Am I reading too much into this comment by DS?

[BenjiLove]

DS is three. He is potty trained & has been dry for months, but recently has started peeing on stuff. I think it's probably for attention (isn't most stuff to do with toddlers?) and he does it when I'm tending to the baby. Working out what to do about it is another thread I guess.

Anyway - it's really winding DH up. He gets so mad. Today DS did it in our bed. DS just started peeing all over our pillows.

DH went mad. DS cried. DH went out the bedroom. DS followed him and said

"Sorry Daddy peeing on bed. Don't be sad. Mummy will tidy it up".

I don't know why but it's pushed me over the edge. I do tidy it up all the time. But I just think GOD - what am I doing?? What am I showing DS?

I said to DH "Don't you think it's worrying. DS knows that daddy gets angry and mummy tidies everything up. That isn't healthy role modelling etc"

DH says I'm being OTT and kids just say stuff.

AIBU to think this comment by DS means something and that we are giving him unhealthy images of women and men and their roles? Or am I being OTT?

@YouSoundLovely

lol naughty does not mean worthless 🤣

where have you got that from?!

@BenjiLove about confidence- its v easy to be confident about how one would act in a simplified hypothetical situation that you’ll never actually have to deal with, much harder to be confident when you’re the one living it. IRL everyone is just winging it to some extent, however certain they sound when opining on other people.

Thank you! :) I'm sorry if I wasn't clear - I don't think you're blaming your ds for anything - I was just noting, I guess, how an issue that belongs between you and your dh is going via your ds, perhaps because you would feel comfortable about tackling it on his behalf (and I agree with drawacircleroundit that it is problematic, in the long run, if daddy gets angry and mummy runs to clean it up, in chronological sequence and therefore seemingly in response to the anger) but not so much on your own? Certainly, the massive imbalance between him and you needs righting.

My confidence (as far as it goes) is born of experience, and also from what are at root ethical beliefs about people in general and children in particular. In terms of consequences, they crop up all the time in a small child's life - 'you wouldn't get dressed when I asked you to, so now we only have half an hour at the park and have to go home although you're having fun'. Or even 'I can't read to you now because I have to clean up the wee and put the washing machine on'. I just don't think bodily fluids (whose distribution may not have been his 'fault' - but that's secondary) are the appropriate conduit for learning 'when we make a mess we tidy it up', and I wouldn't be teaching that lesson in that fraught arena, but rather via scattered Duplo bricks or whatever.

'Nothing', 'having nothing', 'of no value', then - effectively = worthless.
One link (among many) to illustrate:
www.etymologynerd.com/blog/nothing-is-naughty

You are enabling both your dh’s and your ds’s behaviour. In the short run it is easier just to do everything yourself, but in the long run, it becomes your job to do that.

Your ds wants to be treated like a baby again - when Mummy cleared up after him and he didn’t have to worry about where he peed. So yes, he needs to understand he can’t go back to behaving like a baby and does have to tidy up his own messes. He also needs to start associating growing up with getting to do more fun things, not just about having to accept responsibility for behaviour and get less attention. He doesn’t just want to be rewarded for doing the right thing - he wants to find being more grown up can still be fun and sometimes it’s the baby missing out for a change, so that he can do more grown up stuff with Mummy.

As for your dh - he is definitely part of the problem. He needs to do more, to be seen to be doing more, to be more fun, and to learn more constructive ways of getting your ds to behave appropriately. Both of you taking opposite approaches is unhealthy. Your dh is a dreadful hypocrite - he’s lazy and bad tempered, but I’ll bet he doesn’t appreciate being told off angrily about his behaviour and attitude. Would he be less of a lazy slob if you shouted at him? Does he shout at you when he thinks you’ve done something wrong? Does he do things because he’s scared and does he think that is a good emotion to be motivated by?

I think @YouSoundLovely gives the best advice on this thread.

OP you are asking how people parent so confidently and in the knowledge they're doing the right thing - they don't. They fake it 'til they make it. I think that's 80% of parenting tbh, convincing yourself you know best so hard your kids believe you as well. People are so practised at it they've got you believing it too!

The other 20% is being yourself, for what it's worth, if you're not the sort of person who would 'crack down' on indiscriminate weeing then you don't have to make yourself be. You do need to focus on the fact you want this to stop - and it must stop - but if your style is to achieve that in an indirect way rather than 'consequences' (i.e.punishment) and reward, that's ABSOLUTELY FINE. It's OK to be more thoughtful about things as long as you're not just taking the easiest/ most ineffectual path (I mean even that's OK but you'll be getting through a lot of pillows).

The other 20% is being yourself, for what it's worth, if you're not the sort of person who would 'crack down' on indiscriminate weeing then you don't have to make yourself be.

Amen to this. More than one way to be a good mum.

Thank you @mardyface - and FWIW I agree with you about being yourself. Disciplinarianism just isn't who I am (and for that reason alone, aside all the others, I doubt it would 'work' anyway).