Why can't men [my DH] multitask????

[Anonymous]

Personally I just think this is a huge, fundamental difference between the two genders.

Men just are either not “wired” or they CHOOSE to play dumb so they do not carry the brunt of keeping the home fires burning.
I think women are just raised, but also by nature they are seen as the caretakers & organizers.
Men, on the other hand grow up believing they are more in a provider role vs. a caretaking one.

These situations could be due to the fact that their own parents played these roles.
Or it could possibly be cultural.
Either way - it is unjust that women have so much responsibility thrown their way.

OP > It seems that you have spoken w/your hubby and he knows how you feel about the current dynamics.
Yet things are still dicey.
Whether that means he is not putting forth enough effort or simply has ADHD/ADD, etc.
I think a healthy dose of marriage counseling would be ideal here.

Good luck‼️

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My husband has ADHD and he could not empty a dishwasher and watch a toddler at the same time. He is however highly functional at work. People are wired differently.

Interesting that your DH is "wired" to be able to multitask and do his job properly, but somehow magically not "wired" to watch a child while doing some very light cleaning. It's funny how many men are just magically not "wired" for these things, and yet very functional in their work life. Do they all have this very specific version of ADHD?

Do you have ADHD? Are you a psychologist? I'm a DP with ADHD and I cannot speak for PP's husband (who may be conning them or genuinely being lazy, for all I know), but that's actually a big part of how ADHD works. It's not a "specific form" of ADHD-- it's all forms. We can hyperfocus on things that interest us and struggle and fail miserably at those things that don't. A very extreme version of how everyone does better jobs at the things they enjoy-- we can be truly fantastic at those key things, but awful at a lot of other things that superficially seem to have the same requirements.

Now-- as a parent, you have to suck it up and find coping mechanisms that allow you to do a decent job of it, regardless of interest. But it is genuinely harder for those of us with ADHD. The moms with ADHD usually step up and find ways to make it at least halfway work, whereas the dads with ADHD are often let off the hook-- or let themselves off the hook. So I do get the skepticism, and I'm sure patriarchy and whatnot plays a role. But it's literally true that if you have ADHD, what seem to be your fabulous focusing and multitasking skills can fall off a cliff when you're presented with something that your brain is not interested in. It actually sucks.

DP.. I too can hyperfocus on things I like to do, and ignore things that I don't want to do. I guess I could call it ADHD, but that wouldn't be true. Same thing for my kids. This is a human condition, not a disorder.

ADHD is an excuse for everything these days.

PP will also say you're not allowed to ask your ADHD husband to do the d*mn dishes because he has "Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria."

[Anonymous]

ALmost all men are like this. I think they are just singularly focused on all things. My husband does a lot and is very smart and productive but if I tell him three different things at once that I need help with then it all goes to hell.

[Anonymous]

Nope. They are not all like this. It’s learned helplessness because they know you’ll step in. Don’t be a doormat. Don’t be a mommy martyr. Demand equal workloads at home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had a roommate in college that would always save his dirty dishes to do “later” and later never came. Then he would complain that there were no clean dishes. Looks like he got married!

Unfortunately, this isn't that uncommon.

My kids do the same thing. DD doesn't put things away after she uses it, or if she puts it away because I'm "forcing" her to clean, she just shoves it in the nearest drawer/bin, then later, when she needs that item, she can't find it because she never puts it away in the proper place. She has "lost" numerous items this way, including clean socks. She would rather wear dirty socks than have to put away her clean socks. I knew a guy who said that in college he and some of his male friends would just turn their underwear inside out when it got too dirty rather than do laundry.

It's pure laziness and "can't be bothered with boring stuff" attitude. And it's super gross.

So I think this is fine if it doesn't impinge on other people. If your daughter doesn't care about wearing dirty socks, so what? Eventually her friends will probably call her out on her smelly feet. But if your daughter were in charge of the household's laundry and chose not to do it, that would be unacceptable. When it affects the entire house is when it's a problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every morning, I, a divorced dad with custody…
- get kids up and dressed
- make my breakfast and the kid breakfasts
- make the kids their lunch and pack it up
- feed the cats
- unload and load d/w
- scoop the litter box
- make kids put on sunblock
- take them to camp

And usually some other little things as well.

This is not hard. Not a big deal. Anyone can do this.

Curious if you did this when you were married or if it was a skill you developed when you had no other choice.

I sometimes consider going away for a week or something and just forcing DH to deal. It would be a big undertaking -- he'd have to either take time off from work or hire extra help because his work schedule makes it impossible for him to do morning drop off and evening pick up.

I think he'd be okay for the first day, then there would be some roadblocks (probably in the form of a recalcitrant toddler, his biggest parenting nemesis). Then it would be a total disaster for some period of time, and then he'd figure it out.

