Aibu - it really can’t be that hard?

[wiw212]

Title: Is this weaponised incompetence or am I being unfair?

Asked DH to make pizzas with our toddler – something LO has been asking for for five days. Also (selfishly!) meant to be a bit of a break for me as they’ve both been off school/nursery all week and I’ve been on duty 24/7.

I’d already made the dough, so it literally just needed rolling out. Gave very simple instructions: pick up pepperoni and mozzarella.

He gets back, immediately comments on the mess 🙄 and then announces he forgot the mozzarella. Takes eldest back out to get it.

They come back, I finally sit down thinking great, 5 mins peace. Nope.

I’ve now been called in FOUR times:
– “Do I take the baking paper off the dough?”
– “Which tray do I use?”
– “Is the oven hot enough?”
– etc etc

At this point our toddler is basically supervising him.

Genuine question – is this weaponised incompetence or am I expecting too much? Because I’m struggling to believe an adult can’t manage basic pizza assembly without this level of input…

Same as Snowie99 I think you’d have been better off buying a base or buying a sheet of pizza dough that could just be unrolled. Homemade dough, unless you’re used to/confident with dough isn’t necessarily a simple thing. I don’t think this is a great example of weaponised incompetence (unless he’s usually a confident cook). It’s annoying the questions but perhaps he was worried about getting it right given your DD had placed so much store in making in.

doesn’t mean he’s not using weaponised incompetent at other times though! If you’re asking on mumsnet he probably is!

Baby him, you mean?

Do working class people live on a diet of premade pizza and chicken nuggets or something? None of them cook?

It's not selfish of you to get a break

As women, we need to stop doing this utter martyrdom

And yes, your DH should be able to manage pizza with a toddler ffs

Well surely she could’ve not “babied” him at all and let him source his own dough and decide whether he would like to make the dough from scratch or whether he wanted to
buy it.

I would think it's a family thing so no blame, but if you think it is DH thing then you can be annoyed. But in my house it would be a bit of family fun, I would make the dough and everyone would choose toppings not a big deal.

i wouldn’t say it’s middle class performative to teach your kids how to cook. My daughter and I bake cakes, she often fetches things or stirs things. She likes to be in the kitchen ‘helping’. I don’t see how this is middle class or working class. My nana taught me the same way and we were dirt poor

Im going to do this in the future. He agrees to it, he does it.

I really don’t. But that doesn’t make it any less maddening unfortunately.

Sorry i would vote YABU. I wouldn’t have a clue about the things he is asking you tbh. I don’t bake stuff at all. I would have bought ready-made pizza bases I think.

But none of the things you are listing here were the actual things he was asking about. As a non-baker myself, i would say his questions were valid.

What do you actually feed your kids then? Every day I make something from scratch like chicken in a sauce with potatoes or rice or something else. I would never buy ready made pizza and bases when it’s so cheap and easy to make my own. The price of a ready made pizza is crazy: flour, water yeast and olive oil is cheap.

weve never been a chicken nuggets in the air fryer type of family.

i let my children help me. It paid off with the eldest - they’re now a better cook than I am and can whip up bechamel or tomato sauce better than my dh.

I’m not shocked I’m getting slated for doing an educational activity of dd’s choice on a day off school that my husband promised to do.
to all the people who seriously can’t take 5 mins to assemble a pizza… I’m worried.

That was a very simple activity for you to share with DD. To get some down time for yourself, you should have asked DH to do something with her that he was confident about. You set this up to fail!

I endure it every day because most things take ten minutes and yesterday she buttered her own toast, every job she learns is less i do for her when she’s older.

yes I like decent food, no I’m not eating shit or feeding it to my kids.

dh loves being married to me - my cooking skills are probably why (he gets 3 homemade home cooked meals a day) and his cleaning skills (he cleans in exchange) are what I like about being married to him.

id rather have my eager helpful slightly bossy kids than screen time vampires who think the kitchen is only for mummy but you do you

Well if you usually do all the cooking (whilst your DH does all the cleaning, maybe he just didn’t know how to complete the pizza.

Hm, i mean I’d be inclined to say YANBU but on the other hand my friend has a husband who seems incompetent despite having a really responsible job. Reason being that she harshly criticises and controls absolutely everything he does that involves the kids, so now his confidence with them is shit and he asks her question after question because he’s so scared to get it wrong - which also infuriates her 🤷‍♀️

Im not like this with the kids (or try not to be) put I can be a control freak in the kitchen and that’s why I asked.

Well would you have given him dogs abuse if he’d got it wrong? Has that happened before?