Does your dh show an interest in dc schooling ?

[admylin]

Just wondering because my h never shows any interest in school and infact he wouldn't be able to tell you what his dc enjoy, which are their favourite subjects, teacher's names etc. I just get on with it and do it all, he never bothers with parent/teacher meetings either and no way would he join any PTA or do anything extra for the school. Of course he wants them to bring good grades home but how they go about obtaining them isn't his problem.

Are there more of his species out there?

Yes. Does as much homework as me. We take turns to go to parents evenings. He picks up dcs twice a week but it's me who drops off every day and picks up on the other days. Came to school visits etc but was me who chose the school. Also me who does most of the organising with parties, school events etc although he will then do nearly half the ferrying to and fro. We take it in turns to make packed lunches. He lays out uniform each night.

Yes as regards parents evenings, but he does leave most of the talking to me .
He also managed most school plays/sporty stuff if he could fit it in with work.

I did most all of the reading at primary
and most of the 'project' work at all stages.
DH did help with making things.....He can make a wonderfull motte & bailey!

He really came into his own from year 10 onwards. Maths, physics chemistry is not one of nagys strong points.

The only real problem was that he really rubbished MFLs infront of DC.....No need to waste time on that they all speak english!!!

Lord, mine wouldn't know the Dc's teachers' names and even gets the name of the school wrong!!
I do all the school type stuff. He'll come to parets evenings if he's in the country but that's not often.
But I don't mind. School is only one tiny part of life and he's involved in so many other things with them. He shares his love of sport, books, cars, the outdoors with them. They play their instruments with him ( he plays too).

DH takes the children to school every day. We both deal with homework and reading. DH went to DD's parents' evening, I went to DS's. He is on the PTA.

I'd never put up with a man who wasn 't interested. My chidlren's father is a teacher and was a keen as I was to get them into good schools. My own father in the 1960s drove us to school every day.

Real equality comes when it's the father who might as likely as you be making the school costume. If the mother's working late as I could be from time to time he was indeed doing that or getting the chocolate brownies ready for school next day. Don't tolerate sexist men who put too many burdens on you of this kind orj ust want to play with children or you'll rue the day you were involved with them often as not.

LOL Xenia! DH made a rather beautiful Rapunzel hat for DD's world book day costume. He calculated (literally) how to get maximum height from one piece of card. Do we pass?

''Real equality comes when it's the father who might as likely as you be making the school costume.''

That would be us then - dh does all the sewing in our house. He's very involved in dd's education generally.

In principle Xenai I agree with you and if you had asked me twenty yeas ago I woukd have laughed at the notion of a marriage not being utterly equal.
But now 20 years in to a very happy relationship I can see that equal doesn't always involve doing exactly the same.
My DH does what you do - his hours are long, he travels far. ( I have a sneaky suspicion he actually works with you sometimes). He has neither the time nor the inclination to join PTAs, do school runs etc. I have no desire the get on the train at 6.30am and draft contracts.
Agian if you'd asked me 20 years ago I would have said it was outrageous, that I would never tolerate it...but I really don't mind. We are all happy. TBH I think it's DH who has the much harder life and he does it with fabulous grace. Hat's off to him.
I work, I look after the home in a hap-hazard fashion, we both do what we can vis a vis the kids. We muddle through.
It ought not to but in fact it works for us.

Yes as interested as I am, which is very. Knows ds' friends, teacher etc. I'll probably do more homework type stuff later on as I am better at it than dh.

Bit of a contrast to my own father who was a great father but wouldn't have thought to be involved with the schooling, instead he had to concentrate on paying the fees of said school.

At ds primary one dad made a hula costume with cocnut shell bikini top- he also handmade her communion dress.....

Then it works for LC's family but I like your husband would find it really tedious to have to collect the chilren from school every day. I've better more interesting things to do than that. Yes, it's lovely to do it once in a while, a lovely thing to do but the basic chore of it is not fun at all. So I suppose as long as both people are happy with the tasks they're doing it's fine as long as children aren't being brought up to think mothers do dirty cleaning type service jobs and wait on men and chilren hand and feet and men God like things who earn a load of money and women serve them. The fact my mother was very hot on ensuring equality at home etc probably moulded how we turned out to be and I think how my now adult daughters are when they talk about some of their friends who aim to be housewives with a rich husband when my daughters would never want that as I suppose they have had a lot of experience of very young children because of their younger children so know the raality of that and also see how happy i am with my work.

I certainly don't think you can split domestic jobs down the middle. It worked for us when mym chidlren's father was 100% responsible for washing and I didn't nkow how to operate the machine or that I did our tax returns for 20 years or that I always did the girls' hair plaits and get school bags ready for the next day or that I got up for babies on the whole whilst they breast fed and then didn't get up at all in the night once that was done and he did it 100%. When you know your task and you're responsbile for it rather than "helping" things are much simpler.

Agree with Xenia, I want a man who is interested. But we have a certain labour division: I would go to parents meetings if there was likely to be a problem as I am a lot more forceful than dh. But he took her yesterday as it was just a question of
discussing work targets; he can do that as well as I can. (it's when it comes to threatening to sue the school that I sound more impressive. but fingers crossed that's never going to be needed again)

Yes, that's how it feels - a division of labour.
To be fair, my DCs don't see much houseworky type stuff ebing done by either of us..we are fairly shoddy and what the cleaning lady doesn't do generally gets left.
They see me working and because I'm a writer they see the tangible results - books/articles in papers etc so it's not as though they think I iron all day.
The school stuff they probably do see as my domain and some of it is a chore as is schlepping onto planes etc for DH. But matches and concerts I like so no hardship really and if I'm busy I don't go.
TBH we're fairly relaxed about most things.

well, as mentioned already, dh doesn't take much of an interest in DC stuff, but I quite like it actually. On the other hand he will do a lot of gardening which I don't like at all.
When we havew guests he is the one who does most of the cooking, as I can't be bothered to do too much (would probably have gotten a atke away...)

Yes. Plenty. I'd be horrified if he didn't.