Can’t get husband to help with Easter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand. YOU want to do a totally optional egg hunt. Why does he have to do the shopping for it? This is your project, right?

Maybe OP wants to do it for her kids. Maybe her kids really want to do it. I don't think it's fair for OP to expect her husband to care about this, but I do think it's fair to expect him to participate.

However, I did the entirety of our kids' Easter baskets this year from start to finish. I like doing, my husband doesn't care, and we have all girls, so I'm better able to come up with ideas. I could, of course, have said to him that I want him to participate, in which case he would have, but I didn't mind doing it alone. I can't tell if OP is asking for participation because she's busy and truly can't do it all (which I get, I work full-time and have time-consuming hobbies), or if she's just made on principle that he wouldn't do it. Those are two different problems.

I don’t think it’s either. I think that this something she wanted to do with her husband and the father of her children and not something she wanted to do alone. Like if you ask someone to go to dinner with you, it isn’t because you are too busy to figure out how to eat.
If OP had been asking her husband to have dinner with her for the last two weeks, this is the equivalent of coming home and throwing down a Hungry Man frozen meal.

You are totally wrong. She wanted him to pick up the candy. She wanted him to get it done on his own. This was not pick-out-cute-candy date night or something.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand. YOU want to do a totally optional egg hunt. Why does he have to do the shopping for it? This is your project, right?

Maybe OP wants to do it for her kids. Maybe her kids really want to do it. I don't think it's fair for OP to expect her husband to care about this, but I do think it's fair to expect him to participate.

However, I did the entirety of our kids' Easter baskets this year from start to finish. I like doing, my husband doesn't care, and we have all girls, so I'm better able to come up with ideas. I could, of course, have said to him that I want him to participate, in which case he would have, but I didn't mind doing it alone. I can't tell if OP is asking for participation because she's busy and truly can't do it all (which I get, I work full-time and have time-consuming hobbies), or if she's just made on principle that he wouldn't do it. Those are two different problems.

I don’t think it’s either. I think that this something she wanted to do with her husband and the father of her children and not something she wanted to do alone. Like if you ask someone to go to dinner with you, it isn’t because you are too busy to figure out how to eat.
If OP had been asking her husband to have dinner with her for the last two weeks, this is the equivalent of coming home and throwing down a Hungry Man frozen meal.

There’s nothing in OP’s post that remotely suggests she wanted to make buying holiday wrapped candy an activity that she wanted to do with the father of her children. You are making stuff up.

That’s literally what the post is about.

No it isn't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Meh. Some people don't care about holidays.

You say you have been asking him to get candy for two weeks. Sounds like you need to be more specific. "See these plastic eggs? I need you to get Easter-themed candy that will fit in them. They have little chocolate eggs, etc. Get several types. Today after work. Thank you."

But for what? He would probably just buy the cheapest one. I like this stuff and half the fun is going to the store and finding cute little candies and choosing them. If this is her thing then she really should have bought the candy along with the basket stuff.

The DH buying the "cheapest one" should be fine if OP is going to outsource this to him, even though she's the one bent on doing this activity even though they aren't practicing Christians (who often don't care much about bunnies and candy, but that's another thing). Wanting to celebrate in a secular way is fine, especially if you grew up doing it, which many of us did, so I get why she'd want to do baskets and whatnot. But clearly OP did not want to buy this candy herself, otherwise she would have.

Was she trying to “outsource” to him? My understanding was that she wanted to go pick out the candy and fill the eggs together. Maybe she thought it would be sweet or fun or romantic. And then he basically treats it like an errand that he does as quickly as possible.

I thought she wanted him to pick the stuff up. On his own. So it would get done and she could worry about other things.

Yes that’s what OP posted. People need to make stuff up now to keep the engagement on this obviously fake post going.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you’re not religious, you have nothing to grouse about. Your husband rightly sees it as just another Sunday. If you want to do stuff, do stuff.

