for getting annoyed when childcare just automatically gets dumped on women?

[HazelMember]

Visiting family for Christmas and I’m already irritated.

Why is it that whenever a child needs anything, it’s mostly a woman who gets asked?

Child needs holding? A woman.
Nappy needs changing? A woman.
Baby is crying? Give it to a woman.
Child needs to go to the toilet? Can you take her. Said to a woman.
Child needs help or comforting? Mum looks around for another woman.

The men are mostly left alone. Sitting, chatting, eating, relaxing. Not even considered.

What really gets me is that it’s not always their own kids. Women who need help often hand their child to another woman without asking, like it’s some unspoken rule that we’re all responsible. No checking if you’re ok with it. No thought of asking a man.

Those of us with older DC seem to get asked even more because our kids are not as demanding anymore. As if that means we’re suddenly available. As if we didn’t already do our time. As if we are now the default helpers just because we are not dealing with nappies or tantrums all day.

I don’t even mind helping sometimes. I just hate that it’s the default. That caring is treated as women’s work. That at Christmas when everyone is meant to relax, the women are constantly on alert while the men get an actual break.

It’s so normalised that no one even notices it happening.

Yes I know some men are amazing and look after their DC really well and some people always go to the men first to ask for help. I am just talking about what I see quite regularly.

Generally, yes.

But not always. My adult son is regularly mobbed by his nieces and nephews, who want his attention! He's like a one-man childcare.

In my extended family, children are handed to fathers before other female relatives. They wouldn't want to shirk that responsibility. Clearly it's possible when we raise our sons (and daughters!) properly - it remains to be seen whether I'm doing a good job of that personally, but at least we are modelling a healthy dynamic.

On an individual level - of course not. I’m sure most people are entirely comfortable with their male relatives. But the wider society does have an impact on individual attitudes and behaviours - and I think there’s very much an underlying sentiment these days that “men are a threat and children are safer with women”. And it’s maybe that which, on the micro level, means that any available woman will be the default choice for childcare before any available man?

My husband is the first to step up with children. Our children aren't young anymore and don'tneed a lot of supervision. We travelled by ferry this Christmas. I went to get coffee and returning I found him being friends with an 8 weeks old girl. Mum was at the restrooms and travelling on her own. He enjoyed it very much.

Yes, this 100%. You simply can't have a mindset where men are automatically considered too dangerous to be allowed to look after children, without accepting the very obvious consequence of that mindset being that all childcare always falls by default to women.

In the last thread (of many) reflecting on one particular evil man who had horrifically abused children in his care, there were several posters declaring it pretty much obvious that any man wanting to work in childcare must have clearly nefarious motives for doing so. Even some posters who acknowledged that not all men would abuse children given half the chance were resolute that 'the good ones would understand parents' concerns and self-exclude from the career'.

Maybe all of these people - the men and the women - have just been reading the many MN threads and received the very clear message that any kind of childcare is solely the preserve of women and men must steer well clear from little ones.

So women should just keep expecting help from other women while the men sit around?

I really don't believe women think their own fathers, brothers and grandfathers are too dangerous.

I am talking about family and friends gatherings. The woman is not leaving her child to the sole care of a man.

No. Parents should predominantly be responsible for their own kids, not asking others of either sex or any gender to do things that simply aren’t their job - why anyone particularly needs help holding their own child or why they don’t ask for it from the father of said children (assuming he’s there) I don’t know. Sure it’s nice if everyone interacts with the kids, but actual care like toileting, nappies and comforting crying is a parent’s job, just like it is when they’re at home day to day. Ok if people offer but it’s cheeky to expect anyone else to want to do the unpleasant bits of parenting just because they happen to be around.

The women this happens to, let it happen to them.

Find a voice and call it out.

Realistically speaking, parents do ask for help. It is usually women asking other women for help. Men get mostly left alone.

We went to a family do last night 10 kids age 3 weeks to 11 years. All parents were hands on while grandparents and great grandparents relaxed and chatted (and served food)

I really don't believe women think their own fathers, brothers and grandfathers are too dangerous

That’s not the point I’m making - at all. I’m saying that we’ve created a societal environment where men are reluctant to interact with children other than their own for fear of accusations or “looking dodgy”. I was on the tube a few months ago with a male friend, who spotted a toddler looking lost. His immediate reaction wasn’t to ask her if she was okay, it was to ask me to ask her if she was okay - and I absolutely understand why. But it means that the prevailing mindset is child has needs = ask a woman. So it’s not really surprising that that seeps over into family situations to some extent.