The only reason I haven't tried this is that I am genuinely worried about what the "total disaster" period would look like. Like maybe it would just be that the house is a wreck and he's late to everything and he and the kids are at odds (all acceptable). But I genuinely worry that he would just lose it and go for old school, corporal punishment. The thought scares me and keeps me from letting go. I really just don't know if he has the personal resources to get through a parenting crisis without totally giving up and letting his frustration and anger get the best of him.

That’s sad. In the second shift, there was an interview with a dad who saw corporal punishment as his role as a parent. Like that was the only thing. He was responsible for discipline. His wife didn’t leave them alone with him even to get her hair done. The interviews were from the late 80s and early 90s. I would argue men are doing better as parents, but again, it’s stalled. And when you add in the high expectations to cook healthy meals and restrict screen time (even though the culture of playing outside all day with neighbors is gone) it puts women in an impossible position. We need to stop making societal problems about personal responsibility.

[Anonymous]

That’s sad. In the second shift, there was an interview with a dad who saw corporal punishment as his role as a parent. Like that was the only thing. He was responsible for discipline. His wife didn’t leave them alone with him even to get her hair done. The interviews were from the late 80s and early 90s. I would argue men are doing better as parents, but again, it’s stalled.

1980s was when the percentage of SAHMs was rapidly declining, but still generally considered the norm. I wouldn't be surprised if those dads interviewed were the breadwinner and their wives were SAHMs, and thus "discipline" was indeed the only thing he was expected to do as a parent.

I grew up in the 60s and 70s when corporal punishment was the norm. My parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and even schoolteachers routinely hit me. They only stopped when I got big enough that if they it me I laughed at them. If you'd asked me in the 1980s (when I did not yet have kids) I would have said "yes it's fine to hit kids if they misbehave". That was the environment I grew up in. When I eventually had my own kids, my attitude completely changed. I never hit them, and never felt I needed to. I regard corporal punishment as the product of weakness, failure, and laziness in the adult who hits the kid - if you hit your kids, you suck as a parent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nope. They are not all like this. It’s learned helplessness because they know you’ll step in. Don’t be a doormat. Don’t be a mommy martyr. Demand equal workloads at home.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

That’s sad. In the second shift, there was an interview with a dad who saw corporal punishment as his role as a parent. Like that was the only thing. He was responsible for discipline. His wife didn’t leave them alone with him even to get her hair done. The interviews were from the late 80s and early 90s. I would argue men are doing better as parents, but again, it’s stalled.

1980s was when the percentage of SAHMs was rapidly declining, but still generally considered the norm. I wouldn't be surprised if those dads interviewed were the breadwinner and their wives were SAHMs, and thus "discipline" was indeed the only thing he was expected to do as a parent.

I grew up in the 60s and 70s when corporal punishment was the norm. My parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and even schoolteachers routinely hit me. They only stopped when I got big enough that if they it me I laughed at them. If you'd asked me in the 1980s (when I did not yet have kids) I would have said "yes it's fine to hit kids if they misbehave". That was the environment I grew up in. When I eventually had my own kids, my attitude completely changed. I never hit them, and never felt I needed to. I regard corporal punishment as the product of weakness, failure, and laziness in the adult who hits the kid - if you hit your kids, you suck as a parent.

I do t hot my kids either, but you realize that this is one more unrealistic expectation for parents and due to stalled revolution, moms. That’s why you see so many threads on here ripping each other apart over misbehavior. There’s a lot of advice about not hitting but a lot less about what to do when kids act up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

That’s sad. In the second shift, there was an interview with a dad who saw corporal punishment as his role as a parent. Like that was the only thing. He was responsible for discipline. His wife didn’t leave them alone with him even to get her hair done. The interviews were from the late 80s and early 90s. I would argue men are doing better as parents, but again, it’s stalled.

1980s was when the percentage of SAHMs was rapidly declining, but still generally considered the norm. I wouldn't be surprised if those dads interviewed were the breadwinner and their wives were SAHMs, and thus "discipline" was indeed the only thing he was expected to do as a parent.

I grew up in the 60s and 70s when corporal punishment was the norm. My parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and even schoolteachers routinely hit me. They only stopped when I got big enough that if they it me I laughed at them. If you'd asked me in the 1980s (when I did not yet have kids) I would have said "yes it's fine to hit kids if they misbehave". That was the environment I grew up in. When I eventually had my own kids, my attitude completely changed. I never hit them, and never felt I needed to. I regard corporal punishment as the product of weakness, failure, and laziness in the adult who hits the kid - if you hit your kids, you suck as a parent.

