To be devastated that my husband won't let our 2yo be a 2yo

[anonymousi]

He works full time, I'm a SAHM. When he gets home around 6-7 the house is a mess because I've been looking after our DD all day and cooked dinner (so DD would have been playing with her toys in the same room as I cook). My husband likes to bring this up in arguments or if there's a particularly big pile of toys sigh, roll his eyes, say something like "you girls have been busy" or "daddy's going to have to clean this up now eh". The reality is, yes daddy has to clean this up because I will tidy up the kitchen area after DC mealtime and prepare her for bed, then put her to bed. Of course, as she's 2 she understands what's being said and I don't want her to grow up to the sound of "urgh don't get your toys out" "no don't tip all the pencils out of your box" - if she's drawing she needs her pencils. The house is never dirty, just mess in the sense of toys scattered. And if I ever have him watch her he will keep getting grumpy at her every time she tries to take a toy out - LILLY, NO! Urghhh why did you get your legos! If she spills a drink "LOOK FORWARDS when you're eating" or "why did you tip that??" I've tried explaining that kids play, that part of their development is dropping things and exploring how they fall, that she's excited to play with her toys as she should be.

There's no way he can do bedtime duty because it would just stress her out - for example during bedtime stories if she gets out a second book or tries to colour and tips her pencils out, he will complain at her. The bath - same - why are you splashing water everywhere, why did you throw that bath toy out, now I'm all wet.

To avoid a drip feed I'll add that I'm a SAHM because we both saved £££ before having our DD, so no he isn't fully funding me. My family have also helped out financially so allow me to be a SAHM as it's always been my dream. We have a cleaner who comes 2 times per week to deep clean (whereas I do more of a daily surface clean) so the house is clean, hygienic and safe.

I don't agree that a child should have to put one toy back before getting another out...what a way to dampen a child's imagination / creativity. What a dampner on open ended play. I am looking across my living room currently and there is a herd of toy horses in one corner, stuffed animals having a chat in another corner and a little pile of pretend jewels in the middle. My daughter comes in and plays big elaborate games with it all and it keeps her completely absorbed and entertained in the mornings after breakfast and after school.

My aim for our home is for her to enjoy playing with her toys and getting the most out of her creative play. I don't want a sterile immaculate home. I want her to relax and know that she can play with whatever she likes.

Yes it gets tidied up but that happens when the game is finished, which might be after an hour or after a few days! I just want her to have fun. I don't care about the "mess".

A mug works better, less broken points

@Snowpaw that was my attitude. You soon miss the ‘mess’ when your ‘baby’ goes to university! And all the toy car races all over the place has translated into a motorsport degree

I am a pretty messy person and I struggle (and often fail) to keep the house tidy. However that's with 2 children, working and no cleaner.
With one 2yo and no job, keeping it mostly tidy shouldn't be hard.

I see no indication that dad can't bathe his child it do bedtime, just that mum doesn't like his sensible rules and therefore she doesn't let him do it.

There is definitely middle ground here, encouraging a toddler to tidy, doing bits as you go along and trying to contain the mess to a small area.

There's also a big difference between a child getting out multiple toys to be part of the same game and repeatedly moving in to the next thing because they don't want to tidy. Encourage the first but the second is where the tidying needs to happen. Most toddler classes and playgroups have a tidying up time, as do nurseries. They need prompting and you to do it with them, but it's very normal for a 2 year old to help tidy away their toys.

I have two kids 2.5 and 8 weeks. The toddler causes a lot of mess. Toys, clothes, food, potty accidents etc etc The baby is mainly either feeding or sleeping on me. The house looks great after the cleaner has been!

It’s possible to have both. A child can enjoy playing but also have some periods during the day where it is tidy up time.

The OP mentions that it is possible her husband has OCD. Now I know that term gets used far too frequently and very rarely has it been professionally diagnosed, but it probably demonstrates that the DH has an unreasonably low level tolerance for ‘mess’ and toys

There's a middle ground.

My ds and I did lots of fun creative things when he was younger. Wr painted everyday, made a lot of crafts from outdoor forages. He made his big train tracks and Lego villages.

We both have ADHD and are medicated and it's important for us to have order. We need to know where things are and need a clean and organized home to do that in.

Aside from the train tracks everything was tidied as we went along. He learned how to organize his belongings and tidy without it being overwhelming.

My home is typically guest ready, and ds now 13 tidies and vacuums our home on his own accord. There is value in teaching these life skills. Without them you have adults who struggle to live with others because they don't know how to clean up after themselves.

Not to mention as an artist myself this idea that creativity is messy isn't necessarily true. Making something messy is absolutely fun, but teaching them to be able to clean up after themselves and having age appropriate systems for them is creative in itself. That's why days cares look immaculate in the morning, and have the kids tidy up. It's important for them to learn and it makes it easier for them to play.

There's nothing wrong with leaving certain things out, but having your daughter clean up her jewelry from the middle of the floor and put it in a container she can get out tomorrow isn't squelching her creativity. It's teaching her how to respect other people's space and is less likely she will lose things.

If we don't I still these values in kids I'm not sure how we can expect teenagers to suddenly pick up after themselves.

So your cleaner picks up after the toddler everyday? Is this a cleaner that comes daily or do you have a nanny?

Sorry I just can't imagine hiring someone to pick up after my toddler daily? Maybe I'm misunderstanding the situation though.

