To ask you to tell me the most outrageously patriarchal thing your DP/DH has said or done in relation to your children

[Allonel]

I’m fuming. It’s not the first time DP has made a comment like this. I’m sure there are lots of men who have never said anything remotely similar but I just want some solidarity with other women!!

This morning me and DP talking about the weekend and I remind him I’m going out tomorrow for a baby shower. He asked if he was babysitting or had I arranged for someone to come over. Who the fuck refers to being with their child as babysitting when they’re a parent!!! He’s usually pretty hands on but these comments every so often just remind me how much he sees the children as my job and he can ‘help’ (another thing he often says!!!)

Did you tell him he cannot babysit his own children?

I'd plan a longer day out and maybe some hours today to prep.

@BlueMum16 yes I said it was a weird thing to say and makes me feel like I am the only parent

Id be going out significantly more often. And no need for constant reminders.

but a simply, ‘neither. Their dad is parenting.’ As a reply.

my dh once, very early in our marriage, announced he had cleaned something. I looked at him confused and asked if he wanted a medal. Anyway, that stopped all that nonsense. He has also always been default parent when the children are off sick.

In the early days after my XH left, he used to come over to take care of DD while I went out for the day. EVERY TIME, he used to say 'what shall I give her for her lunch' and then act surprised when I said I didn't know, as though I should have organised food even when it was his day with her. (There was always lots of stuff in the fridge - I wasn't expecting him to buy stuff, even!)

Tbh, none - my husband these days isn't a dick.

My older two kids' dad wanted me to write out a list of instructions on how to deal with the kids when I returned from mat leave. Like a daily routine. Clearly he was paying no attention.

How unattractive. Why isn't he a feminist? Doesn't sound like he's much of a darling or a partner.

I quit work after having our first baby so DH was the sole earner. We went on holiday to Spain and I just didn’t enjoy it; hard work with a toddler!

When I mentioned finding it hard work he got annoyed and said ‘glad I spent loads of money on it then’.

I could tell then that me not having my own money wasn’t going to be something that worked for us!

He’s usually pretty hands on

If that phrase is even in your family's vocabulary, he probably isn't.

No one calls me or DH "hands on" because our hands are never not on (tbf I'm on mumsnet now while he takes them to the playground... but generally we are both immersed in the chaos)

@DorothyStorm thats a good response! I just sick of it. We are going away on Sunday for a few days and I just know I’m going to feel on edge after this latest comment!

@ICanTellYouMissMe I often think when they earn the money they see their ‘part’ ticked off and need not do anymore

Haha yeah I always kind of think this but equally it is just a turn of phrase really, isn't it?

I am currently sitting under a sick sleeping baby whilst my DH is getting the older two out the door to pop in and visit their great aunt for her birthday. He's been up since 5 with the baby whilst I slept in til about 7.45 (we were both up in the night multiple times with the baby but me more than him as I'm breastfeeding).

To be honest I don't think my DH does every say shit like in the OP but my DF does a lot. It used to annoy me a lot as an adolescent so I guess I made sure i settled with a bloke who wouldn't.

@BarbaraVineFan i have had that asked many times too. I also heard someone ask the nursery when they collected their child if they should give them dinner or whether they would be ok without… clearly the first time he had done pick up or the evening routine!

I once got the comment, “I get satisfaction from my career - you get satisfaction from helping the children with their homework!” We were both lawyers…

Another one, when I got home from a few hours at the stables, “Will you take over now, or do you want to get changed first?” That was part of a pattern of assuming his parenting job was done as soon as he heard my key in the door.

He’s an exH.

@Allonelhand on heart I will say that is absolutely nowhere the truth in DH’s case, and he to this day does far more domestically than me.

He just had a mad moment 🤣

At Center parcs while cleaning down the kitchen , baby on hip I asked for help. "But I'm on holiday ". How I'm still here I do not know

“Time to drag yourself out of the dark ages husband, it’s not called babysitting it’s called being a parent”.

