To think “good fathers” get praised for doing the bare mininum?

[WryOliveFox]

Why does a dad doing one school run or changing one nappy get treated like heroics? AIBU to think men get overpraised for the most basic acts of parenting?

My DH is a really hands on dad, but I just tell him he’s an average to shit mum standard.

Totally agree! Men are praised when they are just doing what most mums do every day!

I dont remember my histusband oor i getting praised for anything we do parent wise, not complaining at all just dont think it is a thing

Nor other parents we all just get on with it

Yes this has always annoyed me. I know a man who is a single dad to 3 dcs, ffs the way people praise him for how amazing he is for doing it all on his own, they'll be putting a bloody statue up of him in our town centre to commemorate him when he passes away!
ffs he's just doing what thousands of women do alone across the country. ive never heard a woman getting praised and told how amazing she is for doing it all alone, its just expected of us. and let's face it we also do most of it alone if there is a man on the scene.

I also haven't found this. When I had my first baby people who hadn't even seen me interacting with my child praised me for being such a good mum. My partner says the only point that he has ever been praised for being a good dad was when he was a single parent. I've found praise comes to the person people are assuming is doing most of the parenting.
I appreciate other people might have different experiences but I really haven't seen this in with my friends/community.

YANBU

My ex MIL thought her son was so hands on because he’d change the odd nappy. She couldn’t believe that I was ending it and assumed I was having an affair 🙄

People have gone up to exh in cafes more than once to say how well behaved the kids are. Not once have I been complimented when the kids are well behaved with me!!

Hands on - a term rarely used for mothers.

I’ve always suspected there’s a quiet social view, possibly accurate, that most men don’t particularly actively want to be parents, and tend to go along with it because their partner wants children but wouldn’t have been fussed otherwise. So when fathers do stuff for their kids, it’s seen as a bit of a commendable effort on their part.

While I agree single dads get a lot of praise, I also make sure to tell single mums close to me that they are doing a good job when I know that they are.
Isn't this a problem we can solve fairly easily by praising people close to us when appropriate?

It must be your circle or type of school your kids attend?
dh is very hands on, so are all the men in our family and we just see it as normal. The split is 50/50 on organising play dates and parties on our class WA group.
for me it’s normal to have capable men around so I don’t think they would need any praise more than a woman. Dh has never been praised, when he’s with the kids and I’m not there

I've seen this working in schools. One student was raised by her father.He was a neglectful and inadequate parent but people made all sorts of allowances for him that they would not have made for a single mother. The bar for what we expect from men is set so incredibly low

As a single mother there is so much hate and judgement towards us. Meanwhile single fathers are praised and treated like hero's because they stuck around to raise their own children 🙄 it's particularly jarring when it comes from other women. It's misogyny, plain and simple.

My husband is great, love him to bits. He’s a very good and involved dad and stepdad. Wouldn’t change him for the world, really. But it really, really pisses me off when people we know (mainly my relatives) tell him how fucking amazing he is for “taking on” my kids. And when the same people consistently remind me to how lucky I am that he “puts up with so much”. Thank god he doesn’t have an ego. He literally got praised for changing a shitty nappy the other week. He ended up mouthing fuck off at them when they turned away as it annoys him too.

I agree OP, the bar is generally set very low for dads and mums are supposed to be grateful for anything they do, worst bit for me is dads “babysitting”, no they’re not, they’re looking after their children which is the minimum they should be doing! It’s crazy that expectations of one parent are so different to the other, especially in modern society.

Yes, a friend of mine’s husband was astonished at how he was treated so heroically when he took his two small children to do the shopping compared to his wife. He’s been quite good at shutting it down as him just parenting.

There was a post on LinkedIn some time back with men all patting themselves on the back for blocking out time to do the school run and go to school events etc. Men in the comments falling over themselves to say how wonderful hands-on parenting was. Not one mention of the penalties women face for doing the same. (And not one woman commenting on the post either).

Why does anyone expect praise for parenting. Male or female.

How is he 'hands on'? Are you 'hands on' too?

It’s the same with single dads raising children on their own . They are seen as hero’s .

I don't know - I've been single father to my child, being sole carer for three days and nights (and note that my ex didn't even think I should be "allowed" even that) every week since he was 3, and nobody, but nobody, has ever praised me. The only comments I've had are 'sorry about the divorce - do you think you'll stay in this city now or move somewhere else' (implication being I couldn't give a f*"'# whether I parented him), disquisitions on men's emotional unintelligence, plus many long musings on the special, unique, irreplaceable bond that held between mother and child - which may be true but why go on about at great lengths to me about it?

So, no, not my experience, not my experience at all.

I think my friend who has raised her two boys more or less alone is an amazing Mum and I have told her so. So I would say the same to a single Dad of 3.

I don't want to have a go, as your clearly an involved parent, but your comment does kind of illustrate the OP's point. What you describe as being a 'single farther' and 'sole carer' is less then half the parenting, and only started once the kid could (probably) feed themselves, use a toilet and sleep through the night. The fact you come across as feeling agreved that you haven't been praised for this is telling.

In contrast if a woman had the child the amount you do she would face mountains of judgment for being the non resident parent. It's not your fault but it definitely demonstrates the type of double standard the op is describing.

So true.

My DM praises my (cheating for 5 year) ex husband for his dad skills with our DC. She’s never once said I’m a good mum.

I usually shoot her down and remind her that he wasn’t a good dad when he spent most of every week ‘working away’…..he was working on someone.

But I nowhere in that post said that I expected praise. Nowhere. That 'agreved that you haven't been praised' is all your projection. Nor do I expect praise. I'm just describing my own 'lived experience' here, which, at least in my case, doesn't support the OP.

There's a really good series of photos that describes this double standard and it's eye opening. Stuff like a man/woman pushing a buggy in the park while looking at their phone - 'inattentive mum' vs 'present dad.'

The bar is definitely in hell. We even praise men for 'being involved' or 'wanting to be involved' - since when has anyone praised a bad mother for being involved?

I remember my MIL being particularly extreme with this. She was in tears over DH 'losing' his weekends to childcare and said she would need to come over and do it. Because no way could he be expected not to have a full free weekend every week.

On the flip side, I was raised by a single father who had a very intense career but still came home and made dinner every night, and came to every performance and parent teacher meeting. At one point he would start work at 5am in order to be home in time for us to have dinner together.

In all fairness, I am probably not as "hands on" as he is.

I could possibly be described as an amazing father.