsense. I don't need to watch someone climb a mountain before I'll believe them when they tell me it's knackering. Men don't need to see toddler wrestling to believe you when you tell them about it.

The pandemic sure has brought home the realities of family life to many who have escaped to offices and so on. Hardly difficult to understand unless you're a. very thick or b. a condescending prat

Or c. have taken into account whether their life partner would be a good dad or a shit dad, then used that as a means as to whether have children or not. And not just one. Multiple children.

Please don't assess your life on many other posters who state that their husbands share the load.

He has many good qualities. He works hard does the man jobs and won't ignore the kids, changes nappies, does baths and bedtime etc but it's not volunteered and he still I doubt realised how much work was involved until now.

I agree @karmakameleon.
That’s a Society issue all the way.

But this means two things:

• it’s not going to change if women still accept it. Why on Earth would men step up if this means it’s more work for them? They’re human. That’s not going to happen Imo. So the change will have to come from BOTH sides.
• and if it’s a society issue, then most men will behave like this and those who are truly pipping their weight and share all the responsibilities 50/50 will be very few. Because it’s an issue at the level of the society.
• it’s not an issue of women choosing men that are not good fathers. But more that the number if men that will be ‘good fathers’ (as in 50/40 blablabla) is so low that it would not be possible for women as a group to always chose a man like that. Well not unless you are either happy to not have dcs or you are happy to do it alone because you’ve ditched the useless father (and won’t be able to find another one to that sort of standard)

As you said, we need to be careful not to make women responsible. And imo that includes that idea they are responsible because the chose to have a child or children with a ‘useless father’.

Amused by all the #namalt-ing and the Not my Nigel- by people who seem to think they're actually being quite progressive in their thinking by pretending your husband is some weird anomaly.

Of course he isn't and if you look at the statistics even stay at home dads look after the house less than their wives. The truth is almost all men do less around the children than their wives. All my friends are feminists bar one family who I would say are genuinely 50/50 the wives all do more than their husbands. They also all mostly don't recognize it. They'll look at the way other friend's husbands disappear for multiple evenings a week for middle aged man band practice, or cycling activities while ignoring that they do all playdates/household admin/ friends presents etc.

The worst thing is on MN when posters actually blame the wife for the husband not doing more. Because you should also be parenting him! And if you're not, how could you expect him to not be a lazy sod? You know the way you manage it without prodding

Yes agree with the sentiment and about paternity leave. Though is it always taken?

I'd also suggest that it has not been all dads who have had their eyes opened by the pandemic, as some have gone to work in the normal way.

@FrankButchersDickieBow

The pandemic sure has brought home the realities of family life to many who have escaped to offices and so on. Hardly difficult to understand unless you're a. very thick or b. a condescending prat

Or c. have taken into account whether their life partner would be a good dad or a shit dad, then used that as a means as to whether have children or not. And not just one. Multiple children.

Please don't assess your life on many other posters who state that their husbands share the load.

I’ll repeat my posts above.

But if men behaving like this is a society issue, there basically will never be enough men to have children with that are not ‘useless fathers’.
The one who are ‘good fathers’ will be far in between by default.

That sort of discourse feels like victim blaming really. Blaming women to have children with men that behave the way society is teaching them to wo actually asking society and men to step up and change instead.
Nope, once again it’s women fault do routing up with it….

What is the point? Yet another thread of how people don't understand how complicated parenting is. If you found it so challenging why did you have the second child? Your husband goes to work. Jobs are different, but mine is most certainly 10 times harder than looking after baby. Also with no family support.
And perhaps your are doing potty training wrong if it took so much energy.

@AwakeAwake

He has many good qualities. He works hard does the man jobs and won't ignore the kids, changes nappies, does baths and bedtime etc but it's not volunteered and he still I doubt realised how much work was involved until now.

He’s a bit thick OP.

Actually very thick!

@Happyhappyday

Agree this is a DH problem. My husband does & has always done more childcare than me. Parental leave means no dads need to go back to work after 2 weeks. He also has never fucked off to work for 12 hours every day!! Always prioritized family over the office. It’s almost always a choice, even if you choose not to see it that way.

I'm not a crappy DH defender.

Bit parental leave is unpaid. Some people cannot afford to lose that much money. So it's utter BS that dad's don't have to go back.

Ideally they'd try and save annual leave etc. However, again,that's not always possible.

And some people work 10-12 hour shifts. It is quite reasonable to assume that he's not "fucking off to work" but is actually travelling to work, working,and travelling back home.

My DH leaves at 6:30am and is sometimes bit back until gone 7:30pm, because he can't always leave a job half done, or the traffic is mental and he's spent nearly 3 hours travelling of an evening.

I don't understand why you had multiple children with this man.

I'd bet £££ that the ones most vehemently claiming their relationships 50/50 are actually the worst as they really have the rose tinted specs on. If you read this thread you'd think men do most of the child and house work and every study EVER would tell you that's not accurate. So these are the people who can't even see their dhs faults in the relationship.

@RedMarauder

Your DH is a shit.

A few of the men I've worked with in the past have been shits. (Oddly thinking back they belong to one demographic.) They deliberately stayed late at the office to get back home when they knew their children were in bed. Some of us women and a few of the other men have suggested they go home when we have found out they have had young children.

Most of the other men I worked with and currently work with do as much as they can fit in for their children. Including picking them up from childcare, taking time off to look after them in the pandemic and working at night so they can look after their small children in the day if the Covid bubble has burst. One guy currently in Zoom meetings just goes "nappy change" and disappears for a few minutes. You can hear his baby of a few months in the background.

