Is this a bit rude or?

[sammy829]

I haven't seen my boyfriend in 4 days. He came over tonight and about 10 minutes later his son (8) FaceTimes him. No problem at all, but they've now been chatting for an hour. I have absolutely no issue with his son whatsoever, I'm just feeling a little put out that I've literally been ignored since he got here. There's still no sign of the phone call ending. He saw his son Sunday, Monday, yesterday and will have him all weekend.

If everyone would be fine with this then I'll be quiet, I promise

@Onthedunes I'm sorry but I do think you're wrong (respectfully!).

This is not about me wanting to be his first priority at all. I have my own DC so I'm well aware that children come first. My children know they are loved and extremely important to me but they also understand that I am allowed to have a life that doesn't revolve around them 100% of the time. If there is an emergency then yes of course I will drop whatever I am doing. If they are upset or ill, yes. But if I have seen them every day that week, and will see them for the following 5 days after that day, I certainly wouldn't be chatting to them on the phone for 2 hours that evening in someone else's house.

This is down to basic manners. It was rude what he did and huffing about it afterwards just made it even worse.

@aSofaNearYou it IS down fo OP to decide if she wants to continue seeing him. Which is what I meant as you well know.

Yanbu
Definitely not.
I'd have passed him a note saying "I'm putting a film on here can you go into other room".

@sammy829 I hope you’re ignoring him until he apologises!

You are right it's about basic manners

[quote KurtWilde]@aSofaNearYou it IS down fo OP to decide if she wants to continue seeing him. Which is what I meant as you well know. [/quote]
So people should just go around being rude and seeing whether people will put up with it? No. He should adapt how he parents to include not being rude, even if all that means is being considerate enough to apologise/go in a different room.

@Onthedunes

If the op has been seeing her partner for a while then she must feel comfortable enough to ask him to take the call elsewhere in the house. Where the call was taken is just another excuse for her to make him sound bad, the crux of the matter is she is dating and she wanted to be first in his list of priorities.

The boy is eight, for the first five years he probably couldn't hold a conversation properly with his dad on the phone. At eight he wants his dad, he maybe going through a phase of seeing his friends with their dads living with them and being arround all the time.
It is a time when they question things, why is my dad not here?
Why was I not good enough for him to stay.
A whole range of emotions that children do not understand, it is a crucial age in their development for feeling wanted, when he gets to twelve or something he may not need that reasurance quite so much he will be playing video games and playing out with friends.
Surely people must understrand he is still very young and impressionable. Children can become quite obsesive at this age with the parent who has left, it is called insecurity.
This man wasn't on the phone with his friends or work colleages, you can't forsee every call a child will make and they should never be put into an appointment system to fit into your life when you have abandoned them.
Maybe I'm wrong.

You are, yeah.

Yanbu… children are important. I have 2. They are not more important than anyone else and move up and down my internal priority list … kids, parents, work, friends, partner (oh and me) are all on that list. So yes he should always answer a call from his child and yes if his child needs him he should be there. But it’s also good for a child to be able to process that if it’s a general chat and you are busy then after 15/20 minutes you are going to tell them you have to go. If they can’t handle that, then there are issues with the relationship which need to be resolved as the child isn’t secure. It doesn’t sound like there are any relationship issues between dad and child, so he was IMO rude

@aSofaNearYou no one should adapt how they parent to please someone else

[quote KurtWilde]@aSofaNearYou no one should adapt how they parent to please someone else [/quote]
Oh ffs, so obtuse. So it would be ok for me to have a 2 hour phonecall with my child uninvited in my neighbours house? Of course you have to "adapt how you parent", when called upon to not be rude.

@sammy829

I don't doubt you are an excellent parent but I assume your children live with you and have residency with you.
Your partner maybe playing one upmanship games with you, priorotising his child he may feel resentful that your children live with you.
There are a million reasons this could be happening but I hate on the surface questions like these, there is always more to it, and @MiddleParking if you feel I am wrong, thankfully I don't care and would rather be on the wrong side of this argument anyday.

@Onthedunes I have 50/50 with my DC, and DP also has 50/50 with his.

@aSofaNearYou

If you equate the relationship with her partner as being the same as being in a neigbours house and answering the phone monoplising their front room then, I really don't know.