If something optional/extraneous is not important to my husband, of course I don’t expect him to do something about it, and vice versa. Of course that doesn’t go for doing taxes, household chores, taking care of children, but if he’s not into play-acting a religious holiday he doesn’t celebrate, of course I wouldn’t expect him to do anything.

Your expectations are 100% off, OP.

If something optional/extraneous is not important to my husband, of course I don't expect him to CARE ABOUT IT, but I may still expect him to do something to help with it. I don't mind being the driver behind things that I want to do that aren't needed (end-of-school/beginning-of-summer baskets for our kids, for example - those are not important and I do that because I want to and I don't expect him to do anything about it). But certain things like Christmas presents are technically optional/extraneous and I still expect my husband to participate in that. I don't expect him to care - you can't tell someone to change their feelings on something - but I do expect him to do something about it. Where you draw the line is up to you, but if you recall the threads about a kid needing a red sweater for a school holiday performance, some people think that's a need (because they were told their kid had to have it) and others think it's ridiculous and therefore optional. Stuff like that you may both not want to do but parenting is an awful lot of things you don't want to do. On those things, I don't think it's fair for a spouse to say it's not important to them so they're out. Easter baskets/egg hunts are pretty basic things for kids in UMC America (I can't speak for others because that's how I grew up and how I'm raising my kids). Whether or not people are religious, they still do these for their kids, so I think allowing one spouse to just say I think it's dumb so I won't participate is pretty crappy.

LOL, nope. Not if it’s celebrating a religious holiday when you are not a part of that religion.

All of a sudden, if my husband told me we were going to make a big, effort-filled expensive Dwali celebration, I’d tell him to go for it and have fun but I’m not doing that.

Dumb comparison. Secular Easter celebrations, like secular Christmas celebrations are established annual rituals for a large percentage of American families. Nothing like deciding out of the blue to celebrate a new holiday that has nothing to do with family traditions.

They really aren’t though.

Not prior poster, but what the hell do you even mean?

PP said large percentage of Americans celebrate secular Easter. It is not true a that large percentage of Americans celebrate Easter as a purely secular holiday as OP wishes to do.

...it really is, though. Everyone I know who is a secular "Christian" (as in, not specifically of another religion, and whose relatives and/or ancestors are/ were Christian) does Easter baskets. Only about 20% of people I know who fit under the "Christian" umbrella attend church on Easter. And since Easter really is the Big Show in terms of importance in Christianity... I can only assume those people are not religious at all. But they still do Easter baskets and Easter brunch. It's incredibly common. Just like celebrating Christmas with a tree and gifts as a secular Christian without attending church.

Another person who refuses to look out from their own little world view. Let me guess - you’ve never actually looked up the stats but decided your own experience is sufficient to tell you about how Americans spend Easter?

DP. Google says 13% of Americans celebrate a purely secular Easter, while another 19% celebrate both religious and secular Easter traditions. So we have about 1/3 of Americans presumably doing something similar to OP with baskets and eggs. That is indeed a large percentage, not that this pedantic argument has anything to do with OP’s failure to plan or her DH’s inability to follow through competently on what seems to have been a tradition for their family since their teen was young. The fact that other families view Easter as an important religious holiday has absolutely nothing to do with OP’s situation, regardless of the percentages involved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you’re not religious, you have nothing to grouse about. Your husband rightly sees it as just another Sunday. If you want to do stuff, do stuff.

If something optional/extraneous is not important to my husband, of course I don’t expect him to do something about it, and vice versa. Of course that doesn’t go for doing taxes, household chores, taking care of children, but if he’s not into play-acting a religious holiday he doesn’t celebrate, of course I wouldn’t expect him to do anything.

Your expectations are 100% off, OP.

