H ignored choking son

[whatdidIimarry]

I was halfway out of the front door carrying something large and bulky when I heard our 8 year old cry out, clearly frightened and distressed, ' HE''S CHOKING! HE'S CHOKING!' And I could hear our five year old making a choking sound. I wasn't too alarmed as they were in the (quite small) back room with H who is his work's first aider so I knew he could handle it, giving me two seconds to put what I was carrying down. But as I did this I heard my son again, clearly frightened out of his wits, 'HELP! HELP! HE'S CHOKING! HE'S CHOKING!' , I could still hear the younger one making choking noises and I couldn't hear H as all so I ran to the room they were in. And there I saw five year old on all fours, face down and with a piece of regurgitated orange in front of him, and our 8 year sitting rigid and upright with eyes the size of saucers looking utterly distressed and terrified.

And there is H literally sitting at his desk, just one metre away from the five year old, with his back to the kids, doing some work on his laptop.

I comfort the kids and then say to H, who has still not turned around at all, and clearly has not at any point, and say, ' did you not hear eldest? Did you not hear how frightened he was?' 'I just thought they were messing around' said H. So I repeat, ' Answer me honestly, could you genuinely not hear in his voice how terrified he was?' ' No', said H, I thought they were messing around'.

Any, any fool would have heard that this was a child who was genuinely alarmed and frightened. How good an actor does he think our 8 year old is? And how good an actor does he think our five year old is, that he can mimic choking like that? And why wouldn't you even turn to look to check?

That's not normal is it? I have long realised that H has serious issues with a very limited ability to empathise with others, but this has shocked me, and I didn't realise there was much left about him that could shock me. Why on earth wouldn't a normal protective parenting instinct have kicked in?!

Why do you think he would go for 50/50 and why do you think he would get it?

I was on holiday with my ds and dh and dh was ill - really ill - he's dead now. I looked after ds for the whole week, which I was used to, but as it was a holiday villa it was really unsafe. I hadn't booked it and there were multiple extreme hazards. So the week was exhausting, my God. My mother was there too but she'd forgotten what toddlers were like and she also because of my dad thought it was normal for the mum to do literally 24/7 care. So for one hour on one day I decided to take a nap and dh was up and about enough to watch ds. I thought. Dh took ds out to the poolside and lay down on the sunlounger for a rest. Ds fell in. The difference was that dh leapt up and rescued him. It was still shit but dh wasn't psychopathic, just a bit useless at small children and largely incapable because of illness. That meant that as ds got older, I could do a bit less because dh could do reasonably safe care for older children with some common sense.

I think we are in denial as a society just how many parents are significantly inadequate for various reasons, and just how tough it is caring for really young children. I mean, lots of women just do it, so it can't be that hard, can it?

It's horrifying, your poor ds!!! I'd be thinking about whether I want to stay married to a man who can't be bothered to leave his laptop for five minutes to stop his young child from choking!!!

Perhaps he does have autism, though I also have autism and I would never sit by and ignore someone choking near me!

If he is all cerebral and lacking in more visceral emotional ways I think you almost have to programme him like a robot. "In the event of x happening, this is what you do. You will not ignore or minimize, you will check and take appropriate action."

You need to make clear to him that if he can't be an acceptable parental figure then it would be best for him to leave the family.

@Santahatesbraisedcabbage

Beware a judge will give him contact anyway. My barrister told me they are reckless with other people's dc.. My ds fell through a frozen pond. Exh was 2 dozen steps or more away.. He brought ds home in his cousin's clothes and exh told me he had splashed his trousers... Older ds told me the truth... The same dc split his eyebrow twice on the rocks on a beach while exh was up on the pier.... Gave zero fucks about their safety. I never slept when they were with him - court ordered..

This is why I did not LTB until my children were of an age where they no longer needed active supervision. It was the only way I could be sure that they would be safe. It seems that some behaviour on the part of a parent is "terrifyingly bad, but not quite bad enough", when it comes to unsupervised contact.

I would never be able to look at him again. Your son could have died. I'd LTB .

My exH is like this. I never left him alone with the kids when they were young. I actually stayed in the marriage for years as I was so afraid of him having them alone EOW. (both my kids have ASD so needed extra protection)

They are now 17 & 14. Surprisingly he took them mountain biking a few months ago & they came back full of excitement at having been down all the 'black runs' (he'd gone to a cafe I later discovered). I took them back to the same place last week. We hired bikes & I paid rhe extra to hire the helmets too. Dd was surprised as 'Dad didn't rent any last time as he said we were too old now to need them'. FFS.

OP - both his (potentially criminal!) lack of care & his reaction are concerning imo

@Anotherlovelybitofsquirrel

I would never be able to look at him again. Your son could have died. I'd LTB .

And then he’d have 50/50 custody and be completely unsupervised potentially

How will that keep the children safe?

@MarshaBradyo

I’d find it hard to forgive this and not resent him

But at the same time you’d not want to leave him with them alone due to splitting

This is why I stayed way longer than I should have with my exh. He was completely useless with DC and even though he was awful to me I needed to watch him around the kids because he had no idea of dangers, often got immersed in what he was doing and ignored them, was crap with their emotions etc.

I would make sure you document this incident - take your son to the GP, tell the school and see if they have counselling available. Put it in an email to your DH even and get his comment on it.
If you need to insist on supervised contact only later you will need evidence.

