To completely go against DH beccause I think his opinion is ridiculous

[apecial]

DH has a very strong opinion about one particular hobby, football. He HATES it and the culture around it, in his words.He has a very very strong opinion on it. He has family that are football obsessed and hated it growing up, the drinking and shouting and getting so riled up by the score.

He cannot stand it when he feels like it's someone's whole life, the only topic they talk about, when people go out to the pub and are screaming and shouting or getting angry because of the score and so on.

Basically you get the gist, he fucking HATES football. I'm not into football so it doesn't really come up much in our house although he does know that I think his opinion is too strong / silly.

Our son went to a party recently. He is typically very shy (he's 4) and never usually joins in things however he recently went to a football party (a toddler footy session) and he loved it and hasn't stopped going on about it.

The guy who runs it does a toddler / young kids football session on a Saturday morning, I want to see if DS would like to go but in the past DH has made it clear that he absolutely doesn't want any DC doing football as a hobby, anything else but that.

Wibu to go completely against his opinion because I think it's ridiculous and take DS anyway if he wants to go.

DS is 9 and has really gotten into football in the last 9 months or so - plays it and talks about it all of the time. He never showed much interest beforehand.

He doesn't support the same team as me or DH (we all support different teams) but we're all lighthearted about it.

Introduce your son to a few sports and see what he takes a liking to

I would take him, my brothers dad played football until late 30s then had my brother who was his first child. Stopped playing and didn’t get my brother into it. Years later my brother resents his dad for not taking him to any form of hobby. So he now feels he’s got no skills while our nephew and 98% friends are playing the sport. My mum had a business and 3 other children plus a grandchild so she would have expected my brothers dad who only had him to do a hobby of such.

YABU to take your ds behind your husband’s back. Maybe compromise and try a different sport. We actively avoided football clubs for our boys because, although we quite enjoy the sport and go to the occasional local game, the culture in kids football is hideous. Parents behave disgracefully and it’s just a money-making scheme praying on kids’ dreams. Both boys play a bit at school so know how to kick a ball.

My boys play rugby and it’s such a wonderful family-friendly environment.

there are lots of other sports and hobbies to introduce your child to.
more sports that he can enjoy.
that he can develop great accomplishments in .
So I would suggest investingating others and avoiding football .

espeiclaly if your husband loathes it .

you will spend many many hours standing a round watching your kids doing sport.

you will spend many hundreds of ££ on fees and kit in whatever sport you choose

so you might as well have some interest in it

my friends with football loving kids have, by 9yo got whole weekends entirely controlled by matches, with week night training too .

i spend as much time with my kids doing their sports (cycling and ice hockey) but I enjoy watching the sport, and it’s not beside a muddy windswept pitch.

Im from Glasgow and so I have a very similar opinion as your husband. I despise football and the very specific, nasty, sectarian culture we have around it here.

I am determined for my son to have no interest or part in it. But, I think at that age I probably would take him because they so quickly become disinterested in things and he’d soon move on to something else.

I hate football, grew up in a footy house. I think you try them at all sports when they are young. I played rugby and love it, but great to expose them to that, tennis, cricket etc

Actually at that age they often have great tennis or cricket half term things running from spring through summer.

If your DC enjoyed a footie party, that's great. But signing your DC up for a footie team/activity is not on.
If my DH took my DC to an activity of which I strongly, adamantly, vociferously disapprove and my 'D'H deceived me to do it, I'd consider that grounds for divorce, especially if my valid opinion was well known. Respect your DH's opinion or brace for the consequences.
Whatever your feelings about football or anything else, deliberately deceiving your DH is completely beyond the pale. Just imagine any scenario where your DH deliberately takes your DC to activity which you have actively denounced. You'd be fuming and straight on to MS asking AIBU.
Is your marriage worth a few footie sessions? (Remember, your DC will have plenty of times to play it casually in PE lessons, games and with friends in the park.)

This.

Your DH feels very strongly, perhaps irrationally, against football, and I don't think it is fair to disregard this feeling. The two of you are supposed to be a team. DS hasn't asked to go; perhaps he'd enjoy it but it isn't a big deal for him. Deliberately doing something that your DH is so against could become a big deal. Why not leave it for now, and if possible introduce him to some sane, reasonable footie fans at some point.

Hate football too. It attracts far, far more violent, nasty kids and they nasty parents. Rugby, tennis, judo, swimming, hockey all attract a nicer sort of camaraderie. Girls football is much more civilised.

I’m Team DH on this one.

OP, I suggest you go and watch a junior league football match with primary age kids around 10-12yrs and listen to the outrageous yelling from the other (mostly male) parents. The language is atrocious and the competitiveness is ludicrous. Coaches that are desperate to win so will never let little Johnny play for more than five minutes near the end in case they lose them the match.
This is just the young kids. It gets even worse as they get older!

