To think that women are still doing the brunt of childcare even on holiday?

[Binman]

I've just returned from a half term holiday with grandchildren and I am genuinely sad at how much of the childcare still falls to the women. I can honestly say that my observations around the pool and the restaurants it is the mother who is changing, feeding, applying sun cream etc. The father may get in the pool for a while but is mainly chilling while the mother does the main care.

I know there are hands on dads out there but the more I noticed the more I observed and so many of the fathers only did the fun bits in the pool or the quiet time, which was mostly the child on a phone or iPad.

It was the mothers sitting with the child on the plane or carrying three hand luggage's while the father carried the child. While waiting for our flight a woman I was talking to said she was dreading the flight as she was exhausted, when I asked her why she didn't sit in the 4th seat and leave the 2 children to her DH on one row, she said he won't do that.

I suppose my AIBU is that should the fathers not be stepping up, where both parents need a relax and respite from their usual daily grind?

Yip we both work. I’m on maternity leave now so there’s definitely no house work being done on his part. He’d never notice I cleaned the bathrooms but would notice if I hadn’t! We have very traditional roles, I do housework and he does the bills, DIY etc, plays with the kids. Annoyingly all my jobs are physical and he can sit on his arse doing his! Lol 😂

TBH im a control freak in the kitchen so I have created this, and now I try to unpick it! Back to protesting and not washing his clothes! lol 😂
It’s like history repeating itself, my dad can’t even make a cup of tea now! Luckily DH is not that bad but if I went out all day he wouldn’t eat!

@TheRossie123 Are you both happy to assume these traditional roles though?
My dad's laziness actually had the opposite effect on me - I didn't want to marry a man who would expect me to do everything "woman's work."
What will happen when.you return to work? How will things look then?

When we travel my youngest likes to sit with her dad and even that got some strange looks. I felt bad and kept trying to take her (I had our eldest with me). We don't only do it, if we don't do it / split the work, other parents (esp mums) give us the side eye.

Agree with this. If you’re complaining that your partners a waste of space, get rid! We all decide what we want to put up with, why be with someone who doesn’t pull their weigh if it’s annoying you.

I can’t imagine letting the kids put up with that even for part of their lives but it’s food for thought, what you say. I suppose it depends on the extent to which one is treated badly.

@theotherplace Embrace it!
When I returned to work after mat leave my husband took an unpaid day off a week to spend with our daughter.
He was thought very highly of at all of the toddler classes and nearly always the only dad there.
He was living his best life and enjoying the time with his one and only child ❤️ Wishes he could do it all again!

Well I always complain I have to do all the lifting and shifting but tbh I wouldn’t have a clue how to remortgage a house or fix a drain pipe etc. He plans all our finances and organises loads, he’s my go to with any problem. I’m happy he pulls his weight in other areas and if he didn’t I’d be out the door. He is the breadwinner and does treat us to nice holidays, car, etc. He does piss me off though but I love the guy. I certainly will be making my DC learn how to cook, clean etc. that will not be repeated in the next generation that is for sure!

It’s not so bad if you don’t work outside the home (obviously subject to usual caveats re financial security etc) but if you do, and are expected to pick up the slack at home too… ooft. At least 1950s wife/ mum got school days to herself… controversial, I know, but …

I'm thinking this is yet another reason to avoid traditional roles?

As much as I LOVE the fact that my husband is such a devoted dad and has probably changed as many if not more nappies than me (I was a sahm but he kicked straight into daddy mode the moment he walked in and adored being a parent) I feel sad knowing that he is definitely the exception to the rule. I was in a group of 9 women friends of kids the same ages and they all had to do 99% of the childcare despite all being married/partnered with their kids dads. One had a husband who had never changed a single nappy nor had the boys for more than an hour and their boys were 10 and 8 because that's the mother's job. I couldn't even look at that absolute waste of space.

I’m saying if you’re going to choose trad, make sure you’re at least not working outside the home too!

(I am being lighthearted but I know it isn’t funny)

YANBU. Only a handful of men actually deserve children. Most don't.

As for it being women's fault for not choosing their partners more carefully, well good news, they are!! The shitness of men is a big reason why the birthrate in many countries is through the floor. We are slowly moving towards a world where shit men will see their genes die out.

Can you imagine how quickly the population would decrease if men had access to the same choice of contraception as women. By the sounds of it a lot of men dont actually want to be fathers. If an accident happens the man is at the mercy of a woman if she decides to have an abortion or not. We all have access to condoms but imagine if men had access to the same more long term reliable contraception as us. How things would change.

I have been told that vasectomies are a very reliable method for avoiding unwanted fatherhood and reasonably straightforward.

Not sure anything would change. It’s easy for men to have kids and they love fathering them, it’s biology. And nobody holds them to account either physically or financially!

I was very lucky to have a DF who was not at all like that bearing in mind I’m 60+ and if he was still alive he would be 100 this year!
I think it’s because he had a better role model himself as his DM died of TB when he was 3-4 and he was brought up by his DF who didn’t remarry until he was a teenager
The only think he wasn’t keen on was cooking but everything else was shared including darning and sewing/mending which he was much better at than DM

It's the sex they enjoy not the baby that comes from it

Yes and apparently there are very long waiting lists for the procedure

I have 2 men in they're 30s in my family. Both are as likely to be looking after the children, changing nappies, playing with them, packing bags etc. My dad was the same in the 60s and DH was really good with ours too (not so great with the grandchildren though)

Like driving tests, maybe? Oh well, abstention is always an option during the wait.

Abstain? Men?

This is so true.

When DD was tiny, I very much wanted to be the one making the decisions. How we weaned, routines, which car seat, sleep etc. DH absolutely supported me in all of them, but we definitely fell into the trap of I was the default parent, I was the one that did the slightly obsessive research and so I decided (I also had raging postnatal anxiety which played into this a lot).

DH was great, but definitely the kind of ‘hands on dad’ that everyone thinks is wonderful because he does a solid 30% of the parenting tops. But I do have to admit I didn’t particularly let him do anymore (I’m not extrapolating this to all or even most women though - a lot of men are just crap and it’s nothing the women have done, just in our case I can see I was pretty controlling and made life harder for myself and us all by extension).

I remember kind of being ok with it day to day, but being ready to explode with resentment on holidays - our first few holidays as a family were not the most pleasant of experiences! We had lovely times but some pretty heated rows too. I still remember saying we needed to get lunch and DH saying ‘ah I’m not hungry let’s just wait till dinner’ and I was practically hissing at him ‘WE HAVE A 2 YEAR OLD WHO NEEDS FEEDING ITS NOT ABOUT YOU DICKHEAD”.

Anyway, in our case things changed. DH is a genuinely good one and he realised where he needed to step up, and I realised where I needed to chill out. I can hand on heart say things are more or less 50/50 now in terms of parenting, we don’t do an equal share of every aspect of it but overall I think it’s evenly split.

Holidays aren’t particularly relaxing for either of us still - but at least it’s evenly shared now and we do try to give the other one a break as well as having time all together.

By and large we’re still in agreement about most parenting decisions - I’m not sure I’d think to run hairstyles past him but anything bigger than that warrants a discussion definitely,

There must be a natural element to it initially otherwise this wouldn't be the case in almost every culture.the difference is that now women work so childcare should be more even.

The.long waiting list for vasectomies is a myth...most probably perpetuated by men! 😆 My hubby hardly waited for his.

It's physically possibly, you know.