If something optional/extraneous is not important to my husband, of course I don't expect him to CARE ABOUT IT, but I may still expect him to do something to help with it. I don't mind being the driver behind things that I want to do that aren't needed (end-of-school/beginning-of-summer baskets for our kids, for example - those are not important and I do that because I want to and I don't expect him to do anything about it). But certain things like Christmas presents are technically optional/extraneous and I still expect my husband to participate in that. I don't expect him to care - you can't tell someone to change their feelings on something - but I do expect him to do something about it. Where you draw the line is up to you, but if you recall the threads about a kid needing a red sweater for a school holiday performance, some people think that's a need (because they were told their kid had to have it) and others think it's ridiculous and therefore optional. Stuff like that you may both not want to do but parenting is an awful lot of things you don't want to do. On those things, I don't think it's fair for a spouse to say it's not important to them so they're out. Easter baskets/egg hunts are pretty basic things for kids in UMC America (I can't speak for others because that's how I grew up and how I'm raising my kids). Whether or not people are religious, they still do these for their kids, so I think allowing one spouse to just say I think it's dumb so I won't participate is pretty crappy.

LOL, nope. Not if it’s celebrating a religious holiday when you are not a part of that religion.

All of a sudden, if my husband told me we were going to make a big, effort-filled expensive Dwali celebration, I’d tell him to go for it and have fun but I’m not doing that.

Dumb comparison. Secular Easter celebrations, like secular Christmas celebrations are established annual rituals for a large percentage of American families. Nothing like deciding out of the blue to celebrate a new holiday that has nothing to do with family traditions.

They really aren’t though.

Not prior poster, but what the hell do you even mean?

PP said large percentage of Americans celebrate secular Easter. It is not true a that large percentage of Americans celebrate Easter as a purely secular holiday as OP wishes to do.

...it really is, though. Everyone I know who is a secular "Christian" (as in, not specifically of another religion, and whose relatives and/or ancestors are/ were Christian) does Easter baskets. Only about 20% of people I know who fit under the "Christian" umbrella attend church on Easter. And since Easter really is the Big Show in terms of importance in Christianity... I can only assume those people are not religious at all. But they still do Easter baskets and Easter brunch. It's incredibly common. Just like celebrating Christmas with a tree and gifts as a secular Christian without attending church.

Another person who refuses to look out from their own little world view. Let me guess - you’ve never actually looked up the stats but decided your own experience is sufficient to tell you about how Americans spend Easter?

DP. Google says 13% of Americans celebrate a purely secular Easter, while another 19% celebrate both religious and secular Easter traditions. So we have about 1/3 of Americans presumably doing something similar to OP with baskets and eggs. That is indeed a large percentage, not that this pedantic argument has anything to do with OP’s failure to plan or her DH’s inability to follow through competently on what seems to have been a tradition for their family since their teen was young. The fact that other families view Easter as an important religious holiday has absolutely nothing to do with OP’s situation, regardless of the percentages involved.

What was the religious part of OP’s day? She’s in the 13%.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Meh. Some people don't care about holidays.

You say you have been asking him to get candy for two weeks. Sounds like you need to be more specific. "See these plastic eggs? I need you to get Easter-themed candy that will fit in them. They have little chocolate eggs, etc. Get several types. Today after work. Thank you."

And some people don’t care about anything. Especially if it doesn’t directly affect them and them only.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Take a page from him and don’t do anything.

Traditions and values and holidays are too much work. Much easier to do nothing. Just watch tv or play Roblox all weekend.

Religious people have that foundation, you don’t need that. Just chill out.

NP. Oh yes yes, what an astute point. “Doing things” with family is, fundamentally, all about consumerism and consumption. If there isn’t cheap plastic crap that will end up in a landfill, sugary candy and fatty foods, no amount of activity or togetherness counts.

There is no such thing as going on a family hike, playing board games, having play dates, or cooking together. It’s either shoveling candy and plastic at kids (“togetherness!”) or it’s screens and Roblox. There is nothing else.

That’s too much thinking, planning and doing. Again, much easier to do nothing, just watch tv.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I never involved my DH in celebrations planning and execution. This is not his forte. He is good in stuff that he likes to do. I am good in stuff that I like to do.

Like what? what is some “stuff that he likes to do?”

