If you're in a more traditional eg sahm set up..

[Eucalyptusbee]

Which parent is more responsible if one of the kids has an issue with poor school performance vs what they should be getting (Not an issue with underlying ability or behaviour, just not meeting expectations as per natural ability).

I'm talking primary school age children here so parental help required for learning support.

Is it
The sah parent
The parent who is focused on earning and so not around to help with homework
Neither

Do you have any advice as to how I sort this? I find it very difficult with the earnings disparity to "argue my case" re my contribution. If I say about the baby he just says I'm being a martyr and it's not that hard (she's a very good baby!).

Whose expectations is the DC not meeting? Their teacher's or their father's? Where are they falling short? Is it the bread-and-butter stuff like reading, spellings, and times tables or other things?
Also, if it something that is causing a worrying fall behind (the teacher's) expectations, I would have expected this to have been flagged up sooner rather than waiting for the parent's consultation. It is not usual to get a couple of little 'things to work on', but these should just be tweaks or pointers so they can reach the next level. There should be no nasty surprises at a parent's evening.

In our family, I work PT so do the lion's share of the dull day to day support of learning. I would take responsibility if, for example, DD1 was behind with learning her times tables. Set topic homeworks reinforce other areas of the curriculum already learnt and tend to be done at the weekend, so the load for those is shared between DH and I and usually only involves very light supervision. We also use the weekends to cover anything specific DC is struggling with at that time (it might be a particular method in maths or writing a formal letter as examples). Whoever is best placed to teach the skill does this. It's usually me, as despite earning a fraction of DH income and having a far less Important Job (as judged by society, not DH or I!), I have a better and broader education, but there are specific topics that DH is better placed to help with.

OP, your DH working full time does not completely absolve him of homework responsibility, and given you have your hands full with a new baby he should be doing plenty at home to pull his weight.

Mat leave is not being a sahp, its recovery and care for new baby time. If anything on mat leave the other parent should be stepping up with the older children and taking on more responsibilities so the new mother and baby can rest.

Your husband sounds awful.

@Fireflygal

What's the reason for the move? Will you have more support from family and can you still work?

With a new baby and upheaval that causes It's absolutely natural for the dc not for be so focused. Also education is a marathon not a sprint. One parents evening makes zero difference to success, especially if in primary school.

Your husband is being an idiot for getting angry and blaming you.

I'll be taking on a new role after maternity leave and we want to get more space (currently City living with v small garden). No family there sadly but will only about 1.5h from them as they are nrarer where we are now - sounds good but they aren't v helpful (all working FT/ own kids)

You're not 'adding any value'!? Fuck him, he doeant think looking after a newborn and 2 kids, cooking cleaning and organising them is valuable? Get a nanny, chef, PA, cleaner, and tutor and maybe he will realise the value of everything you do. Or suggest taking a short financial hit and him doing the last few months of shared paternity since he could do it so much better than you. If he says he won't tell him he is just making excuses for letting his family down. Prick

Thank you. I made these points but he just says thats not good enough and I'm making excuses for myself

OP I feel for you and I feel angry for you. He sounds like a complete twat. Does he bring anything apart from money to the party?

@SkankingMopoke

Whose expectations is the DC not meeting? Their teacher's or their father's? Where are they falling short? Is it the bread-and-butter stuff like reading, spellings, and times tables or other things? Also, if it something that is causing a worrying fall behind (the teacher's) expectations, I would have expected this to have been flagged up sooner rather than waiting for the parent's consultation. It is not usual to get a couple of little 'things to work on', but these should just be tweaks or pointers so they can reach the next level. There should be no nasty surprises at a parent's evening.

In our family, I work PT so do the lion's share of the dull day to day support of learning. I would take responsibility if, for example, DD1 was behind with learning her times tables. Set topic homeworks reinforce other areas of the curriculum already learnt and tend to be done at the weekend, so the load for those is shared between DH and I and usually only involves very light supervision. We also use the weekends to cover anything specific DC is struggling with at that time (it might be a particular method in maths or writing a formal letter as examples). Whoever is best placed to teach the skill does this. It's usually me, as despite earning a fraction of DH income and having a far less Important Job (as judged by society, not DH or I!), I have a better and broader education, but there are specific topics that DH is better placed to help with.

