Confused by the ‘great fathers’

[Electricbug321]

AIBU to be confused and frustrated that describe their DP as a great/brilliant/fantastic father in their OP, but then describe behaviour that is anything but good parenting. At best the men in those posts are only doing the fun stuff or are ‘hands on’ but only around for a few minutes a day.

Is the bar really so low for men?

I'm on a Facebook group for babies born at the same time as mine and there are many posts about how the dad just doesn't do anything or doesn't get it. The responses boil my blood so I just don't reply. Too many are along the lines of men just don't understand etc. I think far too many women have low standards of what is acceptable when it comes to their partner. Its women from all kinds of ethnic backgrounds and levels of income which probably makes it even sadder because they accept this shitty behavior across the board. Some posts make it seem funny but what's attractive about the fact your so called partner can't take care of his own kid on his own?

My own mother used to tell me how lucky I was to have a dh that would help with his kids. First of all it isn't helping it's parenting, the same as I bloody do. Secondly he isn't the only provider in this relationship, I work and pay bills too. It was my dad who pointed out that by taking care of his kids he was doing what a good dad should and I didn't need to thank him for it.

We very much have a 50:50 partnership when it comes to the children and that works for us. I wouldn't have accepted anything less and made my expectations clear before we got married and had kids. He has always been the kind of guy who does his own chores and had he not I wouldn't have married him. I get told I'm lucky all the time but I'm not. I simply would have preferred to stay single than be shackled to a dead weight so I chose wisely. How an earth can you find a hopeless, useless man attractive?

"The threshold for 'great father' often seems to be several rungs below the level at which a mother would have social services intervening."

This, with bells on it.

How an earth can you find a hopeless, useless man attractive?

Many men don't start out useless but they grow into the role, enabled by societal expectations about men's and women's roles especially after children come along. You see many cases where the relationship was going smoothly and responsibilities were (mostly) shared until the woman became pregnant and went on maternity leave. And then of course it's much harder to walk out on the relationship when there's a child involved (regardless of whether you no longer find your partner attractive).

Secondly he isn't the only provider in this relationship, I work and pay bills too.

And that's another thing. I know several SAHMS but also SAHDs. Several of those men who have a SAH wife expect to do absolutely nothing at home. They get home, park their backside on the sofa and wait for the dinner to be served. Sometimes they are vaguely aware that there are also some little people living in the house.

Can you imagine a mother with a SAH husband doing the same?

Many men don't start out useless but they grow into the role, enabled by societal expectations about men's and women's roles especially after children come along.

I always, always yap on about it whenever I see a thread that 'DP doesn't do much at home, but it's no big deal really, I don't mind'.

You might not mind now, but if you plan to have children and the workload is suddenly multiplied by about 100? Too late to start minding then, if your DP has gotten used to his role of not being responsible for anything at home.

@G5000

Secondly he isn't the only provider in this relationship, I work and pay bills too.

And that's another thing. I know several SAHMS but also SAHDs. Several of those men who have a SAH wife expect to do absolutely nothing at home. They get home, park their backside on the sofa and wait for the dinner to be served. Sometimes they are vaguely aware that there are also some little people living in the house.

Can you imagine a mother with a SAH husband doing the same?

When it comes to sahp...I think it massively depends on child's ages and the overall situation. I am a sahm of two school age DC...I'm perfectly happy to do all the cooking and cleaning. It's not difficult. If I had a couple of toddlers at home and a newborn, I'd expect him to pitch in more. Overall though I'd say, dh has a better deal. I reckon it must be great to work and come home to a clean house and all meals made and no laundry etc. Even when you live alone as a childfree single person you don't get that!

