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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

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Original poster

what to say to a man who says he doesn't get up with his DDs at night?

48 replies

foreverastudent · 17/09/2010 19:04

I was chatting to a male aquaintance and I asked how his DDs were. One is almost 3 the other 3 months. I asked. flippantly "they keeping you up at night?", to which he relied "no, (pause) but they are keeping XYZ (his partner) up, chuckle". There followed an awkward silence where he could tell I wasn't too impressed by what he said. I just nodded in silence.

I later wished I'd had a really good rebut to his comment.

I know he hasn't done anything heinous or even unusual but what would have been a good feminist retort to his remark?

OP posts:

Lulumaam · 18/09/2010 15:59

depends though doesn't it.. although in this instance, teh man in question sounds like a twat who is proud of doing nothing

DH did not get up in the night with DD. he did a bit more with DS, our first child. HOwever, if they have been ill, he's the one who stays up and soothes thme, gets the meds down them and cuddles them. If they've needed rushing to doc on call etc, he takes them. He works weekends but always gives the DCs breakfast whilst i snore away in bed before he goes to work, takes them out so i can get rest mumsnet in peace and does lots of other stuff.. id' rather that than getting up in teh night which was short term for us

PerArduaAdNauseum · 18/09/2010 16:05

Ooh - just thought of a good comeback - how about 'so you're leaving your involvement at sperm donation then' ?

Would obviously never think of this in the heat of the moment...

Gay40 · 18/09/2010 16:09

It's what works for you as a family, so long as everyone is happy with the arrangement.

No one wants to get up in the night, be woken up by screaming and go to work on 20 minutes sleep, but it's all part of the package.

Meglet · 18/09/2010 16:13

I like the "I'm glad I'm not married to you" comment.

Another one who's XP never got up in the night, or the morning .

yama · 18/09/2010 16:15

I'm b/fing a 4 week old ds. Dh will get up with ds if after 5am or if ds needs settled rather than fed. He also gets up to attend to dd (4) if she needs it. He works fulltime.

I don't know what I would say Foreverastudent. I know how much I appreciate my dh and I working as a team so I might feel a bit sorry for him (the twat) as probably his wife resents him.

ledkr · 18/09/2010 18:56

My ex never got up and one night i asked him to as i had work a few hrs later and he threatened to kill us both so i never asked again. New dh is afirst timer and i am sure he will do his bit(he'd better)but he did ask me the other day if it was true that babies wake up for milk during the night He was quite surprised when itold him often several times.
He works shifts and i will be going back around 5 months after the birth and will be expecting some turn taking when he is on alate or day off for sure but will happily do it if he is on an early shift. Reasonable enough i think.

imregular · 18/09/2010 21:38

at your ex ledkr

bottyburpthebarbarian · 18/09/2010 21:53

My ex never got up in the night either.

He used to tell people "I don't do the small stuff that's what I keep her for"

And he was astounded that I didn't find it funny.

shimmerysilverglitter · 18/09/2010 21:58

My ex never got up, not once. I was b/feeding so that was his first excuse, then it was that he worked long hours so it was my job and so on and on.

Never got up in the morning with them either would just lie there and be so exhausted he couldn't, apparently even lift his head from the pillow or even understand that the kids needing attending too. No-one in the world has ever been as tired as my ex h was. He should have got a medal for it. Selfish Fucker.

bottyburpthebarbarian · 18/09/2010 22:02

Shimmery - no mine was tireder.

he used to promise I could get a lie in - so he would lie in on the Saturday morning, I was supposed to get one on the Sunday but guess what? It never happened.

Not once in almost 20 years.

I am SLOW on the uptake, huh?

skaen · 18/09/2010 22:07

I tend to do the nightshift, partly because I'm still breastfeeding DS and partly because I'm on maternity leave so I can catch up with sleep when DS does while DD is at school. I don't have a problem with that.

When I'm back at work or if DS is an utter pain, DH will take over when I get fed up. I do have to wake him, but it is a sort of rolling over kick and he'll get up and deal. I think if he didn't, I'd just accidentally kick him a bit more...

shimmerysilverglitter · 18/09/2010 22:10

Oh that sounds familiar! It's been eight years and I still haven't had one except when I used to go to my mum's. At least am not seething at his selfishness alongside the exhaustion any more. Being a single parent is a doodle compared to being in a "relationship" with him.

bottyburpthebarbarian · 18/09/2010 22:14

shimmery - that's it, although mine are bigger now, when you're on your own, you know that you have to do it yourself.

