In any relationship, one person (normally the mother) takes full responsibility for the child(ren) ...

[Twiglett]

don't they? so its never truly equal is it? ie one partner could just get up and go with minimum effort but the other partner would have more difficulty in doing the same

is it ever truly, truly shared even in the most democratic of households?

say for instance school clothes need buying, babysitters organising, getting them to school, activities booked etc .. all the little niggling things that come with children .. are they normally thought about and sorted out by one person in general or is it ever truly shared

it's me in this house - most definitely. If he looks after the boys, I tend to leave everything out and ready (clothes, lunch planned, etc etc). I do most stuff. He works full time and I work two days so it has to be a slightly uneven distribution but when we are both at home it is still uneven. Totally agree with the brainless passenger (loled at marina's brianless....)
If I were to leave, he would muddle through but would really be clueless about: paying bills, locating stuff, how long it would take to drive to school, etc etc
He would not even know who our phone/insurance etc was with. I by default have organised it all, told him, showed him where the information is. But I am sure he would not remember.

hmm

Haven't read the whole thread but, no, in this household things are not truly equal. They are more equal than they were but most of the nitty gritty of parenting falls to me and always has done.

Dh has never taken them to buy shoes, he has never bought any of their clothes, party invitations (buying presents and the like) fall to me - as does buying birthday and Christmas presents for our children (and his family, but let's not get me started on that, eh?) If I went away for any length of time I would have to leave fairly detailed instructions - the reams of instructions attached by magnets to the front of the fridge when I went into hospital to have ds2 would bear testament to that. He rarely takes them to, or picks them up from, school - in fact, I think I'd have to remind him what time they finish.

But, the crucial thing is I don't mind (mostly ). He works very long hours in a demanding job; I work part-time from home. The arrangement suits us. And when he is here he is hands on, he makes packed lunches in the morning, he does bath-time, he never shirked from changing nappies - he's as involved as he can be given the reduced time he's actually with the boys.

It's not all perfect - he has a tendency to let them play on the X-Box/watch TV for rather longer than I do - while he surfs the net or reads the newspaper...and he also tends to over-react to normal, minor bad behaviour, whereas I tend to let the small stuff go so as not to spend the whole day shouting.

That all sounds kind of smugsville - it's taken us almost 10 years to get to a state of equilibrium, if not equality. He did nothing with ds1 - I wouldn't let him. I had severe PND, which was a major factor - I practically left him and moved in with my parents fro the first 6 months of ds1's life, so he never had chance to bond with him . I wouldn't let him take any of the responsibility for parenting and as a result he had no confidence in his ability as a father and abdicated everything to me. He never took ds1 out on his own, never got up to him in the night - when he got older he didn't read bedtime stories, didn't give him a bath. If I was going to bed and he wasn't - I would take the monitor with me and get up if ds1 cried - that's unbelievable to me now, but it's what we did. Thinking about it, I can hardly believe how much he - we - changed when ds2 came along: the division is much more equal and, as a result, he had a much closer relationship with ds2 as a baby/toddler than he did with ds1.

So I went from smugsville to a ramble..ah well..

Message withdrawn

Ooh yes, MI, your knickers example just hits the spot. But it will never happen in the frogpond because (a) he'd have to realise that said child needed new knickers, which he could only do by taking over the laundry and the dressing, which will never happen; (b) know which size to buy (one child big for age, one bang on average and one small for age, so you'd have to know, not just guess); and (c) remember that need at a crucial point in the working day to enable a detour to be made past mothercare/sainsbury's/tesco etc. Actually, add in point (d), which is knowing where children's knickers can be bought.

Hmm. Long knickerless months would loom. I do also intermittently amuse myself by wondering, if I decided to work to rule, how long it would take dh to realise that our bedsheets needed changing, never mind the children's. Two months? Three? Six? Who knows.

been thinking over this knicker issue in particular

and feel that while my man is by no means 'macho' (you don't find those types working in the arts often); his returning home from a trip out with a packet of girls' knickers festooned with the necessary fairy/ princess motif would knock a bit of the edge off his masculinity for me

I'm all for finding good fathers attractive - indeed there's nothing sexier than watching him playing with the children - but there are some things I really don't want him to be responsible for

frogs - on the bedsheets question. My dh is a microbiologist so I reckon he'd consider the possility that they needed changing at around the time interesting fungal-type growths started to appear on them.

cappuchino would your returning home with a set of boys'pants bearing footballs and skulls take the edge off your femininity for dp?

This might be where I'm going wrong...

This 'gain and relinquish' principle.
Yes, dp has often bought pants for DS, and ensured that they are cotton, not too lurid, and the right size.
BUT he calls them 'panties'.
yes, he takes turns with going to DS's orthotics appt to get hs shoes.
But he allowed DS to choose purple boots with a patent mock-croc flash on them.

eeww

boys pants

I've only read your first post Twig but no, I don't agree. It truly is shared with my dh, who is out getting the children now since that's his job. OK, so I don't do bins and he doesn't do emptying the fridge but it's more or less equal I'd say, yes.

yeah, we do pretty much half-half, dp works and I am a student when I have time and I feel that I am at home primarily for the kids, not to clean the house. So I do what I can, and he does what he can, and we muddle along. Nappies are STRICTLY rota'd.

My god, the arguements we have had to get to this point though.

