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…

It is weaponised incompetence. And your husband is a master of the art. He's making you wonder if he's doing it! Smooth bastard.

Weaponised incompetence. If you can figure out not to make a pizza, so can he.

Several people suggesting "weaponised incompetence". This implies that he is consciously acting in a helpless way to avoid taking responsibility. But what about plain old incompetence on its own? Maybe combined with lack of confidence?

Spreading some tomato sauce on some dough and whacking on some cheese is hardly taxing is it. OP had already done the hardest part (making the dough).

Google exists, OP didn’t need to be called for every tiny thing.

Unless OP has left out a part where she's incredibly anal about how pizza is made and is going to come down on him like a tonne of bricks if he does it "wrong", then it's pathetic behaviour and I'm astounded how many people here are arguing otherwise.

The dough (the only part of this which could ever remotely be described as difficult) is already made for him. He has to spread passata on it and put salami and mozzarella on it. Until it's put in the oven, you are employing basically the same culinary skills you would use in making a sandwich. Even if you can't do that, you can Google it.

There's lots of activities I'd be a bit irked at doing with my toddler immediately after getting in from work, this isn't one of them. It's easier than most dinners you'd make anyway.

No she didn't, you did. He could have done something else with her if you had just left them to it. Instead of telling him to shop for ingredients & make pizza because your 2 years has been asking fir days.

when it's so simple, why didn't you just fo if??

Exactly!

But why should he have to Google 'making pizza' OP started it. Why can't she finish it. Then he can choose how he spends his time with his daughter??

Drip drip drip

Then this should have been your OP.

i have sympathy for your situation, you need a serious conversation about it.

Can your DH read? Then he can follow instructions in a recipe online.

I once had to talk my husband through putting a load of washing on. I was away working.
He knows how to do washing, I think he was scared as it was my washing machine. I thought it was funny, especially as the load was the bedclothes from my step-son's bed as he was coming for Easter, i.e. it was his father doing something.
Husband could never cook, nearly had hysterics when I showed him how to make vinaigrette dressing.
I made sure my step-son could cook, wash clothes and iron shirts.
Some people!

If the person that made the dough is sitting in the next room, ask them, as he did.

But she had the recipe, why did she not just tell him what temperature it needed to go in the oven??

she likes being the confident cook (& him doing all the cleaning)

she set him up to fail

But he knew she was trying to relax undisturbed!
if he was trying to do that and OP was trying to change the oil and filter on the car for the first time, how would he feel if she kept coming in the room and asking questions?

But you’re missing the point! She was trying to relax undisturbed. Wouldn’t it have been considerate and thoughtful of him to leave her in peace to do just that?

Oh this sounds familiar! This morning DD was asking to make jelly, DS was winging for a nap. So DH agrees to do the jelly while I sort out nap time.

'What does it go in?'
'Where's the measuring jug?'
And finally...
'MUMMYYYYY WHAT DO I STIR JELLY WITH?' (tbf on this one DH had given her a spoon but she was adamant she used something else to stir it)

Did you even read OP’s posts before you chimed in?

The toddler has been asking to make a pizza with her father. OP suggested that they do it today vs yesterday and he decided to do it when he got home from work. He also forgot to pick up the things for it when it was he who decided to do the activity yesterday in the first place. She looked up a recipe and made a dough for him so that him and daughter can do it together.

Why not ask why the father couldn’t have just told his daughter no and suggest another activity if he was going to just ask several questions about it to OP like she’s an activity manager?

It’s pizza. It’s one of the easiest things to make. Even if you do a pre-made pizza or dough most have around the same oven temperature.

I’d be shocked her DH had never cooked a pre-made pizza.

He also didn’t ask one question, he asked several. Again, it’s pizza. As pp said, not that much different from making a sandwich.

She didn’t set him up to fail. She was actually considerate enough to look up a recipe, try it out and made sure it was easy and simple enough for him and toddler to do together, and made a dough for them.

The only thing she didn’t do is roll the dough out, put the pizza together, and stick it in the oven which would have defeated the whole purpose of the activity since it was supposed to be him and DD making a pizza together.

He is the one who agrees to do things yet doesn’t want to do the entire labour of the activity from start to finish. He wants to do the activity only but not the tasks before the activity is able to take place.

Who knows & it's irrelevant.

she had the recipe (which even as a supposed accomplished cook she needed) but expected him (who dues all the cleaning & no cooking) to finish the cook without the recipe. All she had to do was give him the recipe to complete the task.

Yes, all of them, thank you for asking.

You clearly haven't read all my posts, which is fair enough, up to the point you choose to criticise me.

I'm not missing the point. She had looked up a recipe & done half of it. Why not give him the recipe to finish it, instead of withholding it then complaining about him asking questions??

Do you really need a recipe to assemble pizza? Do you not know the order the toppings usually go on? The oven is an aga which i didn’t want to mention for fear of being called pretentious.

I’ve skim read the replies, apologies if I’ve missed something or repeating.

Sure your child asked to that with daddy. We’re all confident at different things. My husband is fairly useless in the kitchen, he could by minimally but he wouldn’t want to be in the kitchen sat with our 3 year old granddaughter doing an activity. He’s just not that confident. I think to find some peace and have some time off, encourage your child to do something with daddy that daddy is confident in. You are absolutely entitled to some time off and he is her dad, so of course he should take part. Just give him a job or an activity (or even better let him decide) what he’s going to do and let him crack on with it. Of course he should be able to do a pizza with instructions but to find some peace without a 100 questions from your point of view, tell your child that you’ll do the pizza as a family and “you’ll do X with daddy”. Be excited about it and then they’ll be excited 🤩

Definitely weaponised helplessness.

I can cook a roast dinner, pies, curry, pastry, lasagne etc etc from scratch. But I don’t cook pizza from scratch so yes, despite being competent at cooking, I’d probably need to find out, for example how thick to roll it out, should I pre bake it before adding toppings, should it be baked on paper or removed and should I preheat the tray.

If my partner, the one who usually cooked and had read the recipe, who was just sat next door, was that stressed by me asking a couple of questions instead of getting a device out and googling and no doubt getting a load of conflicting information, I’d be quite put out. Especially if they were the slightly micromanaging and fussy type who would never let me forget it if I had put tomato sauce on before part baking it, or whatever one does with raw pizza dough.

Weaponised incompetence is when he agrees to make pizza again and is still asking questions next time.