That people l think it’s crazy my DH helps so much!!

[Led9519]

Noticed a few times recently when I’ve spoken about my DC’s routines and how much DH helps that other mums look at me in disbelief?!
YABU- DH does too much
YANBU-DH involvement ok

The detail;
We have three DC’s, 5 years, 2 years, 5 months. I’m on maternity leave, dh works from home. I’m also exclusively expressing as dd3 ultimately refused to nurse and we want her to have breastmilk so that takes time.
DH;
gets the older two ready for school/childminder in the morning and out the door. I look after baby and express.

He takes the baby off me at lunchtime, I make our lunches up and express!

I cook and clean and pick the kids up in the afternoon. We have dinner together as a family. DH looks after the other two, I bath the baby. DH then does bedtime routine with baby and I get the other two ready for bed. When baby is asleep DH does one bedtime with another kid, I do the other.

As we are bottle feeding DH does baby night wake ups from 10-2am, I get up to express 1:30am and do baby night wake ups 2-6am. Whoever isn’t on baby duty does the other kids wake ups if necessary.

We’ve currently postponed evenings out so we can work as a team at bedtimes/nighttime until the kids are a bit older.
For clarity I’m on maternity with the baby.. do the food shopping and cooking, most of the cleaning, laundry and all our money stuff like mortgage, insurance, savings etc.

When ppl find out I don’t do babies bedtimes, when I get a lunch break, when dh gets kids ready for school my mum friends look at me in disbelief? When he postponed a night out until the baby sleeps better they looked aghast?! And when they find out Dh does some night wake ups they look like they have literally lost it?!
Most of them are breastfeeding and I know that’s slightly different but they have other kids but their husbands don’t seem to help as much… and I’ve literally had to justify my DH helping me before! (He works in IT so nothing too crazy if he’s tired).

Are other partners really that crap at helping out in general, or is it just the friends I have?! I reckon out of 5 or 6 of them only 1 couple has a similar dynamic.

My DP "helps out" a lot.
I went back to work when DS was 9 months, 6 nights and 4 days a month. I remember once on one of my first nights back someone said "who's looking after the baby tonight" i confusingly replied "his dad?"
Most of my friends don't get the decent level of parenting from their DPs either, I'm one of the lucky ones. I guess some men are more natural at it than others

You’ve missed my earlier post that also stated past behaviour is no guarantee of future behaviour. It’s also very common for people who benefit from good luck to underestimate the role luck had in their good fortune. People tend to attribute success to hard work, being clever,- all sorts of pat self on back stuff. It’s a defence mechanism so you don’t have to really think about how most people who end up in bad relationships or in poverty could have been you. People have to feel that it could not happen to them as a way of dismissing fears.

No women do not “ignore obvious signs” no sane person would.

No woman is going to start a family with a terrible partner. How stupid do you think we are?

My friend had 3 children to a waste of space because she thought that having kids would fix their issues and it would give him something to step up for, it never.

A family member currently visits her DH in prison with the children because she believed having kids would stop his illegal lifestyle, it never.

No quite! You said that 'it's just normal' for dads to do these things. I pointed out that, actually, much as we'd like it to be normal, I don't think it is. You then asked 'you don’t think any dads do bedtimes or take kids to appointments?'. Of course, I hadn't said any such thing, had I?!

I know people whose DC are in their teens and the dad still wouldn't know how to turn on the washing machine or even think about what's for dinner, let alone prepare it. I find it mind boggling that a grown adult male is more prepared to admit to such incompetence than crack on and do it. We as a society facilitate these men. It's is so annoying and such a poor example for DC.

I was 'lucky' in that I grew up in a household where both parents were shift workers. They both worked v hard and each picked up where the other left off to keep the house and family running. DDad did ponytails, laundry and came to sports days/plays as much as DMum paid the bills, mowed the lawn and took the car to the garage. I had absolutely no idea this was unusual at the time.

DH is the same as I've always worked shifts. He used to bring DC to my work for their breastfeed in my breaks but apart from that he was on his own for 14 hrs a day from when they were tiny. He does more cooking, laundry and housework than me because he has higher standards. I definitely carry more of the social load as others have mentioned - birthday parties, school admin and general social plans would fall apart without my input.

I've had all sorts of comments about how brilliant DH is, and how lucky I am. People see him out and about at things on his own with the dc because I'm at work and report back to me as if it's news. A low bar has been set for men indeed. Imagine getting praised for goong out with your DC or doing the weekly shop. I've never heard that remarked upon when a woman is involved.

My dp has been pretty hands on with the kids, but i think your partner sounds like he does more still. Is he on paternity leave?

I do know friends who have a lot of tension in their relationships because the husbands don't do their fair share of parenting.

I breastfed so did all the night stuff but now DH can get the toddler to bed without me so I go out twice a week! We tag team in the evening - he does bath, I cook, he cleans, I put dc to bed. I imagine with more than one child we'd juggle like you.

