Am I justified to be feeling really pissed off here?

[Runninggirls26]

DD is picked up from school 3 days a week by my FiL and 2 days a week by my DM. Last week my DM said she couldn’t pick up DD as she had a dental appointment. I asked DH if his dad could do it. He said it would be fine. I checked again and he said again his dad would be able to get DD.
No one picked my DD up today and after about 45 mins DH (who wfh) realised and went to get her. He’d forgotten to ask his dad. I’m upset that this happened even though she was fine and kept safe in the classroom. I’m now even more pissed off with DH because he said to me when I returned home from work “going forward can you ask my dad so to cut me out as the middle man or double check that I haven’t forgotten to ask him?” I feel he’s absolving himself of any responsibility and is suggesting it’s my fault. I’m also pissed off because he leaves everything for me to organise- all the kids’ appointments, clubs etc. and I do our son’s nursery drop off and pick up. This has just really fucked me off and I feel so fed up. But does he have a point?

“going forward can you ask my dad so to cut me out as the middle man or double check that I haven’t forgotten to ask him?”

"I did. Twice. You lied to me."

It also makes a difference to kids when they have food to eat and a house to live in, which for most families these days means both parents working full time.

going forward can you ask my dad so to cut me out as the middle man or double check that I haven’t forgotten to ask him?”

And response is;

1. I’m am not your administration assistant
2. nor am I your mother
3. and last time I looked you are also a parent to our child
4. find your own way to remind yourself to do something- it’s not in job description for wife or mother that I do this “for you”

everytime He says this in whatever circumstances. Cut it down immedately.

otherwise, by the time your 50 he’ll be that incapable man that expects you to sort his life out

He's obviously mistaken you for his PA/secretary. Remind him that that might be a fun fantasy for the bedroom but it's not appropriate to involve his parents.

Clearly people posting about picking your own child up, don’t live in a world where both parents work at full time jobs. 🤦‍♀️

I did used to pick my child up from time to time, but I needed notice and no clash with something I needed to attend at work..so it wasn’t always possible. So, I used to save asking for early fishes and flexiible times to actual emergencies or when I wanted to go to assemblies, parent evening etc when child really needed me as mum to be there.

in the end we got an “au pair” to walk kids to and form school each day and to supervise after school. They loved it. Kept it going for 4 years. But it’s not an easy option to take (you acquire effectively a young adult child in the home) historically, and they’re now very difficult to get thanks to Brexit etc. even an after school childminder isn’t that reliable - hence why we went au pair route.

thatcwas 25 years ago. Nowt much has changed.

it is a constant juggle for working parents. The OP appears to benefit from a reliable support network, and the way mum and FIL respond to this is absolutely not the problem.

the problem is purely about a dh who forgot, felt guilty, did a DARVO on the OP. He needs to know clearly child’s pick up is a joint organisational feet and OP manages her mum, he manages his own dad- it’s not rocket science.

a WhatsApp group may help as one poster suggested wisely.

or dh can do what I do, as I am older and constantly forgetting stuff- put a simple reminder in his phone for that evening, next day etc to ask his dad.

Your DH is in the wrong for telling you it was fine but not sorting it but I don't understand why you didn't just phone FIL yourself to ask.

Yes, it bloody matters because her DP clearly thinks that "all the organising" is automatically her job without any prior discussion about that division and what he will pick up in return.

This line of thinking of his will not be limited to this sole situation and the organising, thinking ahead and planning work is indeed work, and tiring work at that.

It's just chronically undervalued work because it's traditionally "women's work" and magically gets done (which, to the receiver, means that it appears that nothing has really 'happened' and therefore no effort has really been applied to make it so). It's only once it stops being done that it's noticed and the reaction is rarely an epiphany of gratitude, but rather anger that she's failed to do something so 'minor' and 'easy', the lack of which has big ramifications.

Her DH is therfore unlikely to comprehend that he's 'really' asking her to 'do' anything and anything he offers to trade her in exchange is likely to be laughably unequal in terms of effort.

I hope she had that conversation with him and I hope I'm wrong about all of the above, but I fear not.