Likewise though I'm appalled when I hear of sahd who still expect their working wife to do the cleaning and cooking. I know a woman who worked full time whilst her dh was on furlough...he didn't lift a finger at home and expected her to come home and clean and cook in the evenings and weekends. I was appalled

@HugeAckmansWife

How much of your mental load is related to your home and children? The home you live in and the children you helped make? Your wife works part time yes? But as well as that is she also responsible for all school runs / childcare / booking activities / haircuts / playdates / birthday invites and presents / endless school requests for costumes / money / inset days / trip forms / washing of uniform ready for the week /Remembering that they need games kit on Tuesday but not Thursday this week because thats an activity so they need a gold plated unicorn instead that day / remberung theres a match not training on Saturday so you need to leave at X and pick up johnny on the way / and the shop needs to e oredered and delivered on Thursday because Child has a party so you won't be there on Friday and the plumber hasn't rung back.... Any of that fall in your lap MrHR?

Isn't that about expectation?

Why aren't people discussing all this before they create the other human beings?
I personally think people try to fill their day with so many tasks home life becomes unmanageable. I often have sleepiness nights over my business, I never have any over managing the house. Schools in my view are a bloody nuisance, texts on a Sunday-Sunday at 7 pm asking for x,y,z. It's just an added demand. The people doing it need to stop and think.

My wife works full time- my children from my ex are with me half the month. they're at that age where they are asked to manage in part their own affairs. They have to learn how to function, dress themselves, teeth, hair, breakfast, and lunch. They have to read and remember specific school instructions. They have to clean and tidy their room, they have to wash up, etc.
We were both raised like this, chores were given and expected.
My wife isn't English, so she has a different take on affairs inside the home, in her culture the 'Home' is very much the wife's or women's domain. That domain is defended vociferously.

Doesn't mean to say we don't discuss the 'Home', we've recently had an issue over 'Washing up'. She expects it to be done a certain way, I'm not fussed and I wanted to do it my way. In the end, I bought a dishwasher, case closed.

One of the bubbles mentions 'Simply leaving the house without preparing everything beforehand and not feeling guilty about it'.

But we've shifted the discussion now to the workload split rather than the original issue of how dads' contributions are viewed and the different standards applied. Even where a dad is doing a proportionate share of everything, the issue is still that that is seen as brilliant and 'lucky' and praiseworthy instead of just obvious.

I often have sleepiness nights over my business, I never have any over managing the house. Schools in my view are a bloody nuisance, texts on a Sunday-Sunday at 7 pm asking for x,y,z. It's just an added demand. The people doing it need to stop and think.

Exactly. You don't consider home and children your responsibility and you know that you are not judged if anything fails. If your child is the one who didn't go to school in their xmas jumper and didn't bring 10 empty toilet paper rolls or whatever they wanted this time. It's their mother who will be considered a failing parent - you will be an amazing dad if you just remember to pick them up on time..

mrHr of course you don't lose sleep over home stuff because someone else is doing it for you and you obviously don't get just how much it matters to kids that they get to do xyz on time, in the right kit etc. You, I suspect, have never been the one looking at a stained school dress at 8.35 without another clean one to pop on because someone else has thought ahead and made sure there are spares, or more likely, you've long since left for work to employ your mental and physical efforts on a career you've chosen and presumably enjoy and find fulfilling and can talk about with pride. A woman juggling her job and the pinafore emergency is just 'normal', nothing to even mention, but if you do much as went to work an hour late one time to do the school run you'd get a round of applause.

Women do not, in general enjoy filling their time with the mental load, it's not unnecessary to do all the things I and others have listed. The fact that you think it is shows why this problem exists.

[quote Goldbar]**@Hrpuffnstuff1. Does Mrs hr have to share my mental load too?

Do you deal with nursery or school stuff, remember school events, plan holiday childcare, organise emergency childcare for sick children, organise presents for parties, buy your children's birthday and Christmas gifts, buy gifts and cards for teachers, liaise with other parents on the school Whatsapp, organise playdates, sort out doctor and dentists' appointments, meal plan, shop, manage household chores, pack nursery and school backpacks, remember reading books, supervise homework, plan and book holidays, check that you haven't run out of household essentials, and so on?

Are you 'default' in your household so you do all of these things without anyone else having to remind you?

