Please give me your advice re housework/everyday activities when DSC are with you...

[BinkieWoo]

Hi,

We currently have DSS (7) with us and DH and I also have a dd who is 10 months. DSS is with us every Fri-Sun and 50% of all school holidays. DH and I are both teachers (him full time, me part time) and DSS' mum doesn't work. I think this is all relevant to what I want to say...

Dh and I had a disagreement today which is still not resolved. Basically it started around us talking about when dd re-starts at nursery for the new term. Dh wants her to go back for a day before we go back to work as he has loads of work to do (as do I) but I don't want to send her unless we're at work. So I'm trying to get it all done by spending a few hours marking once the kids are in bed. The (massive) school we work at has just held exams which is why there's so much to mark.

When I asked dh why he couldn't do what I was trying to do with my marking etc he said he was too tired in the evenings. When I suggested doing a little bit at a time at convenient points during the day he flatly refused, saying he wasn't going to do anything during the day when DSS is here, and that also goes for housework/chores etc. His opinion is that DSS doesn't get to spend every day with him so he doesn't want to waste any of that time, which I can understand.

However...I feel that there are so many things wrong with this. DSS' mum does her housework when DSS is at school or at ours. I do most of ours on my day off but there's still everyday stuff to do here which I do once dd is in bed. DSS therefore doesn't see any of the adults do any housework apart from a little bit which I do before bed. He is a very messy boy, literally undoing packaging and dropping it on the spot and spilling things on the floor and leaving it. I realise this may be totally normal for a 7yo but when he is asked to do things like scrape unwanted food into the bin or pick up his towel after it's been thrown on the floor after a bath he gets really really grumpy and starts moaning about how he shouldn't be the one to do housework. I don't think we ask him to do that much though

Plus dh spends literally every minute with DSS meaning that both their relationships with me and dd don't really get developed that much. It literally ends up with each of us spending 100% of our time with one child and never swapping.

I also think that it's important for DSS to develop the ability to play by himself or with his sister. Both dh and DSS' mum are lovely, nurturing parents but in paying DSS so much attention, he never gets anything but 1:1 time with them.

I didn't mean for this to be so long...oops! I do think that dh is a good dad and I guess that in reading this back I've discovered I'm probably a bit jealous on dd's behalf...her days with her dad this Xmas are either spent watching him play exclusively with DSS or watching him frantically mark papers in order to get it done before DSS' arrival. Why is it ok for dd to have only a small amount of attention for long periods but not DSS for a short time?

Am I being silly about this? Any advice is welcomed :)

I don't believe life should go on hold when kids stay, it's not real. Maybe your dh can set 1-1 time aside with dss. My dsd is the same age and I make her tidy her room make her bed and scrape her plate. She procrastinates but I think all 7 year olds do. But the point is she is more than capable. I also hear "but that's not what we do at mums". To which I reply different places have different rules.

When I suggested doing a little bit at a time at convenient points during the day he flatly refused, saying he wasn't going to do anything during the day when DSS is here, and that also goes for housework/chores etc. His opinion is that DSS doesn't get to spend every day with him so he doesn't want to waste any of that time, which I can understand.

Which is another way of saying that he considers his DS to be a guest in your home, not a member of the family.

He's failing his DS by depriving him of a day-to-day dad. DCs benefit from seeing their parents engaging in real life - it teaches them life skills and gives them role models to emulate. Your DSS has no frame of reference for his Dads 'work' persona, or his Dad as an 'equal life partner' to you. All he knows is 'fun Daddy' and that's what he's likely to recreate in years to come when he's a Dad himself.

Far from wasting time, engaging in housework/chores alongside his DS is a key parental responsibility - but it takes effort and thought, whereas being Disney Dad is a lot easier.

As for segregating the family during contact; words fail me.

we have a DSD that stays with us every weekend, when she is here life continues as normal, which includes cooking and cleaning. my DH obviously wants to make the most of what time he has with her, but we can't put everything on hold for 2/3 days, its just not realistic.

I also have a 7 month old DS so totally get the feeling jealous part as my DSD is very demanding for her father's attention when she's here and it can be difficult to manage, so I just say things like "can DS play too?" to make sure he's involved. not all the time obviously as DSD needs time with her dad.

but for your DH to expect to not have to do anything when his DS is there is unrealistic and also putting added pressure on you for that time.

as above posters have also said, we feel it's important to set an example for our children, and looking after the house is an important lesson.

I couldn't agree more with what FrogStar said.

The ironic thing is that if the OP suggested to her DH that SS appears to be treated more as a guest than as a bona fide member of the family all hell would break lose. It certainly would if I said such a thing in our house !

My DH used to be like this but that was when we only got to see DSS once in a blue moon. Now we have a contact order things are much more normal; sometimes we do nice going out treat stuff and sometimes just normal housework/homework/chores type stuff.

It's completely unrealistic to think you can just take every weekend 'off'. I can't imagine how your DH can possibly be keeping up with his workload unless you are doing absolutely everything else. Plus what message is this going to send to your DD as she gets older if the only child who is important enough to stop everything for is DSS - classic recipe for resentment (which is the argument I used with DH).

And unless you are happy to let your own child behave in this lazy, entitled way, you are going to have a double standard in terms of dealing with their behaviour. Not good.

We used to have DSS EOW, and during these weekends real life often ground to a halt. DH did his best to create a totally artificial, pink, fluffy environment for his son's visits. The result was a very weird dynamic. However it ensured DH maintained his status as Favourite Parent, and that's all he was bothered about. Popularity was more important than parenting.

Hi all, just wanted to say thank you for the great advice. I bit the bullet and talked to dh about the issue of housework when DSS is here. Turns out he'd never considered the fact that DSS never ever sees housework being done and agrees that we need to set a good example and even include him in it. So far so good.

He is convinced that he plays with both DC a lot, I disagree. He'll sometimes let dd get involved in what they're doing but often gets so engrossed that she ends up getting forgotten. Plus he does make a big effort to spend 1-1 time with DSS which means he actively excludes her sometimes which I think is unnecessary - she has lots of naps for a couple of hours at a time so that'd be an ideal time to spend 1-1 time with DSS without leaving her out.

The thing that worked the most was saying about DSS being treated like a guest here - thanks frog. Dh didn't like that one but but agreed it was how things are right now. I'm not naive enough to think this is all sorted but definitely a step in the right direction I think...