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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

Accused of having no maternal instincts :-(

306 replies

fernley · 08/07/2014 11:13

I was out on a long planned day out with friends on Sunday. Brunch with old friends. Had a text around 7pm from dh to say that ds (6) had broken his arm and they were at the hospital having a cast put on. DD (9) was safely at home with her cousin watching tv. I stayed for another 45 mins and said my goodbyes then went home to be greeted by a furious DH who accused me of having no maternal instincts and that I should have come immediately.

Very similar to a situation a couple of years ago when ds was full of a cold and I went to an activity day for a friends birthday which again had been planned for ages. DH was furious that I went.

I said that I thought we parented jointly and I knew there was nothing I could do at the hospital and that I called DD and she was fine so did not see the problem.

OP posts:
LumieresForMe · 08/07/2014 17:51

To be fair, the DH is reacting exactly as some if the posters on here. If you don't leave everything as sops as something has happened to your child, however little, then you are a bad mother.

Except that the OP, and others!, doesn't think it's always an appropriate answer.
And as another poster said, they are both entitled to their pov and it would be very hard to say that one is absolutely right and one is absolutely wrong.

But the DH doesn't seem to have enough flexibility to try and understand the OP pov and felt it was ok to just belittle her and put her down.
That isn't on.

OP I'm sorry this thread seem to have moved from trying to help to defending our pov on what is ok to do and what isn't.
I really think you need a chat with your DH and try and make him say what it that is an issue with him.
Try and explain your pov too.
I suspect that there is a mix between expectation that you should everything and his own unease at being left complete in charge on the dc in case of a emergency. I am wondering if he ever has been in charge or is he usually relying on you? How does he see his role as a father? The distant one that brings money or the very hands on that is able to look after his dcs no matter what?
In any case, clearing up what are your expectations is necessary but might prove to be a difficult process.

Batmansbuttocks · 08/07/2014 18:11

I think it's the instinct that the OP's DH is questioning though not the purpose of his DW coming to the hospital. I trust my DH 100% on all parenting/comforting/coping matters. I KNOW my kids would be fine and not scarred by my absence. I just find it odd and slightly alarming that a mother's first reaction isn't to see with her own eyes her 6 year old. No matter what I'm doing, and I do loads that don't involve my 3 DC (senior management job, running, gym, socialising blah blah) a switch goes in my brain when my DC may be in any peril. I suppose I assumed all parents felt like that. I would drop almost anything to get to one of my kids.

I've also broken my arm recently so maybe I'm raw over the memories of the pain. I'm also a nurse and seen many distressed, injured children. Maybe I imagine worst case scenario?

I would judge my DH if I phoned him from the hospital and he carried on chatting with his mate, I can't explain why I would just doubt his love and connection to our children.

VampyreofTimeandMemory · 08/07/2014 18:19

my friends would think it odd if I didn't leave in that situation tbh. OP, did you tell them what had happened?

Ifyourawizardwhydouwearglasses · 08/07/2014 18:19

a switch goes in my brain when my DC may be in any peril. I suppose I assumed all parents felt like that

See, to me, 'peril' would be a car accident, bad injury, actual danger etc.
I wouldn't consider a simple broken arm that had already gone through the whole process up to being casted as a particularly dangerous or hysteria inducing situation. Neither would my DC I think, but then we've never 'flapped' around them so perhaps that's why?

Lots of different views on here, and all v interesting :)

Original poster
fernley · 08/07/2014 18:22

I work part time school hours Monday to Friday. I drop the DCs at school and collect them every day. I go to their after school activities with them. We have a babysitter occasionally and in all of the school holidays I take more time off. I don't work at all during Christmas holidays.

OP posts:
VampyreofTimeandMemory · 08/07/2014 18:22

if he'd never broken a bone before it could have been pretty traumatic for him. I'd be pissed off if DP didn't let me know immediately, quite frankly.

VampyreofTimeandMemory · 08/07/2014 18:23

so fernley are you generally their 'primary carer'?

Quitelikely · 08/07/2014 18:25

To pot with that. If he wanted you to come he should have called you at the outset and asked you to. No need for both of you to be at the hospital.

There is no right or wrong here it depends IMO on the dynamics within your relationship.

flipchart · 08/07/2014 18:27

ifyourawizard

I agree with you. To me a broken arm, assuming there are no complications, is just a run of the mill accident, probably because we've had so many.
As long I was there to make a fuss when they got back ( again making assumptions that I can) no problem.

I don't see the fuss DH had over the cold either!

Discobugsacha · 08/07/2014 18:29

Some of the responses here are hysterical. The child broke an arm and op didnt know until he was having a cast put on.

How many SAHM would get their dh to leave work in the same circumstances?( I guess none)

The child had a parent with him, it was a relativity minor injury, op was informed too late to get to the hospital. I just can't see how op was unreasonable in any way. She was home just after her her dh and ds. Men are capable of looking after children too!