If so, then you should absolutely be asking your partner to step up and share your mental load. Because those are things you do for both of you to keep your joint household running smoothly.[/quote]
My business hrs revolve around the kid's school hrs. So yes I'm very involved in the 'Home'. That decision was made when the children were born. I and the children's mother are not together, just to reiterate that point.
Although I don't buy presents for the 'Teachers', why would I do that?
This is a prime example of what I'm talking about, 'Expectation'.
I like my carpet to have lines in it and look smooth, that is my problem, my expectation.
I don't push that onto her, or my children.

Cooking isn’t hard.

When I met DH he had a repertoire of meals he could cook because he knew what he liked to eat, lasagna, chilli, steak, pasta, omelette, curry, stir fry’s, stews, roast dinners. And he would do veg sides not boiled to mush but properly cooked etc.

When we got together we’d split cooking down the middle and he learned more dishes when he saw the (quick) meals I make. I don’t like spending ages in the kitchen.

There’s an enormous choice of meals you can do between burnt toast and boiled to death vegetable and ‘gourmet meals’, what’s a ‘gourmet meal’ anyway?

Cooking isn’t a long all day slog there are so many meals you can throw into an oven and leave to cook.

Cooking isn’t hard, and when done by more than one person tends to be fast and a time to catch up on your day with eachother.

Equally cooking is a life essential it is not on a par to ironing, which I don’t do either. Nobody died of unironed clothes. Children and people do need balanced nutritious meals to function and live.

My DH was expected to cook twice a week for the family from a young age, as everyone worked or went to school. Nobody was anybody's skivvy and everyone shared the household drudgery.

DH has the same expectations on him as any other member of his family. MIL has never praised DH for doing what everybody else is expected to do.
And I think that’s probably why my DH doesn’t expect a fanfare and fireworks every time he does a chore. It really makes me angry when posters ‘laugh’ about how their husbands expect praise for loading the dishwasher.

I wouldn’t have got involved with DH if he wasn’t capable of taking care of himself and I was certainly not about to be his default skivvy.

Women are bought up to believe that being the household skivvy will make their partners want to stay in a relationship with them. But men only have to be the ‘breadwinner’.

So many women learned exactly the ‘hard work’ their male partners had to do during lockdown. When their partners would go off for leisurely jogs, numerous coffee breaks, long lunches. Whilst the mothers whizzed about like blue arsed flies trying to keep on top of the housework and home schooling and clearing up the trail of crap the ‘breadwinner’ was leaving behind.

I agree with the PP who said look at what a man does and replace it with what a woman does and see whether she would be described as a fantastic mother.
I’ve got a husband and father.

@JanglyBeads

Please remember that some of those women have either been brought up by obviously abusvie fathers (so their bar is very low), and /or they’ve been manipulated to believe that their partner IS a great dad:

“These two are the light of my life”, “Let Daddy read you a story tonight, precious princess” etc…..as he beats up their mummy either physically or mentally.

Oh god, both of those things ring true for me. Thankfully ‘only’ the mentally part.

*why would I buy the teacher presents'? I bet your wife did. It's not all about YOUR expectation. You sound v arrogant.. Its not important to me so I don't have to do it. You seem entirely uninterested in what other people's expectations of your children might be...i find it unlikely that your ex let your kids be the ones without a nativity costume, or Xmas jumper or present for the teacher or clean uniform or anything else. You may not view it as important but they do and until they are old enough to source and organise it all, a parent has to. But not you apparently.

@HugeAckmansWife

mrHr of course you don't lose sleep over home stuff because someone else is doing it for you and you obviously don't get just how much it matters to kids that they get to do xyz on time, in the right kit etc. You, I suspect, have never been the one looking at a stained school dress at 8.35 without another clean one to pop on because someone else has thought ahead and made sure there are spares, or more likely, you've long since left for work to employ your mental and physical efforts on a career you've chosen and presumably enjoy and find fulfilling and can talk about with pride. A woman juggling her job and the pinafore emergency is just 'normal', nothing to even mention, but if you do much as went to work an hour late one time to do the school run you'd get a round of applause.