Just skimmed this and I don't need to give dh any instructions wrt childcare. I worked away during the week for six months and he did it all alone.
School clothes, I did but no reason why he wouldn't
babysitters, both do
getting to school, I do am drop off of both children, he does pm pickup of both
activities booked, he did all last year as I wasn't there and did after school club booking this year
shopping, he and I both do, although I tend to think ahead more than he does
cooking, about equal
cleaning, the cleaner does
And when we gave potty training a go he bought dd her new knickers

Dh is fine for childcare, but the things like school money / letters / clothes would get nowhere if I stopped doing them. But then I am a control freak so that's OK

I think we do share things around the house fairly equally, but yes, I do all the "thinking and planning". To be honest I can't see how that can be shared easily- it could be, with a calendar and synchronised diaries and stuff, but I think it's much easier for one person to do it. You can't really have both parents organising dental appointments and playdates simultaneously, can you? I do it partly because I want to, and partly because I work part-time, so I am there at pick-up times which is when most of the social appointments are made. Dh does notice things like outgrown clothes and stuff, but I do have to leave a rather detailed list ("Brush dd's hair. Every day.") when I go away.

Dottydot, I have probably told you this before but when dd went to her friend's birthday (her friend's parents are a gay couple) she said wistfully afterwards "It must be so useful to have two mums to organise parties, mustn't it?" I couldn't help but agree

i think me and dh are pretty equal... he manages to clock up a lot of his time due to he being more of a morning person than i am... so he 95% (i'm ashamed to admit!) of teh time gets up in the mornning and does the breakfast and dressing etc... i appear kiss the kiddies.. make sure that dh hasn't made them look like they've been dragged through a hedge backwards... and then dissappear off to work!(though i am on maternity leave at the momemnt... so i just lounge around or better stilll stay in bed!)

dh also does teh dropping off to school for dd 3 morns and dropping off anf picking up of ds at nursery 3 days...

housework is pretty equal... hoovering and cleaning - though he doesn't iron and i very rarely do so that doesn't really count... he does all the veggie planting and gardening... i do 95% of teh cooking purely because that's what we both enjoy doing....

i suppose i do all those little niggley school things... dinner money/letters etc but then again i do those things because in a bizarre way i quite enjoy doing those 'brown envelope' things...

though i don't do the bins!.... too smelly!

We generally do what we enjoy doing and it seems fairly equally split!

I haven't read the whole thread but this about sums the relationship DH and I have where the kids are concerned, last night I went out (on my own for the first time since dd was born) I rushed around to get everything sorted out and left him at 6.45 with two fed and bathed sleepy children. This morning I got up & changed DD to find she was in the same nappy that I put her in after their bath at 4.30 Its only fluke that I know this as I put her in one of DS's bigger ones as we hadn't got any of hers upstairs for some reason. His excuse: "she wasn't smelly!" DS is 2.7 and he stil hasn't realised you don't just change them when they poo- God help me!
Seriously though, I am the thinker and planner but he generally does what I tell him

I do most of the thinking and planning in our family, but DH is very heavily involved in both looking after our children, and the house.

On a day-to-day basis he forgets about the "small stuff" if I don't remind him, but when I went away for a week a couple of years ago (with three children in primary) he managed perfectly well without me.

He never bats an eyelid when I inform him I have plans, although his job does take priority over mine most of the time.

you know what, I am fed up with this, we're supposed to be going into town but he's just sat down in front of the tv and I know he's waiting for me to tell him what to do. He left the washing up until this morning and then would only do it when I got out of the shower because he didn't want to leave the children! wtf does he think I do when I'm doing housework-tie them to my legs. I am sick of having to spell everything out to a 30yo man-clueless nong!

Justamum,I sympathise.DP has just taken kids to grandmas so I can clean the floors(oh joy,so course Im on mn for a bit haha).I have so far had to tell him:
What to get the kids for breakfast.
What clothes they need to wear
What needs packing in the bags ie nappies,wipes,spare pants and trouser,set of clothes for baby,drink for baby and where to find aforementioned stuff.

If I am looking after them I will have put washing on, made beds,washed up,put washing out etc etc.If he looks after kids then NONE of the above gets done as he was looking after kids.Hes 38 btw.Men!!!Hes a lovely dad but so completely clueless about the mundane stuff,has never taken them to buy clothes/shoes/Drs/dentist etc etc.

Legacy,why was your lasagne ruined by being left in the oven?
I presume it wasn't on??

We've just been working through organisation of things now that I won't be at home full time. Sought reassurances from dh that he won't boil dry and ruin my expensive new pans. Time will tell!

He asked for a timetable with prompts each week - I know he does brilliantly with this prop but is pretty hopeless without.

I've always been a single mum (my choice from even pre-conception), so I can't begin to imagine what it's like to have a partner with whom to share responsibility for dd. Part of me knows it would be a huge help, and part sees the potential for conflict/differing points of view, etc. I think the most difficult of all would be if somehow my partner/dh wasn't holding up his end of the deal - which is, I guess what many of you are complaining of.

WWW, do you think some of that is because of your respective working arrangements?

I am firmly of the belief that making, you know, structural readjustments to our caring/working arrangements should adjust some of that 'me picking up the slack' that has bothered me so much. And will also mean I have to stop being so damn convinced that I am the only one who'll get it right

Glad it's not jusy me then. Dh and I had a major row over all this, just a few days ago. I just got sick to the back teeth of being the one the buck stops with. He is fine at doing stuff, quite capable but seems to need directing all the time. I just want him to make a decision and do it without needing confirmation, even stuff like what we have for tea, FGS just decide and do it!