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

Do all women think and act as a homogenous group? Do men? I suspect that some of this stems from the tendency of some people to think this is the way to do it and that is the way I want it done and anything else is slammed. This particularly applies to women with children I find. Yes I agree there are probably loads of useless fathers and mothers out there! As someone else said you need to divide your tasks and discuss what is the minimum you expect if you are the unhappy one. You need to accept that someone may not do as good a job as you feel it is. I have watched so many women while on holiday literally bossing men about with even the most trivial of things. It's an ugly sight.

Wow that upbringing didn’t help you at all @Bettercallsaul2024 . DHs father was in the police working infrequent shift work that he did over a very short time periods and his mother worked so his father always cooked, cleaned, did laundry. His father was a controlling abusive arse but in the plus side he did model very good work ethic in the domestic sphere for DH to give him the limited credit he deserves. It makes a huge difference I think.

Hm. I don't think I agree.

I was probably better at organising and lists and packing the baby bag - though he was fine at that too.

He was definitely better at being a warm responsive containing parent to a tiny baby (without worrying if he was "making a rod for his own back" or comparing our baby with others etc)

I credit him with making our baby days enjoyable rather than full of perfectionist worrying.

The only thing you're being unreasonable about is that you used to 'adore' men.

They are all useless and always have been.

I think it's just a basic, men are men and women are women.

We are very different.
Some are better than others.

My friend says... There was only ever one good man, and they fucking crucified him.

I think this can be over half of men but not all. My husband is better at remembering the sunscreen / hats etc. Though previously I mentioned this on MN, I got absolutely flamed and I basically abuse my children by forgetting such things...

Women can be pretty mean but not all!

Aw this makes me want to cry. All that human potential for the world and replaced by mundane tasks. Crying shame for all women 💕🤦‍♀️

Re the in work, outside of work thing, I do think there is an extent to which people sort of 'use up' their abilities at work and then struggle in those same areas outside of work. For example, a friend of mine who is a counselling psychologist and is really bad at listening! So I do think at times these men who manage to pull it out of the bag at work are basically using up all their abilities there and don't really have much left to give out of work. HOWEVER, that is not to excuse them as of course it is exactly the same for women in these jobs, we just power through it, often to our own detriment, because we recognise how important it is to get things right for our kids. Also I think quite a lot of 'high powered' jobs have traditionally had a lot of (often female) support, for example a CEO who would have had someone to organise their diary, brief them for meetings, type documents for them and so on, so these supposedly high flying men actually had huge amounts of support around them helping them to succeed.

There was an interesting thread recently about how much could be expected from a surgeon in terms of childcare etc. The wife of a surgeon commented basically saying her fella is out from 7 to 7 every day, there's no wiggle room, that's just how it is. Yet a female surgeon was saying that she does drop off to breakfast club most days, has certain admin days where she can be more flexible and so on. In other words, blokes in these jobs think their contribution (to society? family finances? their own ego?) absolves them of parental responsibility where women just get on with it and find a way to make it work.

In general, women are doing far more, working harder, doing a better job, and contributing more to society as a whole through unpaid labour. Men really will need to up their game if they don't want to end up redundant, both in and out of work.

I agree. I know several dads who, as soon as they have a day with kids but without wife, immediately desperately message all their dad friends for "back up". I have never met a woman who does this. I can't help thinking that they perceive a day with the kids to be tedious and are essentially complaining, but without overtly stating it, at lack of their support human. Why can they not enjoy some quality time with their children, or do one of the 101 practical jobs to be done?
I know NAMALT, my husband being one who doesn't do this, but it has really diminished my opinion of some men I otherwise held in high esteem.

What do the people who think men can’t parent effectively think happens to children who don’t have a mum?

I’ve had people in real life ask me how much our nanny costs, or if social services stay involved as someone needs to book dentist appointments. I had a poster on here say they felt sorry for whoever does my wife work as we have clean bedding each week, most meals are home cooked and our children have hobbies, when I informed that that we do the wife work I was called a liar as a man couldn’t do any of those things. I’ve had a consultant on two occassions sit and just stare at me in an appointment as they “need to discuss it with mum not you” er what.

The thing is people saying to dads “oh you’re babysitting today” “aren’t you good etc” are also part of the problem, if you wouldn’t say it about/to a mum, you shouldn’t say it about/to a dad either.