I suspect you are wrong in your assessment of what goes on in our house. You making assumption after assumption. Mrs. Hr is long gone before the kids get up, and home late especially if she has to commute. I do every school run and have done since they were born. Ex-wife is a dedicated career woman, she's now with someone else who's doing all the 'Home' management. Although I suspect he's incompetent. As a parent who's lived with another who's detached from the 'Home', it wasn't the difficulty, it was the lack of appreciation and loneliness.

I think for some women, the definition of a good father is one who is merely present. In some sections of society that in itself is a rarity.

@WorraLiberty I agree re the cooking. My mum never fed us good food. A lot of microwave mash in a yorkshire pudding, chicken nuggets and chips. I've had to teach myself to cook healthy meals for my DS because I think it's important. I ended up getting really fat from the things I was eating. Now I've lost the weight I want to set a good example. I hate how normalised crap food is tbh. I ordered a book off amazon What Mummy Makes and there's so many recipes and so cheap to make. There's no excuse except being lazy imo.

I agree. I have said before on MN. When I was working i used to have to travel extensively for work. If I were away for a week or two weeks DH was always asked for a meal by the neighbours, offered help with the Dcs to get them to school etc. I was told how great it was he 'let' me work.

In the last 6 years DH has spent 4 months of the year (inlcuding all summer holidays) working abroad. NOT A SINGLE PERSON ever has asked if i am okay, do I need help, shall i come over, shall they take the Dcs to school. Nothing.

Our eldest has a range of SEN and requires a huge amount of hands on support. My own parents say 'isn't it great' that DH 'helps' me out.

I don’t think it’s that confusing. We all have multiple roles in life. So a DH/DP can be a great father but a shit husband/partner, while simultaneously being a great success/failure at work/career, and being a devoted or shit son/SIL.

I think when posters make these comments they are thinking in these terms. That of a man’s five or so roles, whether he is good/bad in each role.

I agree it can be confusing in the sense that there are gray areas...as in is cooking and cleaning part of the father or partner role? So a woman will say her man is an amazing father but a complete pig and the house is a tip. Some might think, he’s a shit dad then. But to others, cleaning belongs on the partner role, not a father role.

So I personally don’t nitpick about what is in which role. I take a whole person view. If an OP says a man is an amazing father, I presume they only mean child care.

The bar for men is on the ground.

In my opinion, if a man mistreats the mother of his children then he’s not a great father. The well being of the mother is important. If she is not at her best, then she is not able to care for the children in the best way.

I don’t understand how people forget that the mother’s well-being is directly tied into the child’s well-being

So mrh, that big long list that pp gave and you responded that you don't buy teachers gifts.
Do you do all the rest of the things on the list?

Buying teachers gifts and writing cards to them is only unimportant if you don't care about teaching your children to value their caregivers and educators.

Hmmm. I agree, the bar is low for some.

However, and this may not be a popular opinion, I do think that sometimes the obsession with splitting jobs/chores exactly equally, depending on working hours etc is just too much.

I 100000% get the ‘mental load’. In fact, DH and I had an argument about it the other day. But, after 13 years of marriage and two DC, I have learnt that making everything so formulaic in terms of this stuff just doesn’t work for us.

He works FT. I work part time. Yes, theoretically we could work out an exact split. But it just becomes a pain.

We muddle along, I do a lot of the admin and child related things, BUT he has a great relationship with our two kids, takes them to all sorts of stuff, baths the younger one every night unless he’s away for work/out with friends, takes him to football practice 95% of the time etc.

Over the years I’ve become better at insisting on other stuff too. So, at first I did all washing, emptying the dishwasher etc. Over time I’ve just gradually stopped doing it every single time and told him to, and now he does it without being asked.

Same with cooking. I still do the majority, but right now he’s making the kids’ lunch (late lunch!) . It has taken a long time to get where we are, and sometimes I do still feel overwhelmed with how much there is to do.

I still do all school related admin, all food shopping, organise all Christmas and birthday stuff and loads more.

