to be fed up of crap fathers being excused from basic parenting?

[HazelMember]

I keep seeing posts (and hearing it in real life) where fathers somehow get a free pass for things mothers are simply expected to do without question.

Fathers who can’t cope with more than one child at a time.

Fathers who don’t wake up when the baby cries at night because they “didn’t hear it”.

Fathers who are “no good with babies” so the mum just has to deal with it.
Why is this still acceptable?

Mothers don’t get a choice. They have to hear the baby. They have to cope. They have to function even when exhausted. Yet men sleeping through the night is treated like an unfortunate quirk rather than a problem that needs fixing.

Do not even get me started on when a mum goes away for a few days and feels obliged to prepare food, clean the house, label things, and generally make life easier for the father when this is almost never done in reverse.

If a father is “crap” at parenting, the solution isn’t for the mother to carry more of the load. It’s for him to get better fast. That’s what parenting is. You don’t opt out because it’s hard or unfamiliar.

What makes it worse is that sometimes even mothers make excuses for it calling men “good dads” for the bare minimum or explaining away genuinely poor parenting as if it’s just how men are.

Before anyone jumps in: yes, obviously not all men are like this. Plenty of fathers are brilliant, hands-on and competent. This isn’t about them.

AIBU for thinking we need to stop normalising this and start expecting the same basic standards from fathers that we do from mothers?

Agreed. Or that some women have been so worn down, emotionally abused and gaslit for so long they can’t tell up from down. People really need to develop empathy skills.

As I said before it is important to assess your partner way before having a baby. If you're worried about talking to your partner - don't have a baby with them. There is absoluite no reason for women to be martyrs all the time. It is never a good idea to be totally financially dependant on someone else it isn't the 1950s anymore.

No I said men should grow a backbone. Fundamentally the fact is women care about babies far more than men, generally. You'd have to really want kids to go through pregnancy. Men would never do it. And if you want kids your partner is probably going to assume you want to take care of them, otherwise why have them? You can't force men to care about childrearing. So the alternative is he says no to having kids-would you prefer that?

Yes, but what gets my goat more than that is women moaning on MN about it, as if we can do anything. If you're not happy with your husband's behaviour regarding child care - moan at him, not us. Women should think long and hard before having children with certain men. In South Korea, women are actively choosing against marriage because men don't do their share.

Totally agree
My ex has my oldest neurotypical Son over night twice a month at he's parents as he still lives there after 5 years since we split he is 50 years old
But our youngest has profound disabilities and special needs he never has had him over night at he's parents as they don't even let him visit but he won't move out he doesn't have to cook clean do washing for them or himself or anything
He see's my youngest only on a Sunday during the day takes him on a bus ride to McDonald's then back to me
He has full access to our children I have never stopped him but doesn't want them anymore then that
He doesn't have to do school runs, meetings with special school or disability social worker or occupational therapy or parents evening's or dentist's doctors opticians
I have to do everything
Won't even help get school uniforms even if I give him the money for the things they need
Ie my older son needed a scientific calculator he had seen one he wanted in town but no website and needed it the next day I had parents evening with my youngest at special school I asked him to get it for him as he finishes work at 4pm and was a 5 minute walk to the shop I said I would transfer the money and meet him later to get it from him after parents evening but he wouldn't do it eeerrrr so I had to ask a friend to get it for me
But the school would have blamed me if he didn't have one not him and I think that is out of order

It enrages me too. And the men who choose to have children but then whine about parenting them.

A lot of men lie about this.

And on top of all this some women feel obliged to provide sexual services to these useless lazy men.

THIS!!

Nonsense. Bad fathers get called out for it as much as bad mothers.

This post is bordering on hysterical.

yeah maybe, except for what is considered bad father and bad mother are not the same. Nowhere near. Mum must ensure optimal cognitive, emotional, nutritional and spiritual development. Dad take kids still in their PJs to McD and 'aww at least he remembered to feed them'

Small minded rubbish. Fathers and Mothers naturally have very different approaches but can have an equally positive or negative impact on a child.

