AIBU - motherhood has ruined men for me

[Bettercallsaul2024]

I expect I am being unreasonable but since becoming a mum I have gone off men.

I had always adored men but now I see an incompetence I can’t get past. My husband is an ICU consultant - can handle huge pressure and stress but can’t be trusted to pack a fucking bag for a day to the zoo. He can handle the resuscitation of a child but can’t cope when OUR child has a tantrum. (I too am a hospital doctor so feel like I can make the comparison, and I do appreciate the workload of his job). He would never cope being up all night with our ill child yet can do nightshifts in ICU - I don’t get it?!

and it’s not ‘just’ him. I now see it everywhere. All the men in my family, though lovely, have so much less expected of them. Seen as great dads when they take the kids swimming despite the women doing all the parenting the rest of the week plus having a job/career.

sometimes I say to my mum - how are men able to organise complex things like war when they can’t do the sainsburys food shop without ringing their partner at least twice. She reasons that it’s because men usually only have one task to focus on at a time and so can do it well - behind the scenes women are doing EVERYTHING else.

I find myself unattracted to my husband but also all men really. At the park I see dads standing on their phones, getting cross and stressed when their kids are upset after a grazed knee. It’s so ugly to me!

I KNOW I am being unreasonable. But do others feel this way? I know not ALL men. It just so happens it’s ALL men I’ve ever interacted with

YABU: this is a DH thing. Men are just as wonderful as women

YANBU: men wouldn’t last one day as mothers

100% agree but what always blows my mind is why anyone puts up with it! Why are we allowed to get away scott free basically being an overgrown child? The bar is set so low that the world heralds us as heros when we do the smallest thing. I'm a parent, so I parent - it's my job. To be honest that's why I find advice on Mumsnet so helpful (and often feel guilty for invading this space) as I really don't know a single dad friend who truly parents besides the fun stuff. It's really quite lonely as their and my experience don't match. A bit like having conversation with someone who has a 24/7 live in nanny about the ups and downs of parenting! I guess, that's basically what they all have!

Why do women set the bar so low?

It's called weapomised incompetence and ya have fallen for it hook line and sinker, of course your hubby is capable of getting the kids ready in the morning instead of you getting up early, ridiculous to even consider he can't.

This is why I choose to be single, I want a partner to share life's burden not a 40 year old baby who I jave to look after

It is implied. If the woman hadn’t pushed for a baby…

I really enjoyed the sulking thread. You're kind of right, I think, in that women would have the piss ripped right out of them by their friends and family, if they sulked like that, whereas I don't know whether it's the same for men.

A man who does a supermarket shop incompetently still garners a bit of praise from outsiders for doing it at all, it appears. No-one pays any attention at all to all the diverse domestic shit that women administer all the time....

So this used to be my DH attitude. So we sat down and each said if and how often things needed doing and what standard. For example, he didn’t clean the bathroom because he ‘didn’t care’ but actually did believe it should be cleaned once a week. Would care if it started to get disgusting and smelly. We set mutually agreed standards and frequencies. He still struggles to put full effort in and resents it because he doesn’t want to do it really. Well neither does anybody!

If you lived alone would you still wash your clothes, dry your clothes, clean your toilet, cook food, clean up afterwards. If you were the sole parent would you care they had clean uniform, a healthy lunch, good extracurricular activities?

Read Fair Play by Eve Rodesky and look back and see if your view of your contribution is right. You may, unknowingly, have internalised the mysoginistic view that these tasks are not worthy of attention as they had traditionally been ‘women’s work’.

Hands-on dad. You’re right. Compare with the words mother’ and ‘father’ used as verbs. ‘Mothering’ a child very different from ‘fathering’ a child. 😡

hahahahahahahahahahaha. No. That is usually not what happens. Men are more likely to want a baby than a woman is. You can see this in surveys they have done, but you can also see this in how hard women fight for birth control, and for tubals, even though vasectomies are way easier and cheaper. If men really didn't want children, they would do something about it. They do want children, most just don't want to take care of children.

I'll never forget a thread a few years back by a man who worked all hours at his business while his wife did all the parenting to the point of burn out. He mentioned being disappointed that his wife didn't want to have more kids. I think I replied kindly but I was definitely thinking JFC at how fucking oblivious he was.

I agree

I think shared leave really makes a difference.

My DH was a SAHD due to redundancy for 12 months, so was home with a 2 & 3 year old whilst I worked full time.
After this he became much more competent and now he's very good with the kids.