So probably it’s not exactly ‘equal’ but it has got better. I do sometimes think when people say ‘LTB’ over this kind of stuff it’s an over reaction.

OBVIOUSLY if there’s any kind of DV/abuse or serious issues or real unhappiness then that’s different. But would I really be happier on my own? No. Would I prefer DH to be more proactive and do more? Yes. So over the years I’ve made that happen and DH is a very different man to the one I married (ie expecting everything done for him). Irritatingly as well, he used to think I should work FT in a ‘better’ job AND do all the above stuff. I like my job, and working PT but occasionally I call his bluff and say I’ll go back FT to my more demanding career, as long as he picks up the slack as he’s now mostly WFH whereas I can’t (in either job). He soon backs down .

We did actually nearly get divorced a while ago, so it’s definitely not perfect, but I do wonder if outside of mumsnet these perfect marriages exist. He got a LOT better after I (seriously) started talking about that.

@Goldbar

How an earth can you find a hopeless, useless man attractive?

Many men don't start out useless but they grow into the role, enabled by societal expectations about men's and women's roles especially after children come along. You see many cases where the relationship was going smoothly and responsibilities were (mostly) shared until the woman became pregnant and went on maternity leave. And then of course it's much harder to walk out on the relationship when there's a child involved (regardless of whether you no longer find your partner attractive).

@Goldbar

This. ^

I hate this 'why did you bother marrying him if he was so useless?' shit that people come out with. As you say, many men are different when kids come along, to what they were when you first met/first dated/first got married... Because of societal expectations, women are the ones who do most of the grunt work around the house, all the domestic chores, and the lion's share of the childcare.

Back in the early 1990s, even my own DH used to ring me at work (at 4pm as he was home from work by then,) and say 'what are you doing for tea?' I didn't get home til 5.30pm, and he had shorter working days than me as he worked 5 minutes walk away. I was an hour's commute from work (2 hours extra on the day for me!) Yet he expected me to do tea. And I fucking did it!!!

The situation isn't helped by the fact that most older women (mothers AND mother-in-laws of adult women,) have the attitude that the woman SHOULD do the childcare/shopping/ cooking/ washing/ general gruntwork.

Even my own mother was disgusted when I told her one time that I had got my DH to do our evening meal for 3 nights on the trot as I was on a course and wasn't getting in til 6.30pm. 'What kind of wife and mother are YOU?' she said 'getting your husband to cook for you. That's YOUR job.' I worked too! This was 2003, not the fucking 1920s!

I have dozens of other examples that would take me til New Year's Eve to type out, like women whose mothers and MILs have scolded them for asking/expecting their man to do 'a woman's job.' (Like prepare and cook a meal, or do the kids lunchboxes.) Even when the woman herself is working.

I have told my own DD (mid 20s) to never EVER let any man expect or make her do all the household chores and childcare, and so far she and her B/F seem to both chip in. (Been together 4 years, and living together 2 years, and they don't have kids yet.)

Her boyfriend plays golf, goes to the gym around 10-12 hours a week over 3 or 4 days, plays footie, goes to the pub twice a week with his mates, and is in a pub quiz team. DD has several close friends, and goes to the cinema with them, goes for cocktails, and goes on shopping trips/meets for pub lunches etc.

BUT if they get married, and have kids, there is no way in hell he will give any of his hobbies up. Men don't. She will. Because she will have no choice. Women don't. She will end up doing most of the childcare and domestic shit. Because that's how it is!

If a woman DARED to put her 'hobbies' before being with her child, she would be lambasted for it, and labelled a terrible mother. Men though....? They need their 'me time' and their hobbies, as they all have big important 'man jobs!'

And whilst I can just about believe a few men share the housework/cooking 50/50 in a couple, I don't believe any woman who has children with a man, and claims he does 50% share of childcare, housework, and domestic duties. I just don't believe them.

When a woman has kids, the majority of domestic duties and childcare falls to her. No way do the men do half of everything. Especially as in the vast VAST majority of cases, the woman will be on maternity leave for a year, and then will often go part time if she goes back to work.