I am a crap mum

[lizhawthorn1976]

OK. So when my daughter was born, my partner had to ask me to move the bleach & chemicals out of her reach because she was playing with them & I hadn't even thought of doing it myself. Now we have a boy & we are in a new house. My partner has had to ask me to move the stuff again & I said 'no'. Several times my partner has caught the kids with hairspray, razors & hairdressing scissors, & he goes mad @ me everytime. Why don't I care enough about my kids to keep them safe, how come I'm not a normal woman/mom with protective instincts.

Are you serious?

yes

Yeah ok... no one is that useless.

you don't need motherly instincts rather than common sense. Crawl round the house on all fours, if its sharp, electrical, caustic or poisonous, put it out of reach.

He asked you.. And you said no? Why?

So you are aware of hazards, they have been pointed out to you and you don't want to do anything about it? Why?

Does your partner also take responsibility for moving things, as well as asking you to move them?

I don't know why. I can only guess that I'm useless and lacking in common sense. I thought I was a good mom, but I guess I'm not. It's not that I don't want to do anything about the hazards, I just forget.

You said you said no.

Why didn't your OH move the dangerous stuff out of reach as soon as he noticed?

And why did you say no? Putting scissors on a higher shelf is hardly onerous is it?

But why say no to moving them when he told you too then?

I know I said no, @ the time I believed that I could the children should learn not to touch things & I didn't know where to put everything, this obviously led to an argument. I did move the stuff to higher places & binned stuff that wasn't needed.

Have you used your full name and year of birth as a username?! If you really did ignore the safety issues and now recognise you were wrong, just adjust your behaviour. Seems obvious.

You accept that you made a mistake and were wrong to leave potentially dangerous items where small DCs could find them. Learn from it and keep dangerous stuff out of their reach from now on. There has been no real harm done. Just do better from now on. No need for all this breast beating about being a bad mum.

You sound tired. Your partner sounds, well, unhelpful. Why couldn't he move the stuff out of the way himself? Does he do anything practical to support you?

Perhaps you feel overwhelmed by the responsibility of being a mum? You thought it would all come naturally but it didn't?

Just move the stuff now, job done

Kids are still alive I presume?

Yes you have made a mistake, but you'll get other things right.