[Anonymous]

Wonder how many Jewish men dropped the ball on Passover this week?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wonder how many Jewish men dropped the ball on Passover this week?

Is OPs husband Christian?

[Anonymous]

Wonder how many catholic men dropped the ball in their kids Easter?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Meh. Some people don't care about holidays.

You say you have been asking him to get candy for two weeks. Sounds like you need to be more specific. "See these plastic eggs? I need you to get Easter-themed candy that will fit in them. They have little chocolate eggs, etc. Get several types. Today after work. Thank you."

But for what? He would probably just buy the cheapest one. I like this stuff and half the fun is going to the store and finding cute little candies and choosing them. If this is her thing then she really should have bought the candy along with the basket stuff.

The DH buying the "cheapest one" should be fine if OP is going to outsource this to him, even though she's the one bent on doing this activity even though they aren't practicing Christians (who often don't care much about bunnies and candy, but that's another thing). Wanting to celebrate in a secular way is fine, especially if you grew up doing it, which many of us did, so I get why she'd want to do baskets and whatnot. But clearly OP did not want to buy this candy herself, otherwise she would have.

Was she trying to “outsource” to him? My understanding was that she wanted to go pick out the candy and fill the eggs together. Maybe she thought it would be sweet or fun or romantic. And then he basically treats it like an errand that he does as quickly as possible.

Read it again. She wanted him to do a task. He did the task. Now she’s complaining because he didn’t do the task the way she would’ve have done the task.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did you recently move away from family members that you used to do this stuff with, OP? I don’t understand how this is just coming up when you have a teenager.

I think there are fake Easter posts on this site today.

That makes sense. This stuff is for small children. If OP’s husband didn’t care when the kids were little, I don’t know why she would think he would start now.

My mom loved Easter she still made us Easter baskets even when we grew and flew! I looked forward to those baskets with the Godiva bunny, jelly beans and the Cadbury mini eggs every year.

Enjoy your Easter traditions.

I’d give anything for one more Easter basket and Mom hosted Easter dinner. I miss my mom!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did you recently move away from family members that you used to do this stuff with, OP? I don’t understand how this is just coming up when you have a teenager.

I think there are fake Easter posts on this site today.

That makes sense. This stuff is for small children. If OP’s husband didn’t care when the kids were little, I don’t know why she would think he would start now.

My mom loved Easter she still made us Easter baskets even when we grew and flew! I looked forward to those baskets with the Godiva bunny, jelly beans and the Cadbury mini eggs every year.

Enjoy your Easter traditions.

I’d give anything for one more Easter basket and Mom hosted Easter dinner. I miss my mom!

I’m guessing that she made baskets when you were little too. She didn’t just start when you were a teenager.
It seems odd that OP expects her husband to start caring about this stuff when their kids are older. I’m wondering if she used to do it with her mom or her sister, and they moved away or passed away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did you recently move away from family members that you used to do this stuff with, OP? I don’t understand how this is just coming up when you have a teenager.

I think there are fake Easter posts on this site today.

That makes sense. This stuff is for small children. If OP’s husband didn’t care when the kids were little, I don’t know why she would think he would start now.

My mom loved Easter she still made us Easter baskets even when we grew and flew! I looked forward to those baskets with the Godiva bunny, jelly beans and the Cadbury mini eggs every year.

Enjoy your Easter traditions.

I’d give anything for one more Easter basket and Mom hosted Easter dinner. I miss my mom!

I’m guessing that she made baskets when you were little too. She didn’t just start when you were a teenager.
It seems odd that OP expects her husband to start caring about this stuff when their kids are older. I’m wondering if she used to do it with her mom or her sister, and they moved away or passed away.

Whatever the situation is, trying to start this tradition that her husband buys all the candy OP likes, he's supposed to read her mind, seems a bit too late when kids are teens. Just buy the candy when you're at the store anytime in March and up until Easter in April. OP is the one who cares and has specifications, so OP owns that task now.