Why does his dislike rule all? It doesn’t.

I agree with @whiskeytangofox to an extent.

We befriended a family on holiday a few years ago and one night had to endure the dad moaning for about two hours over dinner at the unfair politics in his teenage sons' teams - how they never got to play for very long etc to give the team a better chance of winning.

My DH also loathes football but he had no problem letting both DD and DS play at junior school. Neither DC lasted more than a term though as the good players (with football-loving dads) were very mean to the weaker players.

I would let your DS do it, but just see how it goes.

That’s HIS dislike though. Their child is his own person and is going to have his own likes and dislikes.

I’m also not convinced OP was meaning sneaking about behind his back.

Your husband is allowed to have whatever opinion he wants but he is being controlling and extreme if he thinks he can stop his child from playing, liking or thinking about football.

Now I hate football. Whenever there's a match on locally it disrupts traffic, the town is full of drunkard hooligans, the trains are full of drunkard hooligans, it's so noisy I don't even live in walking distance of the stadium but you can hear the chants from our house a 15 minute drive away. It felt like a cult growing up and you were either in or out and people followed it religiously.

I'd not dream of taking away a physical energetic activity away from DS if it helped him stay active and make friends and learn life skills like how to lose gracefully and taking turns and working as a team which at that age is all this is about.

If DH kicks off then I would assume he's controlling in other areas of life too and I just wouldn't be with someone so controlling especially if it was just the start of ruining my child's life.

So for me it's not the football it's the abhorrent unrealistic expectations, the walking on eggshells about this topic and the pending extreme yet unrealistic reaction he will probably have.

Ah, I was all ready to say YABU right up to the end, but you are not.

I am with your DH - I hate football and the culture, I don't even understand the concept of supporting a team (unless you are physically going to your local team every week), and football is the single thing causing constant disharmony among the boys in my oldest DS's class. However, I still took DS2 to lessons when he asked to go. So YANBU.

Yes, and the DS doesn’t even like it enough to ask to go. OP is deliberately and underhandedly pushing DS into it when she knows it will upset her DH and drive a wedge between her and DH and DS and DH. It is toxic, manipulative behaviour,

If DH kicks off then I would assume he's controlling in other areas of life too and I just wouldn't be with someone so controlling especially if it was just the start of ruining my child's life.

This is ridiculous. Having a boundary of any sport except football isn’t controlling and football being the only sport off limits isn’t going to ruin the child’s life.

There are dozens of other sports.

Because he enjoyed himself at the party and came out of his shell. He has tried other things such as karate which didn’t have the same reaction.

DH is an adult and needs to accept that DS may like football. If a wedge is put between them because DH refuses to accept it, there’s no one to blame but DH.

There are plenty of other team sports other than football.
OP is an adult and married her DH knowing his boundary for their joint children would be no football. OP should respect that boundary.

DH should accept that having children means they are their own people with their own likes and dislikes or he shouldn’t have had them if his hang ups are that severe. He doesn’t get to dictate that someone else can never play football.

OP is putting her son first. Good for her.

No she’s not, she doesn’t even know if her DS likes football. He hasn’t asked to play it at all. She is pushing football on to her DS.

Sorry but yes a PARENT does get to dictate what is off limits to their DC within reason. Many parents don’t allow their DC to learn horseback riding or BMX or skiing or gymnastics because these are sports with high risk of injury. The DH has a good reason to have a boundary of no football.

If he had a background of alcoholism in his family growing up, would he have the right to insist neither you nor DC ever touched a drop? No, he'd have to accept that while his family took it to extremes, the majority of people can drink sensibly.

If he had a background of domestic abuse, would he have the right to insist your DS never got into a romantic relationship? Of course not!

If he'd been bullied by a child of a specific ethnicity in school would it be appropriate for him to insist neither you nor your child is not allowed to be friends with anyone of that ethnicity, and nobody of that ethnicity is allowed in your house? Of course not.

If he tried to insist on restrictions on any of the above, people would be insisting he needs therapy.

He needs to accept that his family are the issue, football was just the conduit/excuse for their behaviour and it's unfair to penalise your son for his issues. A kiddie football session is worlds away from a real match and the behaviour he is worried about. If your son gets really into football and if he ever starts displaying concerning behaviours then he can talk to him, but unless that ever happens this is a him issue that he needs to get over.

Sorry but you are talking illogical extremes that apply to decisions made by adults, not boundaries a parent has every right to insist on for their child.

My main issue is the OP going behind her DH’s back. If she thinks his boundary is ridiculous, she needs to discuss with him to see if any flex can be agreed on.

I am also disgusted that you would try and compare this to racism.