My father could be a bit like this, though to be fair he was born in the 20's and both he & my mother were brought up in a pretty old fashioned way. He went out to work, mother stayed home & did all the "wife" things (as they saw it).

A few years after my mother died, and my DSis and I were both still at home and both working. DF insisted on having cotton sheets on his bed that had to be ironed, we had long before moved to poly cotton fitted sheets. He was in the kitchen ironing his sheets and suddenly slammed down the iron exclaiming "I shouldn't have to do this - this is WOMEN'S WORK!". I promptly dropped the oily carburettor I was cleaning (as he got dermatitis from engine oil) onto said sheet and said "well this is MEN'S" work. DSis came in from gardening & dumped the muddy garden fork on the floor stating "and so is THIS".

Never heard a single word about "men's work" and "women's work" after that day.

Yes exactly...
We each get about 20 minutes a day when we are not "hands on" with the kids. Dh wfh and he has to muck in on his lunchbreak too. School holidays, eh!

I also wouldn't have settled with a man who had ideas like that. Although dh had extended paternity leave which I think really helped set the expectations too, that was just lucky.

When people say "dh is hands on with the kids", ime that means he sometimes swoops in and lifts the kids in the air or maybe pushes them on the swings. It doesn't indicate to me a man who also packs the lunches, changes the nappies, puts away clothes that are too small, sorts out the nursery bag/school bag, writes in the planner, etc etc

Imagine a woman being described as 'shes an amazing mum, hands on, plays with the kids sometimes and helps babysit and helps by taking the bin out. Amazing. She can't pick the kids up or anything like that because she works'

The standards men are held to are utterly pathetic.

Interesting that it doesn't work the other way isn't it? I was the higher earner by a long way when our DC were young but I didn't seem to get any brownie points for that! To be fair to DH he has always pulled his weight, though he did once say "I've done the washing for you" to which I replied "Thanks. I've paid the mortgage for you." He never said that again.
But I once overheard his mother singing his praises to a friend saying "He's got to be father and mother to those children you know", presumably meaning that DH was doing some stuff traditionally seen as female roles which is seen as going above and beyond the call of duty. But there was no equivalent positivity or even recognition of the fact that I was playing some of the traditionally male role. If DH was "both father and mother" then so was I! And I was far from absent in my children's lives or neglectful of the house anyway, I still did over 50% of the domestic stuff.
Things are better than they were in the past of course - my Mum was forced to leave her job when she got married in the 50s - but even today there's a sense that a father who does any domestic work is a super hero but a high earning woman is bound to be a negligent mother. And the men are doing us some kind of favour if they "allow" us to go out to work and are prepared to lift a finger in the house.😡

Every time I went out with my mum, she’d ask if I needed to get home to make my husband’s lunch.

She has stopped now but it took years for her to get that it wasn’t my responsibility to make sure a grown man was fed!

My grandmothers said this to me almost to their dying days, they just couldn’t fathom that I could be visiting them at 6pm - usually to make their dinner - but what would DH do? (Ensure dinner was on the table when I got home usually!)

DH is an all round good egg and does contribute like an actual adult to the majority of things but every now and again his male privilege stills shows- favourite one this week (we are away). ‘Packing up on the last morning won’t take long’. No DH it won’t take you long because you are only responsible for your own stuff….

It's my parents really who are like this. When DB and SIL had their second child they decided to invest in a dishwasher.

My mum informed me that 'he had bought her a dishwasher'. They both work and as far as I know, both eat off their plates.

(To be fair to DB he found it a ridiculous comment too).

It's a long time ago now, back when we had one young toddler. My dh had to do some work in the USA and told me he'd be gone for a long weekend, seeing friends for a day at the end of it. The trip turned into eight days and I only found out when I asked what time he was getting back on the Monday. He'd booked it for Thursday to the following Friday. Not even asked me.

That was the very last time anything like that happened because I hit the fucking roof. I've rarely been so angry.

Made jokes that “Wives are property” and “I own you” Etc 🤢 Said with a smile and a jokey tone but still…my teen pulled him up on that and he told us both not to be so serious 🙄