@WimpoleHat , I was walking in the shopping centre yesterday and there was a little girl on her own. I felt uncomfortable asking her where her mummy was because it could have looked bad.

I'm glad to say that she did go back to her mother and sibling.
Seeing little ones on their own scares me. I'd never forgive myself if something bad happened and I'd have not helped prevent it.

I'd glibly like to say be that change...and then I see too many posts on here getting the heebeejeebeez about a male nursery worker, midwife, primary school teacher, childmiinder and just go...whoosh!

Hard to believe but some natural men are just really good at nuturing children just as some natural women make great engineers...and then there's a load of people in between.

Equality-wise we've shifted towards women and now we've got to let go a bit on the things us women feel belong to 'us'. If it wasn't for the men shifting a bit in days gone by, us wimmin would still be a fightin.

Let's return the favour.

If it’s my kid - I’m happy to change, feed them etc - or if I can’t for some reason I’ll ask their dad, my husband to do it. Chances are he would do it without prompting as he used to watch them as much as me.

someone else’s kids needs sorting - ‘I’ll take you to daddy’ if their mum is busy…

Dads sitting around doing nothing can only happen if you let it happen .

thankfully my husband did parent without prompting but if they don’t in your wider family - then you can ‘encourage’ them to, if their child needs something 🤣🤣🤣

So this means if a woman has a newborn and wants to go to the toilet at a family gathering, she would be too scared to hand the newborn over to her brother as opposed to her mum because she is scared?

Women are handing their children over to other women in family gatherings because they are so frightened?

This has been the way since the beginning of time. It is nature. In 2025 with contraception it is a choice. Choose wisely as it effects your future.

When you give birth, you join the real world, plenty of time for me time when they leave home.

Do childfree people never join the real world?

A lot of fathers have plenty of me time even when their children are still at home.

My sil has done this. Passed me her 2 year old and said could I change his nappy. I said I'd pass him to his dad and did. If he wasn't there and she was busy I would have taken him but being female doesn't make me some kind of nappy expert. I do coo over babies and I like a cuddle but I don't do nappy changes when a parent is available.

Not the case here. Mum and dad equally responsible, followed by probably by whatever grandparent is closest. If it's Grandma she will often call for grandpa to help because she is a bossy firecracker that raised a nice thoughtful son as she takes no shit like women doing everything. The uncles are probably more hands on than the Aunts as well, with all the kids in general.

There are quite a shocking number of threads on MN, including on the feminist forums, saying men shouldn't be allowed to work in childcare because it's too dangerous.

Is it any wonder women get handed the children when even (apparently) staunch feminists are so insistent that childcare should be left to women?

I am not talking about men working in childcare. I am talking about family and friend gatherings.

Women are handing their children over to other women in family gatherings because they are so frightened?

You misunderstand the point I am trying to make - it’s not that any individual woman is scared of her own male relatives. It’s that (to put it very crassly) there’s a societal shift to “children need to be looked after women and not men” and - because none of us exist in a vacuum - that influences how individual women and men behave (even in social situations involving friends and family).

This is interesting, I’ve never really thought about it this way. If it’s just me and my husband and am 100% default every time, I don’t mind that. But, if grandad, uncles, etc are here I really don’t distinguish between male and female, who wants the baby whilst I….ect and whoever is nearest and volunteers get her, obviously it is always someone I trust completely x

I have and would never change any child’s nappy. It was bad enough for my own! And yes, when MIL has tried to hand me her GDC by BIL, I’ve very pointedly carried or walked said children over to BIL who is almost always just sitting there on his phone. Occasionally his wife is there too, doing the same thing. She likes to give them a break, she says, by cooking their food etc which she can’t do with a GDC hanging off her. Why this should involve me and not her DH, her DD, my DH or indeed anyone else I don’t know. I think it’s because I’m the oldest DIL, with the oldest GDC and she assumes it’s my duty. Probably something to do with being one or 7 herself, with the girls having to look after the boys because their mum couldn’t do it all alone (obvs). Anyway, not my problem, not my DC, not my job.