Poor soul having to manage his own childcare...

[Diamondcushions]

I know IAB and I'm sure his current situation is difficult and painful, but in the last week I've been in two meetings with a very senjor man who manages a large workforce, and who is going through a separation. They've gone for 50/50 and there are soooo many things he can't possibly do, that he used to do, because childcare.

It's like watching a cartoon lightbulb moment.

This isn’t difficult as there are significantly more crap ones than there are good ones.

And some women had a loving normal relationship modelled to them by their parents: far more likely to go and find a decent man. The majority of women didn't... so we're far more likely to have ended up with any old fucker. Literally. Who then of course turns out to be a shit dad more often than not.

Let's not pretend that most men don't know how to look after themselves first and be selfish. Generally speaking a man will always default to putting himself first. You have to 'remind' him of your needs or he'll very easily forget, just like with the kids.

It's a rare thing to find a man that thinks of someone else first...

I have a big group of male colleagues who are all roughly ten years younger than me.

When I first joined the company I was in my early 40s and a single mother after my marriage disintegrated. These colleagues used to br absolutely scathing about the fact it was written into my contract that I could leave 30 minutes early to do pickup. One of them actually went to the big boss and said I should not be entitled to a bonus as a result. Even though I was regularly working in the evening (from home) when they were in the pub.

Ten years on two of them have small children and one has to leave work every day at 3.30 to do pickup and bathtime. And by God they are precious about “protecting family time”. Never pick up an email out of hours when its required of the rest of us.

Nothing more sanctimonious than a born again New Dad. Don’t get me wrong I am glad they do it but a period of respectful silence about the “stresses of parenthood” would be good. The hypocrisy is breathtaking.

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To be fair, the word doesn’t exist in English, we had to import it from another language so it’s not so common we needed to develop our own word for it.

I hope the impression from the OPs post that this newly separated dads attitude is the problem here and the reason why she is posting.

That he’s soddenly realised he that he needs to change his practices and he had not been sympathetic to other staff before. Who had not had the support that he clearly did.

I think what the original poster was getting at was the realization from someone in a senior role about the mental and physical time needed to care for children, now that he actually has to be engaged in this part of his life.

So many men leave all the organizing for the women partners, then scoff at working women when they need to leave work early, or take calls from school. Women have to sometimes make career choices (or deny them) because of their role as the main family childminder.

I hope the senior manager wakes up to the reality of being a true working parent, and is mindful of others when need be.

Around 80% of English words are borrowed or derived from other languages, so that doesn't prove very much!

@Diamondcushions No idea what your point is. Large corporations always bend over backwards to accomodate working parents. Yet, whenever single and childless people try to seek the same flexibility and accomodation, it's declined because we're seen as lesser people.

Yes, it does!

Naivete (cant do accents on laptop) is french, ironically!

Yeah it really does!

That's like trying to argue pasta is uncommon because we imported the word from another language. Schadenfraude has been in use in English since the 1800s.

Yes, this is entirely what I got from the post. Someone who never had to consider balancing work with childcare because they had someone picking else up the slack suddenly having to adjust their working life to accommodate children. And perhaps acting like he’s the first person on earth to have had to consider what many parents (male and female) have had to try juggle for years.

Absolutely agree with you 👏

You are gloating. And yes, you just got lucky. I did all that you did and had no concerns, life was perfect. Didnt stop my ex starting to abuse me after our DD was born, having shown no signs of this before. Didnt stop him cheating on me (although I later found he had been doing that all along, but was a past master so was an expert on hiding it) and having no qualms about me finding out.

I was his first and only wife, so no ex to compare notes with.

ETA perhaps you are just ignorant so allow me to help you learn.....

https://www.oasisdaservice.org/why-does-30-of-all-domestic-abuse-begin-in-pregnancy/

Yet if you look after children in a nursery or school it is considered that you are providing a paid service. Now women are expected to have two full time jobs.

I have no idea about this man, and don’t do 50:50 but my ex didn’t do the school runs, he couldn’t possibly what with his work… ditto anything else he didn’t want to do (food shop, cooking, house work, sick days). We seperate 11 months ago and only one of us struggled in that sense. If he had of done 25% of what he does now, it’d been about 3x what he did do!

Brilliantly put.

How does it show he wasn’t involved with his kids?

Totally agree. The competitive smug is nauseating.

To be fair, there are tens of thousands of them who refuse to parent or do housework equally. The decent ones are a tiny minority.

Interestingly, my parents have a terrible marriage but have been great parents. I am very grateful for the sense of self worth they instilled. And I agree with you in that one's environment and socio-economic background influences our choices in partners to a point...but beyond that women need take accountability for their own choices. To blame their backgrounds or upbringing is probably quite offensive to many of these women. The signs were always there.

I assume OPs take here is not that she’s excited that he’s suddenly struggling, it’s that up until now he has not had much respect for the limitations on parents’ time with respect to work commitments? And now he’s finally actually having to make compromises because he’s in a care giving role it’s like he’s inventing the wheel by working but not being able to contribute in the way he would like to…?

You started off nearly getting it, then failed at the end. So. Some people don’t have great parents who don’t instill a sense of self worth. You aren’t better than these people. You are luckier.