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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

"Isn't is marvellous to see a father with his children?" Grrr!

146 replies

flowerybeanbag · 27/01/2010 10:11

I am BU I know, as it doesn't matter in the slightest.

I have DS1, 2.8, and DS2, 12 weeks. DH takes both out Sunday mornings so I can work. He also had them for an hour and a half on Saturday in town while I was getting my haircut.

It irritates me a bit that the second he is out in public with them alone, he immediately gets queues of women lining up to tell him how well he is coping and how marvellous it is seeing children with their dad. He always gets lots of 'Ahh, isn't he doing so well?' looks and comments.

Don't get me wrong, I know lots of fathers are less willing to do the same, and I am very lucky, but when I am out with both of them, I get no credit at all. Not that I should, obviously! But I dislike the assumption that DH is doing something so marvellous and doing so well by doing it. There's no reason he shouldn't be equally as capable with the children as I am but him coping with both is seen as a massive achievement!

I know I am BU, so feel free to tell me, I just wanted to express my irritation!

OP posts:
CommonNortherner · 27/01/2010 11:09

Seriously! dh usually takes ds out all day on a Saturday and I get to do whatever I want. Oh how marvellous does that make him! Especially as he's been working all week and so isn't "getting a break".

WTF?!? So the assumption is that time with his son is "work". While at the same time, if I dare to say to the same person I enjoy having a break I get told I do nothing all week! Oh so it's "work" when a dad looks after a child but not a mum??

LittleMrsHappy · 27/01/2010 11:09

Im actually not bothered bt it, it generations changing in regard to parenthood.

Mumcentreplus · 27/01/2010 11:10

And let's not forget:
woman leaving meeting early to pick up children = bit flakey, needs to sort out her childcare as it's not fair on colleagues,
man leaving meeting early to pick up children = how sweet! isn't he a marvellous father!

so true BG..when my DH has to leave early to collect the children in an emergency no problems pat on the back...if i have to..it's 'Oh you really must have a contingency'..how the hell can you have a contingency for your DC vomiting over themselves at school?

Sidge · 27/01/2010 11:10

YANBU.

Last year I left DH at home with our 3 girls whilst I went to Australia for a week to see my terminally ill dad.

Gue gasps of amazement from my mum, ILs, random strangers on the aeroplane - you mean your children are with their father? For a week? But how will he cope?

Um, just fine actually, like I cope when he goes to see for months at a time...

Sidge · 27/01/2010 11:12

Oops that should be sea not see.

ErikaMaye · 27/01/2010 11:15

My mum a sales party here when DS was a week old. DP was staying with us, and when DS needed his nappy changing he offered to do it. Cue everyone complimenting him for the rest of the night about not being squeamish, and doing his part... He got patted on the back and brought a beer.

YANBU - it really irritates me. Sexism is a bitch.

TheWorldFamousKewcumber · 27/01/2010 11:15

"Isn't is marvellous to see a father with his children?"

"Err no, not unless I stepped into a time warp and am now in the 1890's"

lolapoppins · 27/01/2010 11:17

Most people do have the expectation that men can't look after children as well as women can. Or that they can even look after themselves, god forbid.

I have never cooked dinner for/washed clothes for/cleaned up after my dh and have never taken sole responsibility for the child that is half his. DH has two arms, two legs, is a grown adult and can take care of himself and our ds. Other women look at me as if I am insane, especially that I don't cook dhs dinner for him. I married a grown adult, not a ten year old who needs looking after. I sometimes get called a feminist - how is not wanting to act like a cook and and housekeeper for someone else being a feminist? I just don't get it.

Sorry, slightly off topic. But it seems as if women should look after husbands and children while men get waited on hand and foot. It's why single dads get so much praise, they have no one 'looking after them'. Why should they get praise when a single mother doesn't?

MmeLindt · 27/01/2010 11:19

ErikaMaye
What? We should have been brought alcohol for the changing of nappies?? I would have spent the first couple of months in an alcoholic daze if the same treatment was given to mothers.

Mumcentreplus · 27/01/2010 11:25

MmeLindt

I'm the same lola...from the moment my DDs were born my DH was actively involved in every part of their care ...and other women including my mother thought I was mad!

ErikaMaye · 27/01/2010 11:27

Wouldn't that be lovely? Could I have an Irish coffee with every feed, too?

lolapoppins · 27/01/2010 11:29

I even had a HV insisting that I may be depressed because dh got up in the night with ds/changed nappies/did half the house work. She said it was 'odd' that a father was so involved. I never got that! 'Involved'? um, yes, it's his child!

I could not believe my ears.

Original poster
flowerybeanbag · 27/01/2010 11:30

I was pretty ill when DS1 was born, couldn't hold him or feed him or anything for a while, so obviously DH did everything, including first feeds in the hospital. The amount of cooing there was over him from the midwives was incredible, and they did feeds and changed nappies and everything! Apparently, anyway - I wasn't exactly compos mentis at the time.