This is right. Some men just haven’t got a clue. And some men are in marriage and parenting to be part of a team and this isn’t a new thing. When my siblings and I were small our dad had two jobs and yet he always come home and bathed us and put us to bed. He played with us and got his hands dirty with the washing, cooking and cleaning. Mum had some evenings to relax. Teamwork. Weekends and days off were teamwork. My brothers, sister and I learned that these jobs were not female jobs but parenting jobs done by whomever got to them first to help the other member of the partnership. Remember your kids are learning from what they see. I simply wouldn’t put up with less than teamwork and wouldn’t procreate with anyone who thought I had to be a 1950s mother tied to the kitchen sink.

Some of these men need talking to and some women need to stand up for themselves or find a good man in the first place.

I'd 100 percent support enforced full time paternity pay for the second six months of a babies life. Women go back to work when healed. Men get a bloody good kick up the arse and toddler groups with tepid drinks

I agree with your premise - having a spouse off for 1-4 weeks with a tiny baby isn't all that helpful or instructive. Beyond that I think the issue is a combination of societal and individual really. My biggest and very difficult to solve gripe is the fact that after a year/ish off the wife returns to work... keeping all of the organisational and mental load stuff that fell to her during mat leave.

In the early days I'd fume at DH being happy with himself for taking DD out for a morning. Who'd washed her clothes (and indeed bought them, and researched waterproofs and ordered stuff ahead of time)? Who'd packed her changing bag? Who'd made her lunch? Etc. So I'd have a "morning off" but spend it cooking for us. It's gotten better and next time round (I'm pregnant) we'll be doing SPL. But we're in a much stronger £££ to do so, which also factors in.

I know what you're trying to say OP. I'll bet a lot of people wonder what SAHP do all day... including their partners.

My DH was always very involved as we worked around each other's hours and shared childcare. Consequently, he knew exactly what it was like to look after small dc.

I guess it's different in a relationship where you have decided to split things in such a way that one person has no responsibility for earning and the other has no responsibility for childcare. If you've chosen that set-up, though, I'm not sure if it's surprising that neither party really understands the stresses and strains of the other?

You sound stressed @AwakeAwake, maybe you're finding parenting harder than others do? Some of the things you're moaning about not all of us will be able to relate to - not all babies feed all day, not all toddlers charge around all the time, not all dads pretend they don't know what's going on

Actually your kids don't sound normal. Maybe the reborn doll you bought was broken?

But if men behaving like this is a society issue, there basically will never be enough men to have children with that are not ‘useless fathers’.
The one who are ‘good fathers’ will be far in between by default.*

Of course, and that's on top of the fact that you don't know what kind of parent you'll be until after the baby is here. People who KNEW their husbands would be perfect before they had kids LOL. Cleaning a house between two of you should be equal. That's nothing like parenting.

I can see what you're saying but at the same time, don't quite recognise this from my own experience.

Because there are weekends, when both parents were parents and when sometimes I went out or away and left him to it. So he was capable of dealing with it all and knew what 'it', the job of childcare, was. Just didn't do as much of the everyday dealing, or get involved in some of the tasks and routines in so much detail.

There is also shared parental leave, for people who want to split things differently.

Oh I agree op.

Other end of the scale - retirement.
Some men have their eyes opened as to all the "little" jobs around the house that add up.
All those daily, weekly, monthly, jobs.
I wrote mine a chores list.
An eye opener even to myself.

I also now realise quite how many men in retirement, including early retirement, "run away" from chores. Suddenly they have gardening, volunteering, clubs, sitting in sun to do - anything rather than do chores.

As many others have said, not all fathers are like your children's and not all mothers act as if they were the first woman on the planet to ever have given birth.
Your husband would be the same without the pandemic. Your own attitude to raising children would be the same.
Some people think they're special for doing it, some people go into it with eyes wide open and get on with it.
Your point about paternity leave is valid.

@Iwonder08

What is the point? Yet another thread of how people don't understand how complicated parenting is. If you found it so challenging why did you have the second child? Your husband goes to work. Jobs are different, but mine is most certainly 10 times harder than looking after baby. Also with no family support. And perhaps your are doing potty training wrong if it took so much energy.

🤣🤣🤣 It's time consuming. There are lots of things to do with 3small children. One's just shit their pants for the 5th time today. That's time consuming.

Potty training was fine with the eldest. Within a week it was sorted but that was a week of concentrating and directing it didn't just happen.

😂 I'm sure I'm just totally useless and like previous poster said I was moaning.

My husband might be unaware but he's still made to do things. I don't see why i should have to be hisinspiration or cheerleader but I encourage active participation in child rearing. Only now does he grasp it.

That sort of discourse feels like victim blaming really. Blaming women to have children with men that behave the way society is teaching them to wo actually asking society and men to step up and change instead
Nope, once again it’s women fault do routing up with it

I find it rather condescending that you are implying that women can't make informed decisions and are happy to settle with halfwits, 'cos society'.

There are men out there who see fatherhood as a 50/50 deal.

Women are free to make their decisions on a life partner based on whether they think they will be a good dad.

If you have a child with a man who fails to live up to what you thought a dad should be, then go on to have more kids with a failure of a father, how is that victim blaming?

*:40strawberrydonuts

Mums and dads can take shared parental leave and split it however they like. There are obviously lots of problems in the system i.e. men generally being in the higher paid jobs, that make it impractical for some people to take full advantage of this.*

I was the higher earner by a long way and I never intended to be home so long but various reasons had me SAHPing and nearly losing my marbles as well as money worries.

That aside: I don't think the father taking parental leave while the mother is still on MN is the answer for most (unless she needs help). I firmly believe that if I (never played with dolls, wasn't fussed about having DCs, first nappy I changed was my own baby) could half-way manage being thrown in the deep end, so can other parents.

A lot of mums don't help themselves by hovering and "no, not like that" behaviour. Just let the dad get on with it.