People are considered good or bad parents generally because they are one or the other. Pretty condescending and insulting to suggest people think a dad is good because he takes his kid for a maccy ds.

Genetically men aren't wired to hear the baby, genetically something changes in women when the become mothers to hear their baby and react quicker when they give birth.

However there are alot of women who make excuses for their men.

My husband is a great Dad. He's currently downstairs giving my DD her breakfast while I have a shower. He has had days off work to look after her when I can't (my job pays better and its harder to cover me than him). He cooks tea and washes up most nights as my daughter wants to be with me after a day in nursery.

Its about sharing the load. But I did the majority of night wakes because I heard her and got up. We did take it in turns for a while but I couldnt sleep on his turn because I was listening for her. Now he does it when I'm not well.

Just have to play to your strengths

Genetically men aren't wired to hear the baby, genetically something changes in women when the become mothers to hear their baby and react quicker when they give birth.

However there are alot of women who make excuses for their men.

My husband is a great Dad. He's currently downstairs giving my DD her breakfast while I have a shower. He has had days off work to look after her when I can't (my job pays better and its harder to cover me than him). He cooks tea and washes up most nights as my daughter wants to be with me after a day in nursery.

Its about sharing the load. But I did the majority of night wakes because I heard her and got up. We did take it in turns for a while but I couldnt sleep on his turn because I was listening for her. Now he does it when I'm not well.

Just have to play to your strengths

And this is part of the problem. How about it’s the dad’s fault for not role modeling to the son how to share the load and teaching the son skills so they can look after a house independently?

Exactly this especially given how hard it is to support a family/get a house on one wage these days

Nobody said fathers can't have a positive impact. But that mothers are held to significantly higher standards to be considered even good, never mind a great mother, is unarguable. this is not an attack on fathers. It’s a reality check on the standards society applies.

Yet you were the first to comment 😂

They partially wake up, but they know they can ignore it so they just half wake up and sink back into sleep. Once I made it clear to my dh that he was getting up, he knew he had to when he heard it and he woke up. We can nearly all wake up for important noises for most of the night, deep sleep is a pretty short part of the night, many men just don’t bother. While exhausted mums just don’t really get any deep sleep due to being wired to listen for any noise and not getting long enough sleep blocks to get to deep sleep.that was me.

Yes. Id rather, had it been the case that he didnt really want them that he'd said that rather than leaving me to single parent when they were tiny. But it wasnt the case. They were wanted and planned and he was a genuinely good, hands on father who shared the load. Until he wasnt. For those who do just go alomg with it, they should say so and allow tje woman to make an informed choice.

The only thing I disagree with you on is that ‘not all men are like this. Plenty of fathers are brilliant, hands-on and competent’ because actually it’s not plenty, it’s a minority and even the competent ones are still generally letting their spouse carry most of the mental load.

The bar is pathetically low, and ‘good dads’ are actually just doing their share, yet are hailed as heroes.

It's not unarguable. Most fair minded people would recognise the contribution of both parents if they're putting in the effort for their child.

Perhaps there's an insecure feeling amongst mothers that this is the case when in reality most people would fairly recognise what an incredible job most do.

No, its spot on. Lots of my decent dad friends get heaps of praise for doing totally normal parenting things that wouldnt even register if it was mum. When my ex took the baby out people would fall over themselves to offer help and big him.up. if he hadnt packed something theyd be offering spare whatever. Yes absent, uninvolved dads do get rightly critucised but noone would say a mum was good for parenting four days a month or of she had a "big job" and was away Mon-Fri

Some (men) lie about not hearing it

"The rate of men taking up even the two weeks paternity leave on full pay is low in my organisation."

I mean this is anecdata but the reason the vast majority of men don't take paternity leave is the statutory pay they receive is laughable, which shows how little fathers bonding with their children is prioritised in the UK.

I understood Shared parental leave is often not taken up because it requires the mother to give up sone of her maternity leave.