Disappointed with dh parenting

[froglet45]

Situation is I have an older child from previous marriage who lives with us primarily but spends EOW and a night here and there at her dads. Dh and I also have a 4 year old dd together. Dh is an older dad. He was late forties when she was born and now in his early fifties.

Dh works full time and is the main provider but I do everything for dd4. Every bath and bedtime, every play date, day out, holiday, party is organised by me. Dh struggles with her. Overall she’s well behaved but does have tantrums and can be full on and demanding at times. This week I had a work event which meant I had to go in on one of my days off. When I got in Dh was totally mardy, pissed off and it was clear he’d not coped well with dd. He said she’d been a nightmare but he hadn’t done anything with her. Granted the weather was poor but even getting paints and play doh out for her seems like too much trouble.

I know his age will get brought into this but he wanted a baby. I also know I’ll probably be blamed for choosing to have kids with a useless dad but how do you know what kind of a dad he’ll be until you actually have a baby! I don’t want to separate and split up our family, I couldn’t manage alone and it wouldn’t solve this problem anyway. But I have to admit my feelings towards him are fading and I’m become resentful at how pathetic he is at times. He gets grumpy, ranty, he doesn’t go out with friends so it’s not like he has any better places to be.

I suppose I just need some tips on how to address with him in a non accusatory way. I think I should ask him to do more so that he gets used to it but equally I don’t like leaving them if I know I’ll come back and find them both stressed and pissed off. I’m supposed to be going away on a hen doo for 2 nights later in the year and I can’t actually visualise leaving him to cope for that long, how bad is that?

Bump

Maybe give him some directions ? Does her know her routine ? Taking her out to soft play on a wet day is always my go to or leave some activities for him? He will cope for two days go and enjoy yourself.

I wouldn’t blame his age either. Plenty of shit older and younger dads. You just need to be honest with him. Tell him that his inability to do the simplest of things with his daughter is pathetic and not only are you finding this unattractive, but it’s damaging his relationship with his daughter. Tell him you will no longer be party to his damaging approach to parenting, he is not a role model for your child and you would be appalled if this behaviour carries on and your child thinks it’s completely acceptable to grow up thinking women do the donkey work and men are incompetent and uncaring. Tell him that your worst nightmare is for your daughter to end up with a partner like him.

Could you not pop out for an hour or so, take baby steps with him? That might reduce the stress. Get playdoh or paints, or jigsaws out before you leave maybe, so he knows what to do.
Hope you can sort this.

Sit down together and communicate! You need to perhaps write a few notes beforehand so that you don’t end up launching into a rant. Stay calm, state what it is that concerns you, ask him how he feels when he’s looking after her, discuss possible solutions together. You need to work as a team to resolve this. But make it clear that it does have to be resolved!

It's bugger all to do with age. My DH is 57 and ds is 3.5. you're more likely to find him on the floor building with magnatiles and playing cars than me, I'm 39. He's obviously just not used to doing anything for your daughter so he needs to learn fast. And none of the bullshit about working full time either. My DH works full time but still does bath times and playing etc. you've become the default parent and he's very happily gone along with it

Sorry you are dealing with this.
Even though i want to say 'tell him to grow the fuck up' i realise thats not helpful.

You can try sitting him down in a calm moment, so not immediately after something stressful has happened, and talking to him about it but pitched as 'we're a team, lets agree on approaches together, ive had more practice than you and I realise that means its tougher for you, so lets tip the balance the other way as you'll get used to dealing with it better'
Ie 'the answer to this is you doing more, you would benefit from practice, it will make you feel more equipped' as opposed to 'you need practice because you are shit'
Talk about the certain situations.
'So when you're home alone with her, what i would normally do on those days is take her out somewhere, or we've got all those lovely creative toys/paints etc in the cupboard, so if you try those you'll find she's less wild, she needs her brain and her body to be worn out but not overly wired'
When she gets wound up, how do you want to deal with that? What helps? Ask him what he thinks helps/doesnt help.
Any hint of 'you're just better at that than me' needs to be met with 'well thats only through practice, so if you get more practice you'll be better at it too'
And then make a regular plan that immediately means he gets more time with her, but the key here is to frame it as 'i know you want things to be easier and you want to spend time with her, so why dont we say bathtime is your job from now on while I get on with xxx?' He needs a regular, daily task. Preferably multiple! Frame it as 'you do x and y, and I'll do a and b' so its not a 'you do THIS' If he has work commitments that mean he cant always do a regular thing, talk about how you might handle that.
Is he the kind of person who says he doesnt see what needs to be done? I dont like the fact You'd have to write him a list, but honestly I think a list highlights everything you are doing by yourself already AND means future conversations are shorter. Again, its the framing 'how about i pull a list together and then we can both check the list each night together and work it out between ourselves' rather than 'im writing a list for you' If he's sat down, if he's doing a hobby, and not pulling his weight, you can say 'I think there's a few things on the list that we need to get done tonight, il do x and y which ones will you take' and then the ones is entirely on him to check the list and figure it out himself.