I do t hot my kids either, but you realize that this is one more unrealistic expectation for parents and due to stalled revolution, moms. That’s why you see so many threads on here ripping each other apart over misbehavior. There’s a lot of advice about not hitting but a lot less about what to do when kids act up.

I am the PP who said that I would like to leave my DH alone with the kids for a bit to force him to learn how to do this stuff and stop relying on me to pick up the slack, but that I genuinely worry that when things inevitably go to pot, he would resort to hitting the kids before he figured it out.

I grew up in the 80s and my parents hit us all the time. I agree with the PP who said that hitting kids is a sign of failure -- you've run out of ideas and you're frustrated/angry, so you hit your kids. That's absolutely what my parents did. It is one of several things that destroyed our relationship. And in the 80s, their behavior was borderline. They grew up in families where hitting was encouraged, but I certainly had peers in school whose parents would never hit them and, rightly, considered it child abuse. But it was a hotly debated issue at the time, and there were still lots of people willing to defend it back them, far more than now.

In theory, my DH agrees with me that we should never hit our kids. But he grew up in a house like mine. And I watch him with the kids and he just struggles so much with developing the skills he needs so that he never resorts to physical violence. He creates conflict with the kids because of his own impatience, and he struggles so much to remember how young and inexperienced they are. Like he will get frustrated by the indecision of our 3 year old, express his frustration, and when she cries or talks back (depends on her mood), he'll get mad and more frustrated, and it will escalate. I wind up having to step in all the time even though I don't want to because he is still just struggling to understand how to diffuse the situation. I've talked to him about a ton. I've given him parenting books to read (he will say he read them but I don't think he does). But it's still a problem. He can be GREAT with the kids, for the record. And I think when he is great with them, he counterbalances some of the aspects of parenting that I struggle with and I get a glimpse of the great team we could make. But then he'll be tired or busy and he just gets impatient and winds up engaging in these escalating fights with our very young kids. I can almost see this thing switch in his brain when it happens where I can see him going to the place my parents used to go to, where they'd get really militant and authoritarian and anything other than perfect compliance would enrage them.

I get it because I grew up in a similar house and sometimes I feel that switch in myself, but I trained myself a long time ago (probably before I even had kids) to stop and not let the switch flip. To take a breath, remind myself of my real goal (teaching, guiding, providing a safe and calm environment) and I will try another tack. Or even just say "Ugh, I need a break. We'll discuss this in a minute." Or whatever. I want my DH to get to this point. I'm trying. But until then, there is always a little bit of fear and I feel I have to protect my kids from experiencing what I experienced growing up. And I'm protecting my DH, too, from making a mistake that it will be impossible to come back from.

We have no choice but to keep working on it. I want him to do better. And I'm pretty much the only person who can help get him there. It's not a great role to have pushed on you but here we are.

[Anonymous]

NP here. I think it's a combination of "wiring" and shirking. It's "wiring" (in quotes, because it may actually be socialization more than biology) in the sense that I do think men tend to be more linear/serial in how they approach work. So they aren't really trained to multi-task well. But that doesn't mean that they can't manage a complex set of tasks (wake up child, dress child, put child on potty, feed child, put away dishes, etc)...they would just do it in series vs. partially in parallel. That's where the shirking comes in. They get away with not doing it, because there's someone to pick up the slack...and they know it.

One thing I can't really tell is if men end up being less efficient, so everything takes longer. I've been watching DH, who runs a very large division at his company, during the past year, and I think he might be less efficient than I would be. Running a household is pretty challenging, even though the individual tasks are somewhat mundane, because of the sheer variety of things that have to be done and the degree of unpredictability that irrational and erratic children add to the mix. We undervalue this work significantly, because women have traditionally done it for free...and it's in the economy's interest to pretend that work doesn't have a lot of value and doesn't take a lot of skill.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

That’s sad. In the second shift, there was an interview with a dad who saw corporal punishment as his role as a parent. Like that was the only thing. He was responsible for discipline. His wife didn’t leave them alone with him even to get her hair done. The interviews were from the late 80s and early 90s. I would argue men are doing better as parents, but again, it’s stalled.

1980s was when the percentage of SAHMs was rapidly declining, but still generally considered the norm. I wouldn't be surprised if those dads interviewed were the breadwinner and their wives were SAHMs, and thus "discipline" was indeed the only thing he was expected to do as a parent.

I grew up in the 60s and 70s when corporal punishment was the norm. My parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and even schoolteachers routinely hit me. They only stopped when I got big enough that if they it me I laughed at them. If you'd asked me in the 1980s (when I did not yet have kids) I would have said "yes it's fine to hit kids if they misbehave". That was the environment I grew up in. When I eventually had my own kids, my attitude completely changed. I never hit them, and never felt I needed to. I regard corporal punishment as the product of weakness, failure, and laziness in the adult who hits the kid - if you hit your kids, you suck as a parent.