OP, your DH working full time does not completely absolve him of homework responsibility, and given you have your hands full with a new baby he should be doing plenty at home to pull his weight.

Teacher is very happy with child. Partner thinkgs she should be doing better. It wasn't a nasty surprise, just a disappointment. Teacher said need to help her not to rush her work and to check over answers. Also try and read a few times each week. Thank you for the tips.

It took me ages to type, and I've now seen your updates OP. He's an arsehole. You don't 'add value'??? He can fuck right off.

Hi OP, I’m a sahm to 3, though mine are a bit older (late primary to mid secondary) now. All educational issues/parents evenings, in fact almost everything child related was left up to me from year dot till covid. HOWEVER, dh would never have blamed me if a child was underperforming, even if they were declining on their trajectory from prior performance. He might have questioned what was going wrong and if we’d identified that getting newborn to bed was impacting reading etc we would’ve found a way round it (he could get up early and do it or it could be done by him x2 at the weekend are examples)… If said child is only in yr1 he also needs to chill tge F&CK out - there will be a lot of peaks & troughs. I know a child who aged 4 could read a medical encyclopaedia out loud perfectly…..aged 15 he’s just a normal relatively intelligent kid, no gifted/talented scheme…

Eeeesh, think there's some real underlying problems here with your DH.

But to make your life easier, you definitely need to cut back on the clubs and extracurriculars. If kids need extra reading of an evening then fine, that's much more doable than driving everyone around to activities with a young baby.

I have a very traditional set up at home, it really works for us, but DH would never absolve himself of responsibility like this - even though practically it would be me doing the teaching of an evening it's not a situation where blame should be placed when everyone's just doing their best.

It's a bloody big red flag that he doesn't seem to trust that you are doing your best.

So I am the SAHP and partner earns 10x what I would earn . In terms of school commitments I help with all the prescribed homework each day and record it all in their diary. This year it is only one after school sport which I attend, sometimes husband tags along. My husband spends time each night (usually before bed) asking questions like spelling or maths. It’s only 5 mins but it means a lot to have their dad involved and doling out the praise. Husband also attends all parent-teacher interviews (so far). During school holidays husband will help set out some tasks like maths equations or writing a sentence.

There was a moment very early on when husband didn’t want to be a part of anything school based but he realised it works better if you both work as a team. Yes , I spend the most time with the homework but our child knows that Dad is on board and expects them to try hard and concentrate.

For context child is in private school and they have a high standard /expectation of the kids (more so when they are in senior school). Homework is expected daily and they have term assignments even in grade 1. My child has struggled with their handwriting and fine motor so he sees an OT. We both feel regular homework is very important at that age, especially reading and writing. My child gets a lot of relaxation time too in the evenings and weekends.

Apart from money, what is the point of him? With every update he sounds like more and more of a wanker. If he thinks what you do is so easy, tell him you're going back to work, and he can take paternity leave, and let him crack on. I guarantee he won't last a week.

@mizzo

Thank you. I made these points but he just says thats not good enough and I'm making excuses for myself

OP I feel for you and I feel angry for you. He sounds like a complete twat. Does he bring anything apart from money to the party?

Thank you. He is normally very kind and generous but when he's in a annoyed can be very hurtful eg questioning my value.

I think the issue is since our first child he's never really done much of the general grind of home life as he works so hard in a very stressful job.

so I don't think he realises whats involved and everything on the surface of sorting the house and kids is so simple and easy.

So consequently hjust seems to notice the problems eg breads run out / light bulb hasn't been replaced / dinner isn't great / kids acting up etc and gets annoyed with me about it.

And because I earn a fraction of his salary he doesn't seem to compute that I contribute

I honestly think if I earned 2x as much he'd respect me 2x as much

What you tell your partner is this.

Ah, hon, you're so right. I'm not adding value. Let's get a full time nanny and governess who can allow you to carry on with your prestigious career and I will go back out to work. It'll cost about £50k a year with on costs. That ok?

