What is your kids dad like?

[Anonnii]

Silly but just wondering. After such. Struggle with my DH he is better but I still do the bulk of parenting. He works long hours is chief earner etc. my work is more flexible. So I get why more falls to me

hes not good with the baby stage. We’ve had 2 and my fucking goodness how did I cope? He was dreadful. I nearly left him.

I just felt slightly triggered and call me silly. We have a 3 yo and 1 yo and at nursery there’s a kid in my eldests’ class and his dad comes every certain day of the week for pickup and I tried to change my times to avoid him but still arrive similar / same as him. He is so fantastic with his kid from the snippet I see and you can see his kids totally melted him. I love it. Again I only see a snippet. He could be shire at home

but I just wondered? I don’t know I wish DH was more emotional. Overall but with the kids mainly.

I think I also didn’t leave him and worked so hard because the thought of not seeing my kids 100% of the time (he’d get shared custody obviously) broke my heart

so it’s better off in a sense to stay and always see them

2nd child was a surprise/ unplanned. So yes ideally wouldn’t have planned a 2nd with him and I felt a sense of panic when I found out but also she’s a perfect addition and I don’t regret her one bit xx

No better or worse than me, just does stuff like I do. If he was that terrible I would not have had a child with him let alone keep on having them

Absolutely fine when DD was being an angel. Turned very cruel and nasty when she was a mardy bum. He has never been very good at dealing with difficult feelings. We are divorced now.

Super. Probably does more than me these days. I haven’t cooked in years and he is great at tidying and also does all the shopping. Kids adore him and he is very close to them both…he has always been so hands on and attentive. I knew when I met him he would be an awesome father, mainly because his Dad was so shit that he vowed never to be like him. I’m lucky though and I know it, it’s so sad to come on here and hear so many stories of flakey dads and rubbish abusive husbands. That seems to be the norm.

Currently have a very demanding 6 month old and my husband hardly helped me. Went on holiday when she was 2 months, came back to find him talking to other girls. Chucked him out.

Tough question. Eldests dad was a horror when we were together, really toxic abusive relationship. I didn't think he'd be consistent with ds once we split but he has been. He sees him weekly and has always paid for him. He has definitely improved with age but every so often his twat behaviour arises again and sadly ds has bore the brunt of it a few times. It's a difficult one because 95% of the time he's a good dad and we co parent really well. But when he goes on one it is dreadful. Very hard for me to mediate.

My dh is a good dad. Rubbish during the baby stage, very nervous and let me do everything but he did help in other ways. Cooking, cleaning, taking the burden off me. Now our toddler is bigger he's much more hands on but he isn't the type to go to groups and gets flustered about certain things - getting her changed after swimming for example or dealing with public meltdowns.

I definitely feel like the default parent for both of my kids. But I don't mind that. There are faults and benefits with both of their dads but I suppose nobody is infallible.

Evil.
My second husband is, however, a legend. Also a great dad ❤️

Yeah I mean I’m moaning. He is just a lazy get and he shouldn’t be but I’m luckier than others

Im hoping as they get older he helps more as he has from the. Baby stage

i am default. But again my work flexibility does this. I cook and clean as I wfh so I can clean during work breaks when kids are at nursery and I cook as I’m the one who’s finished work and got the kids from nursery
he will go to extracurricular when he can get out of work too (stay and plays etc at nursery)

Then you need to start ‘nagging’ him about how his income is disappointing and you’re not feeling well looked after, the kids are missing out, etc. Because that’s a “dad’s job”, right??

I hope he’s coining it in but I suspect he is not. Thick, misogynistic men rarely are.

Either way he is a douche. Anyone who told me ANYTHING was a mum’s job would be divorced faster than a speeding bullet

We're a team and we navigate everything together. We work out how the working week will look based on his meetings, my job, school drop offs and pick ups etc.
we share the taxiing to hobbies and we both get down time - admittedly, his is the gym while mine is my book in costa!!

He was my saving grace with our second - I will happily admit that without him wfh when our second was a baby, I would have ended up quite seriously depressed - the combo of a gone wrong induction, an emcs, a very needy baby that never stopped crying, failed breastfeeding, the tail end of Covid meaning there were no baby groups around and my original mum friends all being back at work and long past mat leave etc.
at that point, he did the majority of the night feeds, took DS out as soon as he finished work to give me a break from the crying, took him off me for 5 mins in between his work meetings during the day etc. he just did what needed to be done to help me get myself right and it took a long while! He just kept us all afloat for as long as it took and he loved me regardless of how useless I felt.