All a child needs is the same as an adult, food, fluids, clothes, a clean safe bed etc, looking after yourself really isn’t that different to providing those things for a child. Odd how parents who can’t feed or buy clothes for their child don’t walk around naked and starving.

In a lot of places there is absolutely no need for anyone to accidentally become a parent, if someone feels they couldn’t manage work with cooking dinner, washing clothes, optician appointments, bedtime etc thats fine, but along with that they need to realise they wouldn’t make a suitable parent and so shouldn’t have any children. Or if you have one and then realise you’re finding it really hard make sure you never have a second.

My favourite musicians were men, favourite actors/directors were men, favourite comedians were men etc etc.

I suppose part of that is they weren’t busy at home with the kids they had time to write great songs/material, Spielberg wasn’t worrying about being away from home for extended periods whilst the kids had upcoming important school exams etc etc

It does make you wonder how much more women could have achieved in all areas of society if they had more support

Just to add I agree with previous posters that sharing maternity / paternity leave helps tremendously. My hubby took extended leave both times so has always been an equal parent, although breast feeding definitely meant we had to work at that balance.

That's a great point about those men being able to do visible stuff due to support. I sometimes feel sorry for JRR Tolkein's family, the amount he wrote.

I used to admire Alistair Campbell (weird I know) for his political acumen, then once on a live video he mentioned in passing that he had never cooked a meal.

The things we could do if we had a "wife"!!

I hear you OP
I don't think men were ruined by motherhood, that would be again putting the blame on a female capability for their incompetence. I think motherhood just opened your eyes to what you were settling for before.
I'm a single mum and I haven't dated anyone longer than a couple of weeks now, whereas before I would over look little lazy traits because I didn't have a child to consider. Now it's more about looking to see if they could one day add something to mine and dd's set up, make my life easier etc. It's literally like putting them through an interview and trial process. The moment they start putting expectations on me to meet up in a different location or double text me, they're out!!
I'm dubious as to whether there's many suitable candidates out there tbh.

All a child needs is the same as an adult, food, fluids, clothes, a clean safe bed etc, looking after yourself really isn’t that different to providing those things for a child. Odd how parents who can’t feed or buy clothes for their child don’t walk around naked and starving.

@Simonjt I just don't think that's all they need. They need someone who spots that their face has changed because they're worrying about something. They need someone to be extremely interested in their observations about the Met Ball fall out. They need someone who builds a good relationship with the teacher so that it's no bother to have a toilet pass. They need a massive fuss when they do a funny dance.

So the same things as adults, did you want me list every single thing a person may need?

They only do what you’ve described because too many women let them. That’s the harsh reality.

I definitely agree with your mum op about the one task thing. I'm a sahm and actually when dh ever does a household task he does it far better than I do but that's because he's doing one thing whereas I'm usually doing lots at once.

Me and my OH are equally competent parents. We have our strengths and our weaknesses but he is neither better nor worse at looking after our children.

It took me until having a child at 28 to realise I’m actually a raging lesbian. Go figure!

Similar to me, although I did go on to have a child as a solo parent. I saw how all my female peers all with good degrees and good careers ended up working and doing all of the mental load of the family, most of the parenting and the men seemed to become liabilities rather than assets to the family.

I just couldn't and wouldn't have been able to do that.

Sad because I would have loved to have had a partner who was a true partner, but I would imagine they are a rare beast.

I think this is an absolutely ridiculous explanation.
Men have just got away with it they don't see domestic duties as their responsibility

I totally agree that men too often get away with being utterly useless, far more than women do.

HOWEVER, I have a wife rather than a husband, and while she is the kindest, most loving mum and wife anyone could ask for, she is significantly less competent than I am. She always has been, and to be fair to her she has become more competent since our baby was born, but she will still do things like ask me to put socks on the baby because I'm, apparently, 'better at it'. 🙄

The difference between her and most men is that she accepts she can be a bit useless and wants to do better, so she is very happy for me to just tell her what to do so that everything necessary gets done without me having to be the one to do it all.

So sometimes, it's down to different personalities rather than different sexes.

The fact that someone thinks social services have the time (and inclination) to book dentist appointments for the children of two dads is astounding! Are they not aware of the sheer number of hoops you have to jump through to adopt?!