I was very hands on with my kids too but 10-15 minutes before I started getting dinner ready we would all tidy up toys together. They need to learn from a young age. Sometimes we would set an alarm and try to “beat the clock”. You just need to make it part of a routine
Things like Lego and pencils can easily be stored in smaller plastic containers and dont need to be tipped out everywhere
If mine wanted to tip anything out we had plastic trays so they could see things easily but it was so easy to tidy up as it was all in one place still and could be lifted out the way easily
Whilst I was cooking dinner my 2 would either “help” - and yes a 2 year old can do something - or sit at the table and colour or something else that doesn’t take much tidying.
Although your DH might be annoying he does have a point about always coming back to a messing living room

Or the OP has a high tolerance for mess and her dh looks OCD in comparison.

OCD doesn't work like this though. It's not about tidying things up.

One of the advantages of going back to work was less time at home to mess up the house particularly as we’d go out a lot at the weekend. Most of their messy playtime was at nursery and at home it was contained to the playroom.

Or OP has a usual tolerance for mess but the kid happens to be playing with toys when her Dad comes home and he immediately becomes passive aggressive and a dick.

So let's say he is undiagnosed OCD

Why does the whole household have to maintain his standards without him doing anything around the house without being passive aggressive about it?

I've seen posts on here over the years where women have said they have ocd or anxiety and they are immediately told they need to seek help and stop labelling it ocd because you like things tidy and that they can't expect everyone around them to live under their requirements and how they will end up passing these things onto their children

But it's ok for a man to put these demands and rules and restrictions in place?

Yes, really, and I didn't say "sitting at the table and eating/ drinking." I said drinking carefully or tidying.

Nagging a child about the potential of spilling causes anxiety in the child about mistakes in general, a huge obstacle to future learning.

Focusing on the tidying, which so many here seem to believe is essential, tells the child that the play that has engaged and enthralled him all day isn't seen or appreciated. Putting the child in his place like this is another obstacle to future learning.

There is ample time when children are older and their attention span has grown to teach good habits. Older children will spend far more time engaging with toys and materials as designed, and there will be less open-ended play. They will also be able to hold and balance separate objectives in their minds as they play - try not to break the Lego thing they've just made as they pick it up to show you, make sure they don't lose a puzzle piece under the couch when they're spreading the pieces out, put a sheet of newspaper on thw table before painting and clear the art stuff off the table before dinner, etc.

Exactly this. Kids can free-flow, do messy play, get loads of stuff out for like 95% of the time.
They can also spend 15min twice a day being supported to learn to sort objects into boxes aka tidy a few things!
The people banging on about OP's daughter enjoying the tipping out if the crayons, the sound of them hitting the table.... The OP's daughter might also enjoy then putting the items back in!!!
Lots of children really quite like putting bricks in boxes, crayons in the tub, its quite satisfying!

Other people (especially young kids) using things and having them out in communal spaces is part and parcel of sharing your life with other humans. I don't get people who want to live with others and have families yet seem to want to come home to a house that looks like nobody's been there.

But that isn’t what pp said. Why does it have to be to the extremes?

A house can look lived in without toys chucked everywhere. Learning how to tidy after yourself is also part of sharing your life with other humans.

Toys being scattered around because OP has been cooking isn't exactly a pigsty.

@YellowphantGrey I wasn't excusing the man, maybe I worded it incorrectly. I was trying to explain that his definition of mess wasn't your average person's definition of mess, so it wasn't exactly like a toy bomb had gone off but general level of toys with young children. And he needs to accept that children bring a certain level of mess and clutter. And he needs to let his DD have fun with her toys and if she is happily playing while mum is cooking what is wrong with that. As I said in a previous post, if there were toys out when DH came home he would get on the ground and play with DS not moan about the mess. If DS picked up another book at bedtime there is no way we could have complained as we both have piles of books by our bed and pretty much every room in the house has books in it, some in shelves, some in piles. We are very much a lived in house!

I hate to see houses that have young children in and there is very little evidence that they live there in the downstairs rooms. Yes it is important that they learn to tidy away, but if DS was in the middle of building a lego village, together with his toy cars racing through it, no way was I going to tell him it all had to be put away in the evening. He knew that it had to be built in a way that didn't impede other people's use of the living room, and if we were having elderly relatives with limited mobility staying with us, then that would be time for that particular creation to be cleared away as it wouldn't be so easy for them to walk around it. He knew it was important that jigsaws be put away carefully so no pieces were lost. Colouring pens etc were only allowed in certain parts of the house and would be put away when finished with. So there is a middle ground. I get the feeling from the OP that her DH doesn't accept a middle ground.

This.

is you’re daughter sleeping through the night? Only reason I ask is you both seem grumpy and won’t budge.

you are both being unreasonable. Him because it can’t be spotless and you because you’re all “oh she’s a child and I’m cooking” when you can easily encourage her to tidy up (google the tidy up song) and then get her to do a puzzle while you cook. And nothing needs to be stirred continuously that it’ll burn if you step away for 5 minutes.

Sensible comment.

Hi op,

so basically by not controlling himself, he gets you to do everything he thinks you should do.

does he get angry if you are not able to?

doesn’t sound like a healthy relationship…

Good luck 🌺

Well maybe he could spend 15 mins putting the toys away with his dd seeing as he doesn't have anything to do with cooking dinner cleaning up after that or bathing and putting his dd to bed

Trying to read fast and responding to whatever I can also quickly to common themes / questions.

This has come up a couple of times so will respond.
I don't love his tone or attitude as he's doing bath time or bedtime, however my daughter also wouldn't really let him do it for long. Whenever we've tried in 5-10 mins I hear from the bedroom "come on, just CLOSE YOUR EYES! Close them! Or I'm leaving!" "I know you want mum but she isn't here!! Stop!! No!!" followed by crying. He doesn't want to, she doesn't want him to, she will cry (a stressed cry) at the suggestion of him doing these things.