Partner hands off parent

[JJ1992]

I'm utterly fed up. I really feel my partner isn't pilling his weight as a parent.

He is self employed and very good at handy jobs around the house - but this just happens to be the perfect excuse to get out of almost every parenting situation.

Tonight I am furious. I was working away from my regular office today a two hour drive away - our day ran on and I was running late.
I usually pick up my son from childcare on a tues ( i do all drop offs and 3/4 days pick ups) - I text my partner to tell him I would be about an hour past usual pick up due to delays - he responded an hour later saying he had come home and was stripping wallpaper ( this needs to be done by tomorrow) and hadn't looked at his phone. He knew there was potential for me to be late - and he was home early - but didn't bother to offer to collect our son/ communicate about this.

Why does this annoy me ?

He does this all the time - comes home and starts jobs / works from home and never considers picking our son up if its not his designated day. Our son is in childcare 4 days a week while I work - i feel guilty about the lack of time at home and am constantly truing to rush away from my work to make sure my son isn't spending more time away than he needs to. Why doesn't he feel the same empathy for our child? He has never taken him out of nursery to spend a day with him in the 2.5 years he has been there.

I'm just feeling overall disappointed with how he is treating both me and my son. We have been in many similar situations before and I have expressed how disappointing it is when I'm working late (unplanned) and he's at home and he doesn't ever think to collect our son. Just gets on with other things. If I ask him to, he will - but I often get a long list of all the things he's busy with first.

AIBU to expect my partner to be an equal parent ? 😑

P.s - I would've helped strip the walls later. I just feel like getting our child home should've been more of a priority for him.

I think in this one specific example you have given, he knew the wallpaper needed stripping by tomorrow, so he got on and did that, assuming that you would pick child up as planned. Bit crap from him not checking his phone i guess, but dont think what he's done here is outrageous.

Way the initial post was phrased was as if poor kid was left at nursery when everyone else had left but that wasnt case.

YANBU. Of course you're not.

Does he spend time with him at the weekend? I think people can have different attitudes to the cost associated with childcare. Some people really begrudge paying for it and feel they want to get their 'moneys worth' and don't want to be paying for hours that they aren't using. Some people also feel its good for kids who are preparing for school to be in a more structured setting to get in that routine. Others disagree - I think yabu to dictate what approach to this your dh should take. However, he should be pulling his weight when you are both home together in the evenings and at weekends. I think you need to make a list together of all the responsibilities and tasks that keep your home and family running and then you need to allocate these equally between you taking into account any differences in hours spent at work.

It does sound like you've just differences in priorities but I don't think that necessarily makes either of you poor parents. He may feel that the bulk of the diy etc falls to him and that can be time consuming and physically demanding. This matters if you've moved into a 'fixer upper' and there's loads to do compared to having your house as you want it and just doing odd jobs for maintenance purposes. Then you need to really think about the time frame you both have to get things done - for me, I'd rather take on the lions share of childcare and other housework if it meant my other half could prioritise getting DIY done in a fixer upper because it would bother me until it was done. I think this is where conflict is occurring because you maybe both feel differently about those issues and aren't communicating it to find a compromise and understand how the other is looking at it.

I’m with you, I always felt guilty about my kids being in childcare. if I finished early or had a day off I saw this as a means to have them with me. I can appreciate how others see it differently

I get that hour another day, I do the stuff when the kids are back or once they're in bed (not normally that now they're older and go to bed later - since I start work at 6am).

Very little is important enough to require an 11 hour day at nursery for a child - OP being away for work that day for instance, that's not something she can do anything about - luckily he has another parent who could have given him a more normal length nursery day, but that parent apparently can't be bothered to think of his child.

DS can't get himself back - we live rurally. The choices would be a taxi for 50 quid, or busses, but he wouldn't be home until late evening (and to get to school he'd have to leave the night before) - and part of that would be 2km along unlit country lanes. So no, in our case, I have to go and get him.

Edit: or like in lockdown, I give the kids something to do, and I put on headphones or have a nap in the day and stay up late to get an hour to myself. Sometimes, we have to make sacrifices for our kids, and sometimes that means you go weeks without any time when there's not something to be doing, or someone to be looking after - again. If I was on my knees, or I had to for work, then sure 11 hours at nursery. But in this case it just wasn't necessary. OP was fine with coming home and getting on with the wallpaper, she would have preferred that her child was picked up and looked after by his dad so OP could come straight home, rather than left for her to pickup (everyone missing that she was knackered from the long work day and he still left that to her) and sort out when she got home anyway, but now she, and the child are tired, and OP's partner is the one that's had the time alone (yes, stripping paper, but OP was happy to help with that - he chose to do it and leave the all the childcare to her after a long day)

Why can’t your husband do bedtime? Honestly how much DIY stuff is there to do round the house that it’s the priority over the day to day stuff (cleaning, washing, dishwasher etc) because I think that’s the bigger issue. He isn’t an handyman who sometimes parents when asked!

Surprised you don't qualify for school transport in that case

I don’t think either of you are being unreasonable you just think differently. I feel the same way as your husband. I’d prefer to crack on with things that need doing and leave them at nursery. Our little one loved nursery, it’s all fun for them and they get to play with their friends. Now they’re at school it’s a little different as the days are not just playtime anymore, and they find it a long day. We do try and pick them up earlier when we can now.

Seems like quite a few people here think its better to take their child out of nursery so they can then be hovering around while you try and get on with stuff.

I remember if I had a half day then he stayed in nursery. Other option was he was left to amuse himself while I gave house a good clean, took another kid to an appointment, prepared dinner or simply had a bath in peace

I'm sure he preferred playing there rather than watch me do stuff

When mine was in nursery I sometimes took a day off specifically to coincide with a nursery day. Even so, if she's in after-school care and it's her dad's day to collect her, I will still fire him a message seeing if he wants me to get her on my way home if I'm early for whatever reason. Sometimes it's nice to just think about other people - both the kid and probably the mum who is yet to collect the kid and then most likely be the one to give them their dinner etc. Sometimes it's just nice to have someone else so the thinking in general.

Well i never had anyone to do the nursery run for me most of the time with eldest 2 or the s school rub so it wasn't in my lexicon . So I did need to sort dinner etc no matter how early I took them out

I understand exactly the logic in what you say, I think a lot for me was tied up with wishing I could be a SAHM and the feeling my kids were missing out on the sort of childhood I had. If I could get them early or pick them up from school instead of leaving in wraparound I would always do that. Same as every day I took off I would take them out of childcare. Them pottering around playing whilst I did housework etc was to me how a normal childhood should be, not being in childcare 11 hours a day.

in hindsight this is very much a me problem, they probably would have been happier with their friends

She did. He didn't look at his phone. Despite knowing that she was a long way from home that day, and traffic was likely to be an issue.

I don't live in the UK. I am responsible for getting my kids to school here.

One of the best things about nursery is that they're open long hours and almost all of the year, allowing working parents a bit of time off both work and parenting a toddler. That half hour between finishing work and pick up was when I got all my housework done. (Or sometimes just stared into space to recover.)

If he had a job to get on with it makes sense to do it when the kid is out of the house. Of course he should have his phone on, but he's definitely not unreasonable for making productive use of his time while you have childcare.

I definitely did not feel guilty about using childcare though. He loved nursery, and I knew her was well cared for and happy there. I also desperately need time on my own in order to feel mentally ok, so getting that bit of time was essential to me being a decent mother after pick up.

Sometime my husband and I took off a day from work when they were at nursery (mine or his birthday for example) and went for a walk and a slap up lunch together to have some alone time. I’ve never felt guilty about it.