I do t hot my kids either, but you realize that this is one more unrealistic expectation for parents and due to stalled revolution, moms. That’s why you see so many threads on here ripping each other apart over misbehavior. There’s a lot of advice about not hitting but a lot less about what to do when kids act up.

I am the PP who said that I would like to leave my DH alone with the kids for a bit to force him to learn how to do this stuff and stop relying on me to pick up the slack, but that I genuinely worry that when things inevitably go to pot, he would resort to hitting the kids before he figured it out.

I grew up in the 80s and my parents hit us all the time. I agree with the PP who said that hitting kids is a sign of failure -- you've run out of ideas and you're frustrated/angry, so you hit your kids. That's absolutely what my parents did. It is one of several things that destroyed our relationship. And in the 80s, their behavior was borderline. They grew up in families where hitting was encouraged, but I certainly had peers in school whose parents would never hit them and, rightly, considered it child abuse. But it was a hotly debated issue at the time, and there were still lots of people willing to defend it back them, far more than now.

In theory, my DH agrees with me that we should never hit our kids. But he grew up in a house like mine. And I watch him with the kids and he just struggles so much with developing the skills he needs so that he never resorts to physical violence. He creates conflict with the kids because of his own impatience, and he struggles so much to remember how young and inexperienced they are. Like he will get frustrated by the indecision of our 3 year old, express his frustration, and when she cries or talks back (depends on her mood), he'll get mad and more frustrated, and it will escalate. I wind up having to step in all the time even though I don't want to because he is still just struggling to understand how to diffuse the situation. I've talked to him about a ton. I've given him parenting books to read (he will say he read them but I don't think he does). But it's still a problem. He can be GREAT with the kids, for the record. And I think when he is great with them, he counterbalances some of the aspects of parenting that I struggle with and I get a glimpse of the great team we could make. But then he'll be tired or busy and he just gets impatient and winds up engaging in these escalating fights with our very young kids. I can almost see this thing switch in his brain when it happens where I can see him going to the place my parents used to go to, where they'd get really militant and authoritarian and anything other than perfect compliance would enrage them.

I get it because I grew up in a similar house and sometimes I feel that switch in myself, but I trained myself a long time ago (probably before I even had kids) to stop and not let the switch flip. To take a breath, remind myself of my real goal (teaching, guiding, providing a safe and calm environment) and I will try another tack. Or even just say "Ugh, I need a break. We'll discuss this in a minute." Or whatever. I want my DH to get to this point. I'm trying. But until then, there is always a little bit of fear and I feel I have to protect my kids from experiencing what I experienced growing up. And I'm protecting my DH, too, from making a mistake that it will be impossible to come back from.

We have no choice but to keep working on it. I want him to do better. And I'm pretty much the only person who can help get him there. It's not a great role to have pushed on you but here we are.

Right. And what you described is a tremendous amount of work. Women take in this immense role of teaching the kids without hitting, because let’s be honest….the formula of “3 year old whines = smack” is alot easier than what you described. And men just check out of that process in many cases. Add in unrealistic workplace expectations, food prep and cleaning and it’s a formula for never ending stress.

[Anonymous]

This isn't just at home too. I've noticed at work and in DH's hobbies that he's not good at multitasking. For instance both my dad and DH run to Home Depot almost daily while working on a project versus making a huge list and doing it all at once. They just can't seem to work two steps ahead.

Same at work, my male employees just aren't juggling their cases the same way the women do. I have 4 men and 4 women working for me too. They have the autonomy to complete their cases how they wish. The women all seem to push each of their cases 10% ahead and then jump to the next one (everyone has 5-8 cases). Men would spend an entire day working only on one case and then the next day on a different case. When they got stuck on that case, they just kind of stalled out versus moving to a different case. Once I've seen this phenomenon, I can't unsee it. I watch it happen over and over again and it's crazy how different sexes handle their cases. The women are generally out performing the men.

[Anonymous]

My DH is like this. On days I WOH, I come back after picking up kids and breakfast dishes are still on the table. I have to clean up, make dinner, prep lunches for next day, throw in the laundry, check HW, and start bedtime for the kids. But I can’t say anything without upsetting him because he dropped the kids off in the morning. It’s exhausting. If I need him to do something I can only tell him one thing at a time or he will get overwhelmed and stressed out.

Some of it is nature, but some is nurture. His father is helpless and clueless and his mother always did everything. I want to raise my sons better. Already my 7 yo helps around the house more than DH!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nope. They are not all like this. It’s learned helplessness because they know you’ll step in. Don’t be a doormat. Don’t be a mommy martyr. Demand equal workloads at home.

+1

+1

They get married so they have a Mommy again.