(I want to be 100% clear its fucking abysmal on his part that he cannot observe what you do, or fucking Google it, and this behaviour is bloody disrespectful to you, but I appreciate that isnt practically helpful)

Thank you all for replying. If it’s just for an hour or two he’s fine with her. But that’s because he knows I’m coming back and will take over. Any length of time becomes problematic especially if she is acting up. And he simply has no interest in any child centred activities like soft play etc unless I’m there too. I think I do need to make myself more unavailable because he can do it. On the odd occasions I’ve been out in the evening or picking older dd up from somewhere he can and will do bath time no problems. And he’s taken her to parties and stuff too if I’ve not been around. But if I am here then I am 100% the default parent expected to do it all.

He does love her. But I can tell that he finds family life tedious and often gives off the “I regret doing this” vibe which is awful. He is turning into a grumpy old man and it’s deeply unattractive.

"DH works full time and is the main provider, also his age".
Really, what do you want?

To parent his child? I work too albeit not as many hours and don’t earn as much. But I’m still expected to come home after work and do every bath time. A bit of give and take would be nice.
I don’t especially mind this, what I mind is his grumpiness and inability to cope with her on the rare occasions that I’m not around to do it for him. Just like I have to when he’s at work.

And he simply has no interest in any child centred activities like soft play etc unless I’m there too

Does he think other people enjoy soft play? Suck it up buttercup

You need to be less available and give him more time with her. It seems counterintuitive, but the more he’s forced to be self reliant in his parenting, the more confident he’ll become. Can you pick up more work temporarily? Maybe start a side business that means he needs to take on more childcare? You need to be physically absent from the house, or he’ll just keep handing you all the crap tasks of bath time, tantrums etc.

I agree about the age thing. My BIL was the same age when he became a dad, and he is constantly taking his 3-year old DS to climbing centres, playgrounds in the snow and rain, he deals with the discipline, feeding him etc. My DH is the same with our young DC.

Have you sat down and talked to him about it, how it's building resentment? It's not much to ask for a childs dad to parent. It's not much to be able to rely on them when you're not in the house to do a good job.

But I do think you guys need to talk it through. Hopefully without him getting grumpy!

I am wondering if he should go to the GP and have some bloods done. He isn’t that old to be so grumpy.

However. As a grumpy cynical woman who has gone through this he is training you to never ask him to parent. He is controlling you to manage all of the domestic labour all of the time. He is carrying on like toddler so he is off the hook and so you carry the load.

I am the same sort of age as your DH, and am a SAHD to our DCs. The youngest is five.

I don't want to make excuses for him, but what I found was that many of the activities and distractions which are very mainstream at the moment simply did not exist when I was four or five. In my case it's slightly complicated because I grew up outside the UK, but for me there was no such thing as soft play. We simply did not have paints and play-doh at home. We didn't even have 24 hour TV or VCRs, never mind streaming or the internet.

If your DH's first experience of young children since he was one himself in the Seventies is this decade, then he probably needs a lot of things that you find quite natural demonstrating to him or at least putting on his radar. And, in all honesty, his exposure to hands-on Dads is possibly non-existent too. I had no experience of it and my Dad was quite proud of the fact he'd never so much as changed a nappy. I had to model my own approach to parenthood on my Mum.

I suspect there are two choices ahead here. One is to accept that he isn't interested and deal with the consequences of that, whatever they may be. The other is to teach him how to be around children in the 2020's. If you're buying craft stuff, or toys, involve him in it. If you're planning a day out at an adventure forest, do the research with him. If another parent mentions an idea to you, discuss it with him. I honestly would have been clueless if we hadn't done these things, and it wouldn't have been through lack of enthusiasm.

I don't think age comes into it here.
My ex (whom I rarely have anything complimentary to about and whom I left when my twins were 6 monthe old!) was actually very hands on with our twins as babies, even though he was working long hours as a chef. And, he was 53 when they were born.
I think your DH is just a tad useless.

I don’t think it is age. We are GPs in our 70s and my husband is wonderful with the Grandchildren.

This isn't an excuse, but what was his father like with him?