You're not waiting on them doing what they promised, and then being gutted when they don't

If that makes sense?

shimmerysilverglitter · 18/09/2010 22:23

Totally. The energy we must have wasted on these selfish men is just too sad to contemplate. One thing I really hate him for is robbing me of how happy and content I should have been with my babies. I wouldn't say he ruined that time but it wasn't all it should have been. Dc were the only good things in my life.

Meglet · 18/09/2010 22:31

shimmery that's how I think of my XP, he pretty much ruined the delight of having babies, I have no happy memories of it at all . His contribution to parenting was to help between getting in from work at 5pm then helping out until 7pm when he would usually want to go go the pub or play on his mates nintendo . I did get a grand total of 5 lie-ins (until 9am) but each time I had to wake him up in the morning and check DS was ok as XP would sleep for England without me pestering him, he was always foul tempered when he had to get up.

We split went when DS was 2 and DD was 4 months old, he'd had enough time to try and muck in and failed (and was abusive with it).

His most delightful comment when I was stressed with the dc's was to point at me and say "you're a mum, you don't matter anymore". Tosser.

wastingaway · 18/09/2010 22:48

Meglet!

shimmerysilverglitter · 18/09/2010 22:52

OMG meglet my ex used to say stuff like that to me. When I talked about retraining when the dc were older he would say "you should have done all that before, you are a mum now" and on one memorable occasion when I was crying with exhaustion from caring for a three year old ds and b/f on demand new born dd without any help whatsoever from him he said "you are just fucking lazy shimmery, I know busy and hard working women ( his mum and gran) and you are not one of them!". He said loads of other stuff too and just treated me and my feelings with total disregard "your peace of mind means fuck all to me".

I once said to my mum "he just doesn't like me, he doesn't even care enough to hate me". He just wanted me to keep quiet and be a slave and be happy with it. He told me next time round he will go for someone more submissive. So he has changed not a jot.

SolidGoldBrass · 19/09/2010 00:44

I'm really rather saddened at all these vile men. My Ds' dad was never put to the test WRT night waking as we are not a couple but TBH on his current form as a dad I think he might well have been OK with it. (All right, I wouldn't want to have put money on the outcome had I put it to the tst...)
As it was, I found the night waking no problem mainly because, prior to giving birth I had spent two years in a job which involved lots of nightshifts and being on 24/7 callout so I found being woken up by my beloved baby an absolute doddle (when he woke up, I fed him, changed him, settled him and went back to bed. When the job had woken me up at 3am, I would have to get up, get dressed, get a cab and go and work anything from 6-12 hours before I could go back to bed..)
I sometimes wonder about giving this advice to people TTC - 'Before you throw away the condoms, spend at least six months working flexible nightshifts and being on call, then you'll be really well equipped to cope with parenting a newborn'...

StarlightMcKenzie · 19/09/2010 00:55

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

differentnameforthis · 19/09/2010 01:29

Just because he doesn't get up at night, doesn't mean he doesn't do anything else!

My dh doesn't get up at night. Because I won't let him, mainly. He has a job that he gets up early for, does a lot of driving to get to & needs to have his wits about him while at work. So I feel he needs his sleep. When the girls were babies, he would get up occasionally, but there is really not point as only one of us can breastfeed!

He does heaps around the house, much more than I do & I am sahm.

I don't think you can judge a man on one OP (that hasn't come back) comment!

nooka · 19/09/2010 04:21

I think that it's the chuckle that suggests a certain level of twatishness. At 3 my children generally didn't wake in the night except when they had nightmares, whilst at 3 months I would have been breastfeeding and on maternity leave, so did the night feeds. But with dd (nightmare baby) dh did the getting to sleep slog.

It is possible I guess that he has been asked the same question repeatedly and developed this answer as a result of irritation.

MadAboutQuavers · 19/09/2010 10:58

OP, i'm puzzled that you are even asking to be honest.

Sheer curiosity demands a "Why not?" - without much hesitation

If the answer is because his DP is bf, then "ok"

If she isn't, then "well, that's not very good of you is it?"

user1482899995 · 28/12/2016 05:06

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

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