[quote KurtWilde]@aSofaNearYou no one should adapt how they parent to please someone else [/quote]
They should if it’s the someone else’s house they’re doing it in. Adapt it by sodding off home!

[quote Onthedunes]@aSofaNearYou

If you equate the relationship with her partner as being the same as being in a neigbours house and answering the phone monoplising their front room then, I really don't know. [/quote]
Why? In both scenarios he is in somebody else's house and can't just do what he wants.

It quite clearly illustrates that "nobody should adapt how they parent for somebody else" is obviously bogus. Should I change my DDs nappy on a restaurant floor? Because that's what I do at home. No, obviously, because we all have to adapt now we parent based on where we are. He was a guest in her home and should have behaved accordingly. As I said before, that could have still meant taking the call. Just in a way that was not horrifically rude.

I would think it was lovely adult was taking an interest in their child. You’ll always be second, once you accept that you’ll be better off in your own mind

@aSofaNearYou I'm not being obtuse at all. I don't change my parenting style when I'm at my neighbours house, why would I?

OP asked if people thought he was being rude, she's had mixed responses. Bottom line is only she knows if she's ok with him doing this. And clearly she isn't! I asked up thread if he does it often or it's a one off, and haven't had that clarified yet. Either way I'm seeing they have a difference in parenting styles which might cause issues down the line if the relationship progresses.

@KurtWilde Oh really, you don't adapt your parenting style at all at your neighbours? So you'd go in, wap the telly on, send the kids to play upstairs, make a sandwich? Surely not.

I imagine what you're getting at is that as her partner, he should feel free to behave as if her home is his own. But he is her boyfriend, not her husband, and if this is not an established, agreed dynamic between them, then he is rude to assume she's fine with it. It obviously hasn't been discussed and okayed, or OP would not have been annoyed.

I have always had a rule of thumb that my children come before any man, and to be quite honest I admire a man that does the same, with any woman.

Period.

I wouldn’t have a husband FaceTiming in a communal area for two hours either, and certainly wouldn’t tolerate such rudeness from a child. No matter who it was on the phone.

@Onthedunes

I have always had a rule of thumb that my children come before any man, and to be quite honest I admire a man that does the same, with any woman.

Period.

So, you would quite happlily go around to your friends house for a planned evening, take a phone call five minutes after arriving, and stay on that phone call for two hours. In the living room. While your friend sat in silence and had to wait for you to finish?

Do you actually think that is putting your child first? And not just unbelievably rude?

Taking a phone call is not putting your child first. It is barely even parenting.

@MiddleParking

I wouldn’t have a husband FaceTiming in a communal area for two hours either, and certainly wouldn’t tolerate such rudeness from a child. No matter who it was on the phone.

Me too. My OH takes a lot of phone calls and if he hasn't already left the room after 5/10 minutes, I shoot him a glance, and off he goes. It's rude to expect everyone else to sit in silence and listen to your call. Whoever they are and whoever is on the phone.

2 hours was rude unless there was some kind of crisis, which doesn't seem to have been the case. Ask him how he would have felt if the situation had been reversed.

@aSofaNearYou if my children were with me in my neighbours house I wouldn't be on FaceTime with them would I

And there's a massive difference between the scenario we're discussing here and being in someone else's house with your children

If it's a one off then perhaps OP can move past it it this time but have a proper conversation with him about what's acceptable in future. Perhaps he's willing to compromise, perhaps not. If it's happening often then I'd say they need to reassess the relationship.

@aSofaNearYou if my children were with me in my neighbours house I wouldn't be on FaceTime with them would I  And there's a massive difference between the scenario we're discussing here and being in someone else's house with your children

I do not understand why you are fixating on these details and why you consider them to be so different. In pointing out that being on the phone for two hours is different to being in your neighbours house with your kids (obviously), you are refusing to answer the actual question which was posted to you, which is would you adapt what you do with your kids based on being in that setting. In all the scenarios, you are in somebody's home and you have to adapt what you do with your children. Not because you are fundamentally changing how you think they should be raised, but because different things are appropriate in different settings. The only setting in which it is appropriate to sit in the main living space for two hours on the phone, is in your own home where there aren't people waiting around. Anything else is bad manners, and even worse is going in a huff when called out on it BY THE PERSON WHOSE HOUSE YOU ARE IN.