Then take time off work to collect your own child if your mum wasn’t able to

Well this made me laugh through my rage! Well played! 😁

I know exactly what’s going on here…DH is trying to put all of the mental load onto you. My DH struggles with this too, because when I was PT I carried all of the mental load. DH very much wanted me to go FT once the kids were older, which I was happy to do. However, I try to 50/50 the mental load, now that we’re both FT, as it’s not fair for it to be 100/0. But let’s be honest, 50/50 doesn’t happen. In fact, recently it was HIS godson’s birthday, which DH forgot (only realised once he’d seen it on social media—I had no idea because the parents are DH’s school friends and I don’t follow them on social media). DH doesn’t want to forget in the future, so kept asking me to put it in my diary. In previous times, I would have done it, as PT worker/carrier of the mental load/household diary manager. This is not my role anymore. I helped him put it in his phone and set an alarm to go off a week before GS’s birthday. He still kept banging on about it going into my diary. I know it’s being petty, but NO. He wants the benefit of me working FT and also of me carrying 100% of the mental load. Sometimes DHs need to be ‘allowed to fail,’ as your DH did when his child was left at school (despite you reminding him twice!). He needs to understand that it was his responsibility to ask FIL, he didn’t, and there were consequences. Him asking you to liaise directly with FIL is exactly what my DH would do too. He needs to learn the hard way, so my advice would be to say no. Otherwise we enable them to push all of the mental load onto us.

Some of these comments are ridiculous. A lot of grandparents do the school runs these days. Unfortunately things aren’t like they used to be and both parents usually need to work, whereas before one parent could get away with not working.

Have you read the thread??????? Dear god

@BrendaSmall

What a ridiculous statement!

I'm not sure where OP asked for your opinion on her childcare arrangements?

Do try and read the OP and keep on topic?

Because she's not the sole parent to her DD, she asked DH to step up!

Meanwhile, in the real world...

I appreciate she is not the sole parent and that DH is not stepping up BUT in my house, it would be a case of "DH I've asked your dad to collect" rather than can you ask your dad and then asking again have you asked your dad.

I find it odd!

I see that @TheOccupier and @MeMyCatsAndMyBooks haven't shown their faces on here after their ridiculous comments.

I'm not sure why it is news to them that many people have to work, and cannot just skip out on that work to collect their children, or that, in many families, both parents need to work, thanks to a little thing we call the cost of living crisis!

@Runninggirls26 - you need to tell your dh that he is just as much of a parent as you are, and that you both need to take equal responsibility for sorting out your child's after school care - and that, if he has said twice that his dad is picking his daughter up, you shouldn't have to check up on him, a responsible adult, as if he is a child too!

very irritating @Runninggirls26. To my mind it translates as this:

“I am the most important person in this household and the trivia* must be dealt with by others. This event has only happened because you have failed to acknowledge that my mind is on the important stuff. Let me explain to you how you can fix this for next time. As I’m giving you some pointers about how you can manage things better “going forward” I am doing you a favour. No need to thank me this time”.

*I have already defined what is important because as far as I’m concerned I make the rules around here.

I’m now even more pissed off with DH because he said to me when I returned home from work “going forward can you ask my dad so to cut me out as the middle man or double check that I haven’t forgotten to ask him?”

OP, did you point out to him that did double check? How many times are you supposed to check, and are you supposed to assume he's lying when he's said he's done something?

@BuyOrBake BUT some of us don't want mother our husbands or be a martyr!

We expect them to parent as well.

Yes I’ve read the thread!!
her mum wasn’t available to pick up child ffs!!!

Her mother wasn’t available to pick up the child!
so guess what, pick the child up yourself!!!

Why would OP take time off work when she has been told twice that it's all arranged for her FIL to collect?

We get that OP’s mum wasn’t free—the backup was FIL, who was by all accounts available. DH assured OP on two separate occasions that FIL was collecting DD. As far as OP was concerned, DD was catered for, therefore OP wouldn’t need to take time off from work to collect DD. The point is that DH lied—OP would have made different arrangements had DH been truthful.

YANBU you asked him and THEN reminded him. He has to take some responsibility. If the GPs have WhatsApp, can you make a group with them, and your husband so you can all be in touch that way and this doesn't happen again? I would be really sad for my daughter if this was her 😞