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

[flowerybeanbag]

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!

I travel fairly frequently for work, and have done since DS was tiny. I always get asked 'so who is looking after DS while you are away ?'. You will note that no one ever asks DH who is caring for DS when he is away

YANBU

My mother says of DH looking after DS "oh, he's ever so good with him considering" considering? Considering what? That he's a man? Is she implying DH might not be DS's father??

HV did the same: "Where's your mother?" Excuse me? Where's my mother? "She's at home, 150 miles away... where she has a professional job and her life". Cue face on HV "But who will help you look after the baby?" "My husband. The baby's father"

tortoise because I don't see it as a feminist issue.

If I were a gay man living with a partner, I would feel the same. If I lived with one of my children when they were an adult I would feel the same, IYSWIM?

aww, lola! that's weird, i was just thinking (before i read your post) that one really wants a man who's lived on his own for years, because they're so used to doing the housework they'll just carry on doing it.
must just be my OH, then!
he is sometimes so pleasantly surprised that i've done some housework that i get praise loaded on me! i say "oh, i hoovered" and he goes "oh, thank you, that's very good of you, you didn't have to"!

although, he quite liked my comment that once our children have reached 10 or so, we'll never have to do any housework ever again!

i'm looking forward to being a kept woman when i'm a mummy...

YANBU! God this annoys me so much too. I remember my xh getting so much praise and comments like 'ooh isn't he GOOD with them'. FFS - he's their DAD!

I laughed when my husband took my two oldest on the train to his mums (about 4 hours journey) he was telling me that a couple sitting opposite him hadnt stopped talking about how good it was he was spending time with them as if he was performing some sort of miracle.

YANBU.When we had DS1 DH used to call him 'the babe magnet'

nicklebabe some do exist, my dh lived on his own before me, which is partly why he would think it was strange if I did things for him, when he looked aftet himself for so many years. But, his parents were very equal, so he never grew up seeing his mum run around after everyone, which is what has shaped his view. Mine were like that too, my dad stayed at home with me until I was 6 so my mum could work funny shifts as a nurse. When they swapped and she stayed home, he still carried on doing all the housework/cooking as it was what he had always done and he liked doing it.

Funnily enough, am just off out now to take ds to a home ed meet. Dh is at home today and could take him while i sit and read heat do some work, but the last time he went along he was sick and fed up of the comments he got from the other mothers there.

(I used to be LittleMyDancing / WhatFreshHellIsThis )

YANBU, in the slightest. DP always lets me have a lie in on Saturdays while he gets up with the DCs - then he gets a lie in on Sundays. Lots of people think this is weird, I'm really not sure why.

And you should have seen people falling over themselves at playgroup when he took the DCs there on a day when I had to go to a speeding course very important engagement.

We're rearranging our working days at the moment for when I go back to work, and he was desperately trying to bag Friday for himself (playgroup day). No way, buster, I saw the way those women clustered round you!

YANBU.

My dad worked away a lot - a few days here, a few weeks here. I am the third of 4 DC. Dad flew in from Austria for my 2nd birthday party, having been away for 2 weeks. He arrived as the party was in full swing. All the mums' reaction was "Wow, Dad, how wonderful of you to make if for BRS's birthday". Except for my own mum, who was seething that she'd done all the hard work, made the cake, had 20 2 year olds in the hopuse, had 3 DC to look after alone and Dad was late - but getting all the glory!

We asked a friend of mine to be a referee when we wanted to be foster parents.

Our link worker was most complimentary about the fact that said friend had told her

"Flowers Dh is wonderful, he takes the dc's to the shops and, sometimes, even to the park"

Worse was to come though after we had been fostering a few years Dh was made redundant so became more involved with the fc's. He had been working away for most of the time I had been at home with 3 dc's and up to 4 fc's at a time.

He would occasionally take them to the shops while I prepared tea and one of the checkout girls used to gush how wonderful he was.

She eventually took him to one side one day to proudly inform him she'd nominated him as one of the stores "Local Heroes" WTF

He actually came in second and as he was to be presented with chocolates (which he loves) the store manager piped up "oh no thats a womans prize fetch me a bottle of whisky"

Dh was gutted, he hates whisky but was too chicken to say anything.

(Flower likes whisky)

Aaargh YANBU no wonder you're infuriated.

I haven't got any kids yet but have made blooming sure to find a man who doesn't have a sexist bone in his body and would feel freaked out to have things done for him.