Scum of the earth. (I was raped)

Disappointing. Selfish and had affairs.

He just didn’t seem that interested in them. I thought he would be changed by having children but they were never his focus. He was irritated by them and treated his time with them as holding the fort until I got back from work.

He got better as they got older and was always keen to impress them. Hasn’t worked though. They have no respect for him. I did stay with him until they were adults and he’s now moved far away and wants them to visit more but makes no effort when he sees them so they treat him as a duty.

I do know lots of great fathers though so suspect a lot of answers here will be from other disappointed women. Sadly the most successful marriages and happiest families seem to be more traditional ones where women carry out all the mum stuff anyway but without the resentment of being equal or higher earners.

Men just want women to take care of all that stuff that doesn’t fulfil them. My adult daughters are very wary and say they may never take on a man.

My DH is a great dad. He does get frustrated a lot easier than he ever has done but it's because DS is his literal copy and paste. He has learned to allow me to take over if they are winding each other up or to take a step back. He is great though, always did nappy changes & and would help anytime of night with DS as a baby, does school morning run, does stuff round house, we both allow each other time to go out with friends/socialise and he plays so much with DS which is great. Tbh compared to some of my friends I got a good one & feel lucky about that.

My ex was useless. Did nothing in the house and no patience with kids. My dh is.brilliant with my dds in a slightly detached way. (As I'm not trying to be their dad) So I assumed he would be a great dad but he massively struggled with baby/toddler stage so it mostly fell to me. To the point I decided not to have anymore children with him. I think he would have improved but our son is autistic and challenging to he still struggles.

Housework he wasn't great when I first met him. He now does a fair share of day to day but doesn't tend to care about sorting wardrobes, dusting skirting boards etc.

We also got a dog and he is not great with him. I think he would have been happier living a quiet life maybe with a partner and a fairly quiet child. Or no kids.

He's my right hand and I am his. We try to make sure everything is fair even if it's not equal and I think that is has been crucial.

I have done 99% of the night wake ups (4 and still wakes in the night) but he takes her 99% of the Saturday and Sunday mornings so I can catch up on sleep.

I did all of the morning drop offs when she was at nursery as I WFH or, by design, commuted out of the station next to the nursery and he needed to be at work before nursery opened. He did 1-2 (of 4) pick ups a week but on days he didn't pick up he made dinner

Now she is in school he works at home on my office day so my daughter doesn't need breakfast club. Of the days we both work the school run is between 40:60 and 50:50.

I do more of the sick leave from nursery/school only because I'm with her in the morning and often we don't know she won't be going to nursery/school when he leaves. We split a sickness 50:50 but she's rarely off for more than 1 day so it averages that I do more purely for that reason.

My partner does more of the cooking, I do more of the washing. My partner does more of the day to day cleaning I do more of the weekly cleaning tasks.

We share the playing with our daughter. At the weekend we often alternate so we can each do the chores that we think are priorities to be do done.

My ex is really good at playing with our son and would probably come across like the dad you describe at nrjsry pick ups . But apart from that, he is useless - he doesn't financially provide above the child maintenance minimum meaning big nursey bill is all on me, he is unreliable and disorganized and mean and nasty and angry to me , constantly threatening me . He also walked out on me at 8months pregnant as he found me too stressful and emotional.

He is fantastic. We are a true partnership. He has always done more than his fair share of housework, I never have to ask, he just does it. He does all the cooking as well. When DD was a baby he did as much baby care and drudgery he could, dealt with all annoying relatives and was 100% on my side. He is interested in DD’s life and helps with her work and they have a lovely close relationship. As well as that he works hard and provides well for his family. I thank my lucky stars I managed to pick a good un.

@SophiaJ8 My DD's Dad was like that for the first year and then did a complete 180 and we haven't seen him since. That was 8 years ago. She has little to no interaction with men (as I'm single) and it does worry me that she essentially has no idea what men are like. Breaks my heart 💔

Why would he obviously get shared custody? See this rarely in practice.

@YellowRoom If both parents are seeking equal custody, family courts starting point is 50/50. Which makes total sense if both parents are equally decent.

We both work and are now on similar salaries except I am temporarily part time. DH does his share of the parenting with more bedtimes but less admin. He does more than his fair share of the cooking and cleaning but I organise everything, money, keep cars on the road, pets, holidays, kids activities, school comms etc.