AIBU to be angry at DH over DS 8 on water slide?

[Fleetwoodmax]

On holiday with DH and DS 8. I had to come back from pool early as had to have a chat with someone re a job interview. DH supervising DS at pool on small water slide and water play area. They come home saying they had a brilliant time but DS hurt his head. Why? I asked. “Well, when I was coming out of the waterslide backwards, I fell and hit my head of bottom of pool” ( not deep! And a shortish slide) At this I was horrified. A) why was he going down a water slide on his back headfirst… ? Totally not allowed. Apparently I’m ‘boring’ for suggesting he should only go feet first and DH deserves a medal for all the supervision he’s done. FYI I am significantly bigger breadwinner and job interview important. AIBU?

What has how much money you earn got to do with anything?
They were having fun, accidents happen.
Calm yourself down.

@Fleetwoodmax

how utterly remiss of you not to have discussed waterside safety before marrying the incompetent twat.

I'm bowing out of the thread now because my blood pressure needs a rest.

he was a twat letting DS go down head first into such a shallow pool, I'd be re thinking him looking after the goldfish.

he was an asswipe to call you boring & be so grumpy about watching DS while you did what you need to, to secure your income that you ALL rely on.

ignore the idiots criticising you for mentioning you're the breadwinner & fir assuming your DH was competent enough to look after his own child for 5 minutes!

im not sure id want that resentful, incompetent idiot looking after DS in the school holidays. I'd look at childcare & him getting a full time job.

She was advising she was the breadwinner to avoid being piled on by the usual crowd castigating her for daring to take a phone call whilst she was with her husband and child and leaving them to it for a time. It didn't work though clearly.
I agree with the OP it wasn't a reasonable thing to allow the child to do and the result was an unnecessary head bang which thankfully was minor. Men often have no sense regarding child safety.

sorry wrong thread.

FYI I am significantly bigger breadwinner and job interview important. AIBU?

Unless the job you're interviewing for was Chief Water Slide Safety Engineer, I don't see how that's relevant.

I agree with you OP- there are risks that are acceptable to let your kids take, but going down a waterslide head first into shallow water isn't one of them. I did something similar as a kid and was in a neck brace for weeks, we had to cut the holiday short.

That said, your DH probably didn't give permission as such, kids that age just go for it because they can't assess risk. Presumably, the reason you're worried/annoyed is that your DH doesn't acknowledge how dangerous it was.

YABU.

No it’s not allowed, but loads of us have done it! Same as swinging on the back of your chair. Kids do silly things.

Is going down a small waterslide headfirst a HUGE risk? Really?

Or is it a small risk that could potentially lead to banged head and not much else?

I don't think your DH is annoyed you took the call, I think he's annoyed at your overreaction about the slide.

My son used to do that all the time, and still would (mid teens now). Feet first is 'boring'. Your son was just unlucky that he got hurt, but he probably won't do it again now so I would just move on.

I take comfort from the fact that these threads raise my blood pressure and are shocking to me because my DH, my BILs and my friends’ DHs are all competent parents who don’t fit the MN stereotype of “fun but shit” dad/DH. If something like this happened while my DH was parenting, he would be horrified and I would have to be the one telling him that accidents happen and not to beat himself up about it.

The breadwinner bit is irrelevant and tells me you hold that over him a lot. If you weren’t the breadwinner that doesn’t mean a call might not be important.

As for the rest, he’s not “injured” are people have said, he’s bumped his head. Kids bump themselves all the time, mine are covered in bruises most of the time, neither of them seem to know where half of them come from. You can’t wrap them in cotton wool.

If you don’t believe he’s capable of looking after DS then don’t leave DH with him. Just don’t come whinging that you’ve spent all holiday looking after DS.

So from experience splash areas and small slide areas are aimed at young children. how big was this slide?

Your son prob saw another child do it and followed, that's what they do.

My DH took dd down a spiral slide at soft play and she broke her leg catching her foot on one of the joins..... I was the significant bread winner then but I didn't go apeshit.... It happens, it's hardly like he made him go down a vertical drop slide on his own.

Bumped head whilst under water, I wonder what could go wrong!

To those who still think that water&head first is all fun and games, here's some facts:
Patients seen with serious, disabling, water acquired spine injuries are 97.5% young male.
The most common sites to get injured at are pools and kiddie pools.
The most common (the only) way to sustain those injuries is by entering the water head first.

I also still remember the one summer in my teens when the most common way to get paralysed from the neck down became diving head first - those numbers left all the car and motorbike accidents behind. I remember it because we had a special water safety lesson that year before breaking up for the holidays.

If fathers (and some mothers, clearly! ) count this sort of reckless behaviour as "fun for the boys" then no wonder they reach their teens lacking in common sense and oblivious to very real dangers.

Lifeguard here. Your DS could have got a spinal cord injury and been paralysed from the neck down. Very very dangerous. Basically it is the same as diving into the shallow end.

Is going down a small waterslide headfirst a HUGE risk? Really?

Yup, this.

I've watched my 7 year old going backwards down the water slide at our favourite LC pool for years now. There's about two foot of water at the bottom.

Is it impossible he'd bang his head on the pool floor? No, but it's unlikely. Given the speed and incline of the slide and the depth of the water it's also extremely unlikely that any contact with the pool floor would be hard enough to injure him.

It's a judgement call in each situation. Clearly there will be some waterslides only a moron would go down backwards. There will also be plenty of waterslides where going down backwards would be a bit of a 'meh' affair imo.

Think op is probably bu and overreacting.

Your husband was being an idiot and you are right to be cross. He should also be able to see that and accept a bit of criticism as an adult. If he’s pushing back on you it could be because he’s retrospectively frightened himself about what could have happened and is externalising that by blaming you for not being there. If it’s out of character, chalk it up as a bad day, make up and move on. If it’s in character, he’s a man baby and should know better.

He's an idiot. Your DH that is, not your DS. Your DS is a child with limited appreciation of the long-term consequences of his actions. That's why the adults around him are meant to look out for him. Shame he got stuck with your DH.

Got four DC, and all at age of 8 have done silly stuff similar to that. Not unique to your DH, he just happened to be parenting and it happened on his watch this accident.

With the best will in the world, kids just do daft things sometimes and you can't stop them.

At 8 he should be going down water slides that have proper deep pools at the bottom, this one sounds like it’s more aimed at toddlers and non-swimmers.

Strategic incompetence to punish you for the call?

It's a good thing you're on holiday - you need to relax. It often takes me 3 or 4 days to come down off work and home stress, and get into things. The DC are in the holiday zone on the way to the airport!

It's not a big deal. You can't wrap your child up in cottonwool. Terrible accidents can happen anywhere, any time. (And for all those people saying pools ban such things: that's to protect themselves from liability, not because they love children). This wasn't an egregious, heinous parenting disaster worth having an argument about. It really wasn't.

Just drop it and get on with the holiday.

His reaction was crap and not ok. That definitely warrants a discussion and you being pissed off. He's a parent. Being with/looking after his kid is the bare minimum.

That kind of accident? It happens, even when mums supervise.

I get it OP. It sounds like for once you wanted your DH to be an equal parent because you're the one who makes sure the bills are paid, runs the house, mental load etc whilst he gets to be the fun parent. As an isolated incident it's very minor but if set in the context of you feeling almost burnt out from responsibility, you need to have a serious conversation with your DH.

In our pool, the lifeguards would be all over this. It's a big slide and one stands at the top and another at the bottom and no way would any kid be allowed to go down there backwards. If there is no guard near the slide, your husband should have been supervising his son properly. Could have ended very badly, he hit his head underwater ffs.