I had some rows with DH when DC1 was a baby because I felt he wasn't doing enough hands-on dad stuff. Turns out his dad had been the sole earner (and a shift worker) who did basically zero parenting, so in DH's head he was doing loads compared to that.

Aside from your daughter, what are his contributions to household tasks from high level admin (mortgage, insurance etc), mental load (daily admin) to cleaning, DIY etc?

if he works, what are is his awareness level of all of the above, even if it’s you doing it?

How are his budgeting and time managent Skills?

some of this is can be related to his day-to-day interaction with your daughter. She knows it’s usually you who does childcare, she might be playing up because it’s a change of routine for her. he doesn’t have strategies to cope with looking after her when she’s tired or naughty.

but I am wondering if is a combination of the above and a general lack of engagement from him.

How low is your bar?

I do also wonder if he just doesn't have a clue what to do? My DH was a bit like that at first. He didn't have a younger sibling and both his parents were "only ones" so he had absolutely zilch/zero experience of dealing with a baby/young child when our son came along. He didn't even know how to pick up and hold a baby as he'd never done it - in fact never even seen a baby in person.

But I'd just had an emergency c-section so he had no choice but to take control as I was in no fit state to do much for the first few days. Between the maternity staff and my direction, he picked things up pretty quickly - he had no choice.

Same when we finally got home after me and DS being in hospital together for a couple of weeks. I couldn't do much, so I had to literally direct DH as to what to do, when to do it, every step of the way.

The pattern was repeated as DS grew older, through different feeding stages, crawling, playing, walking, bathing, bedding down, etc. He literally hadn't a clue, so I got accustomed to instructing him. Thankfully, he was well and truly on board and took my advice/instructions throughout with no grumpiness, no sulking, etc. He actually wanted to be a good father, but just didn't know how to do it as he'd had no role models, no "observed" experience, etc.

@Badbadbunny Are you my wife? If so, lunch will be ready in about 25 mins.

If you do and have done everything with her and for her then you haven't done either of them any favours. She's used to you and your ways so no matter what he does it'll be different. Also he won't have a clue what her usual is and what she likes so they're both in the dark as to how to be together.

This. He is simply being lazy & selfish. He 's a parent & that means nappies, food battles and playdough whether he likes it or not.

His age does not preclude getting out some drawing stuff.

I had the same scenario, and I put up with it for two years, after which I took ds and we left. Ex refused to help or work as a team, added nothing to our lives and created more work so he made himself pointless.

Oddly after that, ex spent more time with his ds because he had to put aside one afternoon a week or he wouldn't see him at all. And he learned because he had to. DS threw up in his car so he learned to carry wet wipes. They got caught in a traffic jam, he learned to carry water & spare nappies.

If you want your marriage to survive, offer no sympathy, just shrug, say "that's parenting" and leave him to it, at least twice a week. He may improve with practice. He may check out.

Ok to some extent this is a Shakira Shakira "that's the deal my dear"

he's been there done that and didnt enjoy it seemingly... and is providing the dollar which is his justificationfor doing cock all and being selfish and disengaged.

You know the details (income, his behaviour generally, who he is as a person) and you need to decide whether he has enough redeeming qualities for you to weather this.
its joyless and i wouldnt stand for it all....I love seeing dh play with the kids.... but ppl are different and this sort of thing IS a time bound issue. In 5 yrs this wont be a thing.
You are lower paid.... Could you live comfortably and provide for your dd with minimum csm?

as an fyi I also wouldnt really consider him the provider if I was still working (unless 100% of my salary was being saved in my name/ pension). Is the provider title a reality? Or his positioning???

Most older dads I've met are lame tbh... I think its because if they actually wanted kids they'd have done it sooner... and they are grumpy and middle aged....my guess is he lied to lock you in

(As much as this would not fly in my own marriage...)
I think you can try and meet in the middle IF you want.

I would tell him he needed to buck up his ideas (and expect improvement) but say i get he finds it hard so if he does that on my side i'll make it easier for him too.

Then i would make it a pret a porter type deal for him.

• leave a visual plan for the day.
• buy in or prep the food.
• bath her before you go.
• leave out bed clothes and day clothes
• explain the bedtime routine.
• Plan the day / buy the tickets / arrange the play date or a visit from or to his mums / sisters / brothers / older kids whatever.

Shes 4/5 softplay is a piece of piss / candy crush time.... as is visiting cousins.

I'd also consider floating the idea of hiring in a nanny for mornings or something when you are away to gice him a break 🙄.... he'll either be up for it or it might shame him into waking up....

To be clear if I was doing this nonsense outside of this I'd expect to be living and be treated like a queen ans he'd need to be bringing in good money...well north of 200k pa