After you've done that, go and see a solicitor and start the divorce proceedings.

Ps he is absolutely not kind if he is questioning your value. He is horrible and sees you as an appliance.

That word is so awful though @Eucalyptusbee - a disappointment. He is disappointed in a 5 nearly 6 year old child. Because the teacher said (as is perfectly normal that age) that they are meeting expectations and gave some probably in their eyes innocuous throw away comments about how best to help.

And from that he has said you dont add value and he is disappointed in his daughter. It is that kind of attitude as a father than will give his own child some real issues I think with self esteem in particular because it is clear that they are not good enough for him

Teacher said need to help her not to rush her work and to check over answers.

Is a fairly stock phrase that I imagine was said numerous times tonight. My Year 8 DD at a selective Grammar school had it said to her I think as well. As did my Year 4 child.

This is not good at all from him OP he sounds awful

That sounds like normal feedback at a consultation OP. Parents me always ask if there's anything they need to work on and expect a few little pointers/minor criticism so we can feel useful. I can't imagine ever being told "nope! Your child is perfect and a genius who has nothing further to improve upon!". That would be weird! My DDs had their consultations last week. DD1's reading age is at least 3 years ahead of her age (she reached the maximum the software could assess to), but her teacher still stressed the importance of making sure she read to us most nights and to provide her with a wide range of texts: her reading diary shows this is already happening. DD2 is due to finish the RWI phonics scheme a year ahead of the scheme's expectation, yet her teacher still gave us things to improve in her writing and again the same as above for reading.

He said he's not interested in mediocrity and I should stop making excuses

@Eucalyptusbee

Teacher been very helpful its just small things eg reading more often. I just find it hard to fit it all in after school as children 7yrs 5years and 3months and with getting them picked up fed and off to clubs with breastfed baby into the mix there's never enough time before it's suddenly bedtime

.but think partner doesn't "get" it as doing a bit of extra reading/ maths sounds seemingly so simple to get on top of . Says I'm not adding any value.

Buy in some help Who will do childcare when you go back to work ? If your family us high earning Soend on tutors drivers au pair home help

Besides
She is only six !

I’m not sure it’s a SAHM v working parent issue, it is who is better placed to help.

We both work, but husband is more likely to be around when homework is done. However, we have our strengths and weaknesses. He does maths and science and tech, because those are his forte, I do English, languages, music and Social studies (although he has geography because he took it at school and I didn’t) Then together we muddle through the remaining subjects that we both have no clue about.

But, the bigger issue is, it doesn’t matter who is to blame, it matters how it will be sorted.

@Eucalyptusbee

He said he's not interested in mediocrity and I should stop making excuses

Your poor poor daughter OP if that it what he is taking from what sounds like a perfectly normal year 1 parents evening.

Remember as well that these teachers never say my god your child is the most intelligent being I have ever seen. Like ever. You had a perfectly normal parents evening.

He needs to manage his own expectations about this before he not only runins his relationship with his daughter but destroys her self esteem.

I just find it hard to fit it all in after school as children 7yrs 5years and 3months and with getting them picked up fed and off to clubs with breastfed baby into the mix there's never enough time before it's suddenly bedtime

Read at bedtime. Who doesn’t love a bedtime story! Have the 7 year old read to the 5 year old too, and vice versa.

But mainly, don’t sweat it. They’ll be fine. Far too young to be getting worked up about it.

He said he's not interested in mediocrity and I should stop making excuses

This is a bigger issue too.

My husband earns alot more than than I do and we both work (him FT and me 30 hours) I do a lot of the sorting out BUT majority of everything else is team work. We both created these children we are both equally responsible to bring them up - whether that be homework/after school clubs or general parenting! If either of our children struggling we together work out a plan. With homework we do delegate to each of our strengths (ie Maths is always me and Languages is always husband!)
At what point does he intend to parent? Whoever earning more is irrelevant to your child.

The excuse of having a busy stressful job winds me up! My husband has a busy demanding job this does not overrides parenting & household responsibilities from him just because he earns more.