It’s called parenting but he is still leaving 100% of the cleaning, shopping, etc to you - so not it’s not fair - he needs to do more

Does your friend/family member know how little you think of them? Are you sure you even have the full story? As in why did they have this faith in their partner? Every woman gambles on a partner being a good parent, and when they lose that gamble it’s much easier to get judgemental and sneer at them when you have the benefit of hindsight.

Yes you did.
I said:
You clearly have it in your head that your DH is unusual doing his fair share, but in the real world it’s just normal! Dads do bedtimes and take kids for vaccines, you are just an average family that like to boast.

And you replied ‘that isn’t really true is it’, well yes, it is actually, dads do do bedtimes and take kids for vaccines.

And yes actually this is normal, it may not be the majority, I didn’t say it was, but it is totally normal for dads to parent their children. It is not abnormal.

Sounds great. My DH used to do night feeds only on the weekend but he does drive quite a lot for work. Morning and evening sound similar to most people I know but I am jealous of the lunch break!

You are a top class one aren't you.

I love my friend and my family member dearly. My friend now refers to hers as a waste of space as she's having such a bad time with him. My family member, nothing to do with me whether she wants to visit him in prison or not. At what point did I say I think very little of them?

Ok. Um. Well, you said it was 'normal' for dads to do all of this. You didn't say 'it may not be the majority, I didn't say it was'.

You then changed your mind and asked me if I didn't think any dad ever did these things.

I am sorry, but I still don't think it is normal for dads to do all of this, and you can't pretend that one single example means that it is normal. If you think something is normal, you mean it's something most people do. Asking me if I think 'any' father does it, is irrelevant.

That doesn’t even make sense. I didn’t change my mind, I’ve literally quoted the exact words we both said… and you still are making crap up. I’m not engaging with you any further, it’s totally pointless. Go and enjoy incorrectly picking someone else apart.

DH was very hands on 30 years ago! Although BF he got up brought baby to me for feeding, then changed and put back to bed. He recognised parenting a baby all day was hard work! Shared school pickups where he could (little flexibility from employer back then) and looked after DD during school hols until I got leave. As DD grew up we both attended hobbies etc. Today he’s retired and I’m still working FT so he runs the house, laundry cooking etc. we’re a team and do things between us. Having seen everything my DM did I swore I would never be in a relationship that was not equal and DD is the same.

My dh was in the office 7-7 when I had dd1. It was crap. But his commute got in the way, having him here in lockdown for dd2 and wfh for dc3 has helped us get a better balance. My first maternity leave was definitely the hardest.

one Friend in particular has a dh that does nothing, think he mostly plays golf on a weekend. I’ve kind of lost sympathy though… she has two daughters and one son. I did ask her if she thought it was a good model for her daughters and would she be happy if they married someone like their Dad. (I tried to be really nice about it). Well she just went really quiet :(.

Same here, we are a partnership and lucky to have each other.
It's also the norm in most of the couples I know.

I'm so sorry I upset you - I really didn't mean to.

I am really just trying to explain that you've got in a muddle about what 'normal' means. I never suggested that there might not be individual dads (or female partners!) who did masses. There absolutely are. I know that from my own experience. But, if they are few and far between, they are not the norm. You asked if I really thought no single dad did these things. Of course, I know that some dads do. But, sadly, that doesn't make it the 'norm'. You can't cite one single example and say it contradicts the norm.

Does that make better sense?

why do you call it helping?

Actually I asked: So you don’t think any dads do bedtimes or take kids to appointments?

Didnt say any single dad, or one single example. Does that make better sense for you? Misquoting and misreading seems to be an issue for you. I didn’t cite ‘one single example’. Also im not in a muddle about what normal means, I just don’t agree with you that it’s not normal, it is normal. HTH

Exactly. DH would just say I do the money stuff he wouldn’t say “I help with the money stuff.

It is crap that anything household/child even in the language I use (and others) is defaulted to women and DP’s just “help.”

youve reminded me that I put a picture on Facebook of Dh bottle feeding dc. A male relative commented “unnatural.” Wtf?! One for making me feel shit breastfeeding didn’t work but I think if it was a picture of me bottle feeding he wouldn’t have said it… he notoriously leaves everything to his wife though. She even packs his suitcase for him when he travels. Ugh.
(didn’t defriend him, decided to leave it and the comment so ppl can see for themselves he’s a kn0b).

I suppose there's a bit of luck involved... if you are a woman and desperately want a child, you have to find the least useless man you can in the short window if time in which you can both get pregnant and afford a child.

I know someone who has just spent a king's ransom on IVF to have a baby with the most useless sack of shit I've ever met, I'm sure she'd have been better off with a doner.

Any means any single, though. You said 'any', which means 'any one' or 'any individual'. A single individual cannot represent the norm. This is just a basic observation of what those words mean.

Standard parenting

I have never heard a woman be described as a “hands on” parent yet people say it about men all the time, usually when they still do far less parenting than their partner.
what is deserving in the OP should be the norm and any parenting doing less than that is shit.
Unfortunately a lot of men are really shit parents and shit partners because the expectation is so low.