When he was full time working & I was either on mat leave or part time I did everything. Even his Saturdays with the kids didn't prepare him for full time at home lol.

He still has his moments when he fanny's around & I get 3 of us ready & bags packed to go out but generally he's very good.
He also takes a lot of the mental load for the kids now too.

They do want children, most just don't want to take care of children.

Many want the acknowledgment and prestige, the legacy (child must have his last name), the fun bits while expecting and wanting the woman to do everything else because to them it is so easy that it’s not worth them doing it.

Studies have shown and proven that parenthood benefit men more than women. Men with children are seen as stable, reliable, and more likely to get raises and promotions while for women it does the exact opposite to their careers. Men that take off work to take care of ill children are seen in higher regard while women are not and even judged harsher by some because many still view parenting as a woman’s job.

Chicken and egg this one. Is it that the KIND of man who's willing to take parental leave is also willing to be proactive and competent with domestic tasks, or does the parental leave force them to learn and force the mums to trust them?

I agree. And this might be anecdotal, but its often the men who at social gatherings say, "oh, I'd quite like another but DW says no". Not always (and I'll always feel sorry for the man who wasn't convinced, eventually got talked round, and landed up with twins! )

When I wanted my tubes clipped after four children we were interviewed by a (male) consultand who satisfied himself that I didn't want more children but then told my husband that he shouldn't have a vasectomy in case he wanted more children if I died!

Well actually men are often quite incompetent at work too, I had to send a patient back to one consultant 6 times because he didn't believe there was a 30mm sinus in my patients foot because he couldn't find it. I had to actually go with the patient to show him where it was and he was quite pissed off when I showed him because he thought I had undermined him in some invisible way - I am always polite 😂
Podiatrist of 43 years. This wouldn't be the first time or the 100th time.
I've had three husbands all worse than the last, I can't be bothered with them now.

My exH moved out when my DDs were 6 & 5. I realised in the months following his departure that literally nothing had changed. At all. I had been doing everything…the only difference was I didn’t have someone telling me I was rubbish at doing everything.

He did not say that at all. How awful to ask if he doesn’t care about his own children.

Agree about weaponised incompetence, and some partners liking the opposite; martyr and control too.
But I'm ridiculously lucky in that he'll just get through boring every day shit like laundry, beds and shopping. In fairness I do money and most of mental load, but for the amount he does I think we're pretty equal.
Key point is it has to start early / day1

Sorry that this is your experience. However, I don't recognise it at all. My DH is the opposite of everything you describe. So was my late father.

I'm probably gonna be shot down for saying this, but I'll say it regardless. Women are naturally better at organising, planning and running a household - I mean for centuries the world worked liked this, it's only in the last 75 yrs or so, a man is expected to go out work hard we normally do, and yet come home and get told off for not organising a bag properly or not folding a towel properly...I mean seriously?

I don't think it's all men (my husband isn't like it), but it does seem like a lot of them, and I agree that I do find it very unattractive. I always have though, even before I had children. I've been wary of selfishness in men - maybe because I've never thought of myself as someone who is stronger than most, that I can cope with more, that I'm happy to take on the load for someone else. I'm capable, but I've always known that I would resent the hell out of anyone who expected that from me, and it very much informed who I dated when I was younger and is one of the reasons I love my husband - because I trust him to be competent, considerate and an equal partner domestically.

I just can't help but judge men like that as being "lesser than" they ought to be. That their empathy, love and consideration of others must be somehow fundamentally impaired in a way. I always think that if they really loved their wives and their children as much as they loved themselves, they would behave differently. I'm not sure if it's fair to those men, but that's just how I see things.

I don't think I could tolerate any weaponised incompetence. Disdain and resentment would probably eventually replace any feelings of love.

a man is expected to go out work hard we normally do, and yet come home and get told off for not organising a bag properly

You have noticed that women are expected to go out work hard, and still be responsible for home and kids, without even anybody giving us instructions how to pack a bag?

Well you’re wrong, people pointing that out aren’t shooting you down.

a man is expected to go out work hard we normally do, and yet come home and get told off for not organising a bag properly

😅😅😅
I go out, earn double my dhs income, come home, play with the kids and can pack a sodding bag.

How shit is it that after everything else morhers do they then are cornered into line managing their childrens father who CBA or doesnt think "it matters" that their child has water / sunscreen / coat etc. Because he himself isnt thirsty / doesnt burn / isnt cold???