Goldmandra · 08/07/2014 18:30

a switch goes in my brain when my DC may be in any peril. I suppose I assumed all parents felt like that

If you don't think the child is in any sort of distress and will come home proudly sporting a cast and dosed up on painkillers you really won't perceive them as being in peril.

Wild horses wouldn't have kept me away from my 6YO DD when she has an appendix abscess and I stayed in hospital with her for two weeks accompanied by her 4mth old sister.

The same applied when she fell off a pony was knocked out and came round unable to see and when her sister was very poorly as a baby.

When she fell off another time and we thought she had broken her ankle I was quite happy for DH to take her to A&E. She wasn't in 'peril'.

VampyreofTimeandMemory · 08/07/2014 18:38

I think some people are deliberately missing the point... It doesn't sound as though OP's DP 'needed' her at hospital but felt that their DS did.

OP, is this the first time he's broken a bone?

flipchart · 08/07/2014 18:47

I have just remembered something.

I am the one saying there is no immediate panic and my thoughts have been well voiced on this thread.

To me it's just a broken arm and the child is with dad and all is ok. Others have talked about a fleeing to the scene at a drop of the hat and the implication is that you are cold if you don't ( well, more than an implication, someone actually said it right down the thread some where)

I was in a meeting at work once when a got handed a piece of paper dying the school was on the phone, now school dont ring up for a chat. DS had collapsed and an ambulance was on its way, now that is a drop everything situation. Same when I got a call from a different school saying that DS had fallen on the Tarmac and went head first. I cleared it with my boss and walked out of work. I was on the phone to DH who works miles away. His response was to tell me that once I sussed out what was happening to call back whether he was needed.

To me those two situations are where I was needed and needed quickly. a broken arm situation with dad and the pair of them sat in a waiting room buying lucosade from the vending machine because there is nothing to do but wait is not an emergency situation and I was more use at home.

flipchart · 08/07/2014 18:50

Ok, so we are missing the point apparently about the DH needing her at the hospital.

Why did he need her when the child had a cold.

I think some people are deliberately missing that!

Goldmandra · 08/07/2014 18:53

It doesn't sound as though OP's DP 'needed' her at hospital but felt that their DS did.

I disagree.

It sounds to me exactly as if the OP's DH was cross because he felt uncomfortable with the responsibility of caring for his son in that situation and thought she should have come and taken over from him.

LumieresForMe · 08/07/2014 18:57

So ferney it is the situation that your DH is not normally in charge of the dcs on his own isn't it.
The only time it happens is when you are away with dr friends for the day and then it doesn't happen very often?
Shall I guess that your DH isn't exactly happy about it either?

Joysmum · 08/07/2014 18:57

I know my DD would want me to be there.

I know my DH would have preferred for me to be there.

I certainly couldn't have concentrated on anything much else.

Therefore I'd have gone to them ASAP. My DH would be the same and we both find it weird that others wouldn't.

LumieresForMe · 08/07/2014 18:59

And yes the DH didn't say 'our ds really needed you and was asking for you. I told you about they but you decided staying with friends was more important. '

No he us just having a give cause she didn't drop everything and that therefore she is a bad mum. Just as she is to go away when they have a cold because the responsibility if looking after a child that is ill is on his shoulders. And he doesn't want to

Bunbaker · 08/07/2014 19:03

"Seems like clearly I am in the wrong."

The issue is that we judge by how we would feel ourselves. I'm not saying that you are wrong, but if DD was in A & E with a broken arm I would have dropped everything to be there.

Disclaimer: DD has had some very serious health issues in the past. OH faints at the sight of blood/cannulas being inserted. He has been scraped off the floor at the local children's hospital more than once.

So this is a personal view and not a judgement on what happened with you. I would have gone simply because I cope better in a crisis than OH does.

SevenZarkSeven · 08/07/2014 19:13

Interesting thread.

I don't think the OP did anything wrong either. I might well have done the same.

SevenZarkSeven · 08/07/2014 19:16

There's not even such a phrase as "paternal instincts" is there.

Just realised that Smile

Branleuse · 08/07/2014 19:16

when my ds broke his arm, i took him. i didnt expect his dad or stepdad to come to the hospital, The less fuss the better

I8toys · 08/07/2014 20:04

I agree with your DH - its seems such a cold reaction to continue with your friends. Your child probably asked where you were and your DH would have had to say she's still out on the lash son.

Bunbaker · 08/07/2014 20:10

"It seems such a cold reaction to continue with your friends."

Although I do agree with this. It seems odd.

LumieresForMe · 08/07/2014 20:12

Really??
What about 'she will here when we get back home' type of answer? Is they not describing the truth too?

She is still on the lash isn't describing the reality. It's describing your interpretation of it.