I don't even know what to say. I would rather my husband have an affair with my sister on the living room couch on Christmas morning than have him ignore our choking child. What a useless, useless, useless terrible terrible man.

I think the idea of taking your child to the doctor to be checked out, and fully explaining what happened, and your husbands response, in order to get social services (hopefully) involved is your best bet. You need this on record if you do split, to hopefully back up a decision for supervised contact only. Definitely do not LTB when it'll mean he'll be unsupervised with your children, even if he might get bored of it in time, there's still the risk they could get seriously injured or worse before that. Do not leave them alone with him. Writing to his assessment team is good too.

@PermanentTemporary

I can believe it.

My dad forgot to strap in my baby brother in a car. My dad went round a corner, the car door swung open and my brother fell out of the car.

Some parents are literally unable to take the needs of dependent young children into account. They don't have it in them.

God that’s my dad to a tee

Safety is an alien thing to him-it just doesn’t enter his head-I sliced my heel open in my seat on the back of his bike as a child-tore it to the bone-he didn’t think that strapping my feet in was essential

My aunt had to force him to take me to a&e and it’s still dragged up as my fault

Neither is the needs of others-I once left my 1 week old with him for 2/3 minutes (I was just outside) when I came back in,she’d started to cry

Instead of picking her up or coming to find me,he just lifted the bouncy chair with her in it and moved it so he couldn’t hear her

Both my parents then ignored her until I came back in

Loads more but one that sticks is when he chucked my 7,6 and 4 year olds out into the street and shut the door

They where outside for well over an hour,playing happily but anything could have happened-they live next to a main road-large lorries go down it every few minutes

It amazes me that they brought up four of us and we made it to adulthood

Some parents shouldn’t have kids

WTAF @thedancingbear - the whole thread has been around OP's H being assessed for autism, but @Hope54321 clearly hadn't read it. Assume you hadn't either?!

Can you get eldest DC on a kids first aid course?

It's not a substitute for an adult by any stretch but it will give him the tools to feel empowered if he's in a situation like this again.

I would divorce my husband if he did this, but then I'd be forever worried he'd get custody and my kids would be unprotected while with him.

I don't know what the solution is, but I wish you all the best.

@Kuachui

hmm saying that... i do remember a story once of a man watching his 9 year old drown in the pool, kid was saved by a neighbour who saw and apparently the dad was just sat like a zombie but hadnt taken any drugs or alcohol tests proved. dad said he thought he was fine and just messing as he can swim...

kid got brain damage from lack of oxygen and the dad went to prison for endangering or something

I'd recommend anyone who has children who go near water to look up what drowning looks like - it does not involve struggling and shouting for help and can look like they are just quietly paddling and bobbing up and down. The drowning person's reflexes will actually prevent them from shouting out. Once they run out of energy they will just quietly slip under the surface. A significant number of children drown WHILE a parent ot caregiver is actively watching them.

Those of you who have/had partners who are like this, are there any warning signs prior to having children? Anything that may have been overlooked? I find the thought terrifying and would hate to end up with someone like that.

I agree with others. This is awful and I would be looking more deeply into it. Are the children safe in his care and if not why not.

@whatdidIimarry can I ask what he was so engrossed in on the laptop, wonder if addiction related ontop of personality issue...

@CustardySergeant

He would get unsupervised contact. My ex has literally caused PTSD in my now FIVE year old and NYAS think it's fine for him to have unsupervised contact which I am fighting. The same people who have told me I am alienating my children for not displaying a picture of my rapist in my home despite my own PTSD.

The family court does not give a shit about children. They fight for both parents to have equal contact despite having evidence that this traumatises the children.

Don't have anything to add other than recommending pursuing diagnosis, not as an excuse but as a foundation for change.

That said, I think a wider conversation as to how women can avoid (if they would like to) this type of partner would be useful. Something tells me that their apparent neediness/uselessness in various situations might entice women who like to feel needed, or who have seen this type relationship modelled in childhood. Just a question, of course no basis for this.

@KurtWildesChristmasNamechange

I'm not sure how he managed to become the first aider at work if he ignores cries of 'he's choking!!' from his own children

It depends to some extent on the type of work; but many first aiders at work will not normally have to recognize emergencies or run to help people in emergencies .In a real workplace emergency, people are likely to call 999 rather than rely on the first aider. People may call on the first aider to ask for help with someone's already-recognized cut hand/ asthma attack/ etc.; and the first aider needs to know what to do in the emergency, rather than to diagnose the emergency to begin with. Even in really serious emergencies, it's usually more a matter of someone knowing how, e.g., to do CPR, rather than recognizing the emergency in the first place.

I still wouldn't want someone so unobservant as the workplace first aider; but it may not be as noticeable most of the time as in the case of a father supervising his children.

However you manage it, that should be the end of this marriage.

Oh, and for everyone bleating ‘how awful to call him a psycho, he’s just Neurodiverse’ my father behaved in exactly this remorseless way and is a clinically diagnosed sociopath.

@ddl1 yes I know what the purpose of a first aider is in the workplace, but my son in law is first aider at his workplace and has stopped someone from choking on more than one occasion. He has to be on the ball at all times, that's why I wondered how someone so .. switched off to what's going on around him managed to get the roll. As you say it depends on the workplace though.