Certainly wasn't the case for DS2 when I looked after him in hospital, not that I would have wanted anyone else doing feeds/changes anyway.

OP posts:
LadyBiscuit · 27/01/2010 11:33

YANBU at all. I am working on a project at the moment and I work from home one day a week. One of the other people on the project also works from home one day a week. For some reason it is a huge inconvenience to everyone when I am at home but everyone will rearrange stuff to fit in around the other person's day at home.

I'm sure it's not hard for you to guess which one of us is female and which male ...

Booyhoo · 27/01/2010 11:33

lolapoppins

please please send your OH to me for a month to show mine how it is actually possible.

i really totally agree with what you posted but just cant get OH to put it into practice.

Poledra · 27/01/2010 11:34

It's not a generational thing though - my dad (now in his seventies) could change a terry nappy with the best of them (is crap with disposables though, for some reason - never gets the stickies on properly), got up to feed us through the night etc. Mum reckons it's because they had 4 children under 4 and he had no choice He is a truly fabulous grandad. My mum thinks my DH doesn't do enough........

tortoiseonthehalfshell · 27/01/2010 11:34

lolapoppins, you say 'feminist' like it's an insult. I do think that demanding to be treated like an equal and not a domestic is pretty feminist, what's wrong with that?

Pushmeinthepool · 27/01/2010 11:35

YANBU!

All hail the wonder dads who look after their own bloody kids!

What annoys me is when people refer to my DH as "babysitting" when he is home alone with the children. Erm no, he's just looking after HIS children.

Poledra · 27/01/2010 11:36

Though, thinking back, DH did all the meconium nappies with DD1 and most of her care other than feeding for a few weeks after she was born - maybe there is a silver lining to an em c-s with a general anaesthetic and feeling crap for weeks afterwards...

wukter · 27/01/2010 11:36

Grr ladyBiscuit that's infuriating.

Beachcomber · 27/01/2010 11:39

Another one that is really annoying is when the mum is away for a few days and the whole community/extended family seems to gather round to help the dad look after his own kids.

My mate and neighbour is away for a week (first time on her own doing anything without her three kids, youngest is 3) and I have PROMISED myself that I will NOT offer to have the kids/take them to school, etc.

If the dad asks for help I would of course give it as I would with my mate but I don't chap on her door an ask if she needs a hand with the school run. (The dad in question is off for the week so no need to juggle job/childcare).

YANBU by the way!

nickelbabe · 27/01/2010 11:42

not long ago, some old(ish) woman said to a mum that the mum's husband was babysitting.
i said he's not, he's looking after his children. and the first woman talked to me as if this was a preposterous idea! that of course he's baby-sitting if he's staying at home looking after the children!
i was very that she didn't take the point that you don't "babysit" your own children.

lolapoppins · 27/01/2010 11:42

Booyhoo - I am just not the sort of person who could do things like cooking for/cleaning up after another adult. I have many female friends who enjoy doing all those things for thier dh/dp and good for them, but I would feel like a housekeeper/second mother, not like someones equal. We both live in this house, it is both out responsibility, ditto with dc. Dh doesn't expect anyone to look after him, tbh I could not have lived with a man who expected a woman to do things for him. It's an alien concept to me.

Also, in my point of view, if I was the one who went out to work and came home to dinner on the table, clothes washed ironed, kids organized, everything done for me, I would feel like it was a bizarre situation, like it was a hotel or something.

I have male single friend who lived on their own for years, fed themselves, done their shopping, washed their clothes and the second they move in with a woman expect her to do all that. I don't understand it, I really don't.

4andnotout · 27/01/2010 11:45

My nan called my dad a "poof" for feeding my brother as a baby as apparently it isn't a mans job

My dad and my grandad (mums side) are both very hands on both when their own kids were young and with grandchildren, my dad babysits for an hour or so everyweek whilst me and mum run rainbows and brownies.

Dp is hands on with the kids, although if he has to look after tham alone he takes them straight to his parents so they take over nad he watches tv His parents are fairly sure he is the second coming, and a parenting guru.

shivster1980 · 27/01/2010 11:46

Grrr! YANBU

"Where's your DS then Shivster? Is DH babysitting?!"

As someone mentioned before - how one can be babysitting one's own children I don't know?!?!?

I think it is ever so patronising to suggest that these grown adults are somehow incapable of caring for their kids purely because they are male!

My Dad was a househusband when I was between 6 and 18 months and I survived! This was early 80s and he was between work and Mum was a nurse. He did once take me onto the burns unit where Mum was ward sister when I had D+V because he "didn't know what to do". Mum informed him that bringing me into hospital to infect her patients and be infected was not his best idea!

He settled into being 'looked after' when Mum stopped working after my DB was born and then completely and mysteriously lost any ability to feed himself and do laundry etc. Interesting since he was 35 when they married and hadn't lived at home for 15+ years by that point - he must have been very hungry!