Lolapoppins - this is one of the reasons why I call myself a feminist, i.e. someone who thinks men and women should be equal and believes we're not there yet. All the responses on here clearly show that society is still sexist to the detriment of women, even in the UK let alone in other countries.

YANBU.

DH is working away all week and has been for 4 months and it's beginning to show at the edges re:looking after DD. He hasn't copped that she needs a bit more stimulation these days than Daddy reading the paper. But if we're out anywhere at weekends, everyone directs the comments/questions to him. "Ooooooh isn't he good!"

F*CK OFF!!! [Sorry, didn't mean to shout]

And re: housework, cooking etc - his mother ran rings round him and his 8 siblings so although as a result he and his brothers all have great respect for women, they also assume we are more than happy/able to do everything. Even now, at the age of 41, if I ask him a tricky question - say, childcare related - his stock response is to "ask mum".... Bah

Memo to self: ensure DD does not EVER end up in this situation herself. Even if she's shacked up with Brad Pitt (or equivalent in 30 odd years time)

so lolapoppins how do you do dinner/bathtime/housework and the like? do you just have designated roles/jobs?

i find myself having to bargain with OH if i ask him to do anything. he'll say "yeah but what are you gona do" and i'll end up trying to list off a load of things ive already done in the house that day. and he'll start saying what he did 3 weeks ago and it ends up in a whole big tit for tat thing and we fall out so it's easier to do things myself.

i live with an oversized child dont i?

we share almost everything..including cooking (since I taught him how to cook )but i have to do DDs hair ..he's hopeless

to OP dh would just be annoyed at being patronised as if he was not able to parent his child

silly talk is best ignored but I suppose that positive encouragement to reticent fathers might not be a bad idea

I look after my DH FT, and do all cooking cleaning etc, DW is the bread winner

I dont get any extra attention

Stupid Norfolk, I want my extra attention god damn it...

DS I meant not DH, I am the DH

I don't say it to them, but it is nice to see a dad having fun with his kids. So many of them I know, even the married couples, are distant and uninterested in their children.

Blimey Booyhoo what a drag! Could you sit down with a big list of everything that needs doing in the house daily/weekly, and then split it between you based on how long it takes?

For example maybe:

hoovering downstairs = 30 mins/week
hoovering upstairs = 30 mins/week
washing up (30 mins daily) = 210 mins/week
bins out = 20 mins/week
bathing/putting kids to bed = 45 mins daily = 315 mins/week

etc etc, then break it up. E.g. you'll put the kids to bed every night if he washes up every night and does the hoovering downstairs and up and puts the bins out. [BH smiles sweetly at DH]

Seriously though, why not? Frankly, is he sitting on his arse while you work?

Aeschylus, you are doing an amazing job, DW is lucky to have you, etc etc
Is that better?

How old are these people though? If I think of my own Dad, he did VERY little of anything domestic - cleaning, looking after us, cooking - but then, that's what was expected of him. He went to work, earned money, the woman stayed at home and took care of domestic duties. My DBs, on the other hand, are very hands on - they do tons. For my parents generation, such a thing is quite bizarre and is commented on (in a positive way).

Oooh do you know what else. I just don't know whether to laugh or cry when I hear the mother's side of this, i.e. "Bob's looking after the kids tonight, yes I know I'm a lucky woman!". Or, "Dave always - I know, he's wonderful."

Is it that these women actually think their DH/DP is wonderful, and that they are lucky, or are they just trying to deflect the expected comment before they hear it?

I am a SAHM but we share house work jobs and childcare when DH isn't working.

We have always done alternate nights splash about bathtime. When one is on bathing DS duty the other cooks the tea that day.

I do most of the cleaning/hoovering type stuff while DS is at nursery in the mornings and the washing/ironing just happens, one of us will do it. It is fairly even though.

It's very even in this house.

Are you all posting through some sort of timewarp? I've never heard anyone say anything like that. Last year DH took DS on a long haul flight to visit family and I stayed behind. All he got was the normal sympathy for someone of either sex flying with a young bouncy child, and I was the subject of much envy for having 10 child-free days on my own. Nobody thought it was "good" or even particularly unusual.

Men come to the toddler groups that I go to with DD and nobody looks twice or comments. When there are two or more men at toddler group they tend to cluster together a bit, but I think that's because they want to talk about sport rather than because of anything the women are saying/not saying.