Rant- helpless dads!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you saw my family on the plane, you’d see me with two kids doing 100% of the entertaining and work while my husband is sleeping or reading. What you didn’t see was my husband up late the night before packing everything but my clothes or driving in rush hour traffic in a strange city when we landed. We’re a team. Don’t always assume that because one of us is on duty that the other parent is lazy or uninvolved. I also didn’t make my husband wake up and change diapers at night when I was breastfeeding. Unless the baby was crying for an hour or more, I did all the night feedings myself. He would do things like dinner clean up and bath time so I could rest. I think having both parents involved al the time makes for two cranky, tired parents.

But if you needed help what would he do? Say, kid 1 pukes and kid 2 needs help in the bathroom? Does he sleep through it all? Or does he get up and help?

So now Dads who don't wake at the drop of a pin are being condemned? Yesterday, I woke to discover my wife had left the room because she needed to attend to DD at 2AM. So that was my bad?

I'm the PP, and my point was that a dad who is engaged with the family (and who might not be all the way asleep, but was dozing, or playing on their phone) would HELP if needed on the plane. A dad (or mom) who is disengaged would NOT help and would be annoyed that the kids needed them.

But yeah, my husband sleeps like the dead and wants a baby. NOPE, I'm not doing night feedings again ever, and he wouldn't wake up. So no baby, cause I don't want another kid and despite him being hands on with literally everything else, I can't handle the sleep deprivation again.

My DH is very hands-on as well, so he lets me sleep in after a rough night of disrupted sleep (and I do the same for him on his nights).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s annoying but we also chose to marry these men and continue to make choices that enable their behavior. My husband is a wonderful dad but asked me the other day which drawer our 2 year olds pajamas are in and then got mad when I glared at him—like apparently it’s unreasonable for him to be expected to know after 2 years. But I dunno, he’s lightyears better than his father and I DO do the majority of childcare as a SAHM. .

My SIL is a brilliant, strong-minded and independent engineer in a senior position at huge company and her husband is one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met. BUT he doesn’t lift a finger for their young children and she doesn’t seem bothered at all when she works an intense job and then comes home and does 100% of household responsibilities. She’ll be running around dressing them, packing them up, drying tears etc and he’ll just go sit in the car to wait for her to get the kids out the door. I’ve never had the guts to ask her how she tolerates her husband’s extreme lack of parental involvement but she’s accepted it and seems happy. But I look at her situation and mind and feel like this is really an issue that we as women have created by our acceptance of it. Whether are standards are too low for fathers or our need to control things is too high—we largely don’t ask them to step up and be true equals.

Why is the burden on us to ask them? Why aren’t they stepping up because they are fathers and husbands?

Because men aren’t “nice.” They don’t care. Look at the suffering in this world due to men. So many wars, murders, abuse, etc. Almost all crimes are by men! I’ve come to accept that they have serious problems. It means that women really do have to demand respect or we will not receive it. Just like there have to be laws against murder. Most women wouldn’t murder someone even if there wasn’t a law. You think it would be the same way for men? No way.

Yes, men are bad. What are they good for anyway, except things like:
Coming up with the theories of relativity and evolution; inventing airplanes, light bulbs, cars, discovering electricity and how to create/use it; figuring out how to land on the face of the moon and doing it; figuring out how to split/fuse atoms and doing it and one man even walked the earth as the son of God. But as far as I know, Jesus never changed a diaper, so what good was he.

[Anonymous]

yikes--lots of trolls spouting off misogyny and misandry here. The point is not that men are bad at families or women are bad at science (!!). The point is that there are historical prejudices and gender roles, and some people have moved beyond those, and some really haven't. So it can be difficult if a woman works a full day, and expect a parenting partner, but that man thinks once he's home from work, he gets to do nothing. This is unfair, but it's also the model a lot of kids grew up with. If you married one of these helpless dads, and you don't want him to be helpless, then you need to communicate to him your expectations and work out a solution. E.g., maybe he does take a few minutes of downtime after work, but takes on bedtime. Maybe you end up cooking but he ends up gardening. WHATEVER. Find a solution that is not a gender war.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm going to start a thread about women can't fix a gid damn thing around the house. And don't even get me started about how they suck at driving.

I think you should. However, I fix a lot around the house (husband does major stuff). I don't get the man hate around here. There are equally bad moms and wives.

A recent esurance.com report said statistics show men are a higher risk because of three main reasons: accidents, speeding, and DUI convictions. Men are more likely to be involved in all three. In fact, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said that male drivers involved in fatal accidents are more likely to have been speeding than women.

Men are also less likely to wear a seatbelt. They’re additionally more apt to drive vehicles with higher auto insurance rates.

https://www.esurance.com/info/car/why-women-pay-less-for-car-insurance