husband as "junior partner" in childrearing

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm so confused by posts like these. Was there really no inkling that your husband was going to be like this?

by the extreme response to something like, feeding your child, i am going to go with OP IS A TROLL

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm so confused by posts like these. Was there really no inkling that your husband was going to be like this?

I think what happens a lot is that women also have no real idea what parenting is going to be like, so they don't fully vet partners for these behaviors. If you are 28 and also like being pretty carefree and independent, you are fine with a partner who doesn't always wash the dishes before bed or is sometimes lax about schedules because it doesn't impact you negatively. You can be laid back.

But what I see happen a lot is that when kids come along, women lock it down. Even the most previously carefree, laid back moms I know get their $hit together when they have kids, at least enough to handle the basics like bedtimes, feeding the kids, lining up childcare. This is bare minimum stuff but even with just one kid, if you have two working parents, it takes some planning, effort, and research. And most of the women I know just sort of naturally segued into that when they had kids. Maybe a few bumps early on as they realized exactly how much more planning/accommodating is required, but they get on board pretty quick.

Men don't. They don't experience pregnancy, I think often kids don't really feel real to them until they show up, then they panic, then they shirk responsibility because they are freaked out, and then if their partner starts handling a lot of that stuff on her own, they just kind of pretend it's not happening and think "oh we're 50/50" even though deep down, both partners know they aren't.

There's this whole dynamic where women step up to the plate because, as the one who actually gives birth, you kind of have to. And men, even men who are relatively equal partners pre-kids, sometimes freak out and step back because they feel overwhelmed and are afraid to mess up. And this leads to a situation where the woman does all the things and the man avoids, shirks, and defers. It's not really something that is discussed, and the only way to stop it is to address it directly. But some men are receptive to that conversation and some aren't.

All of which is to say, I don't think these guys are always total layabouts before kids (the kids freak them out and cause them to start shirking) and I don't think these women always had it all together pre-kids (the kids inspire them to get it together because they quickly understand the gravity of the situation). And culturally, we reinforce these responses by having very high expectations for moms and very low expectations for dads. We even blame women when men don't step up, that's how lopsided these expectations are.

well thought out response, esp the bold

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm so confused by posts like these. Was there really no inkling that your husband was going to be like this?

I think what happens a lot is that women also have no real idea what parenting is going to be like, so they don't fully vet partners for these behaviors. If you are 28 and also like being pretty carefree and independent, you are fine with a partner who doesn't always wash the dishes before bed or is sometimes lax about schedules because it doesn't impact you negatively. You can be laid back.

But what I see happen a lot is that when kids come along, women lock it down. Even the most previously carefree, laid back moms I know get their $hit together when they have kids, at least enough to handle the basics like bedtimes, feeding the kids, lining up childcare. This is bare minimum stuff but even with just one kid, if you have two working parents, it takes some planning, effort, and research. And most of the women I know just sort of naturally segued into that when they had kids. Maybe a few bumps early on as they realized exactly how much more planning/accommodating is required, but they get on board pretty quick.

Men don't. They don't experience pregnancy, I think often kids don't really feel real to them until they show up, then they panic, then they shirk responsibility because they are freaked out, and then if their partner starts handling a lot of that stuff on her own, they just kind of pretend it's not happening and think "oh we're 50/50" even though deep down, both partners know they aren't.

There's this whole dynamic where women step up to the plate because, as the one who actually gives birth, you kind of have to. And men, even men who are relatively equal partners pre-kids, sometimes freak out and step back because they feel overwhelmed and are afraid to mess up. And this leads to a situation where the woman does all the things and the man avoids, shirks, and defers. It's not really something that is discussed, and the only way to stop it is to address it directly. But some men are receptive to that conversation and some aren't.

All of which is to say, I don't think these guys are always total layabouts before kids (the kids freak them out and cause them to start shirking) and I don't think these women always had it all together pre-kids (the kids inspire them to get it together because they quickly understand the gravity of the situation). And culturally, we reinforce these responses by having very high expectations for moms and very low expectations for dads. We even blame women when men don't step up, that's how lopsided these expectations are.

I think this is a really insightful post! I’m one of those moms who absolutely didn’t have it together before kids fwiw and I was just thinking recently about how nice it is to live in an apartment that we clean more regularly (it’s not actually a cleaner apartment because kids not we clean more often and on a better schedule these days). I’m lucky that I don’t suffer from a junior parent spouse (we both stepped up together) but I definitely see how it could have happened.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm so confused by posts like these. Was there really no inkling that your husband was going to be like this?

I am too-- I vetted young men very hard for this when dating. Any trouble with motivation, executive functioning, desire to be an active parent, laziness about chores, irresponsibility or unreliability or entitlement to women's caregiving and they were dropped like a stone.

Lol good luck with that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These whine-fests are never ending. Have you never left your children at home for a weekend with your husband in charge? If not, why not? When you arrive home and all the kids are accounted for and no one had to go to the ER, it’s all good. His way might not be YOUR way, but isn’t that okay? To the super planners who posted…You need a “plan” to go out to dinner? What’s the problem with, “Kids, grab your coats, we are going out for dinner tonight.”

It’s like: I arrive home after a night out and its 9pm and kid hasn’t eaten dinner and DH is expecting me to make it.

Or I arrive home and its 10pm and kid isn’t in bed (guess who gets to handle the fallout)

Or I arrive home and there are dishes everywhere that nobody else will do.

Just go to bed.

So it's like a game of chicken as to who's willing to neglect the children the most?

+1 wtf is wrong with this poster? if you didn't want kids, you shouldn't have had kids.

-1 If you can't go out and come home at 9pm and go straight to bed and have your H handle parenting you are a terrible parent and a f'd up person.

If you want kids you need to let their father parent them, stop being such an insane control freak.

Nope, it's not being an insane control freak unless this is the usual routine and your DH has a track record of handling it. Also if he is the one who will be dealing with the fall out the next day if the kids are overtired and cranky. It's just self interest to step in and make sure bed time happens if you know that you will pay the price for your DH's error here.

Look, if you want to mess with bedtimes, mealtimes, the usual schedule, then you need to be pulling your weight day in and day out. If a DH is truly a 50/50 partner and he's going to the one getting those kids out of bed and making sure they get to school on time, he's going to be taking kids to swim class and dealing with it if they are low energy, etc., then sure, he can make his choices about the schedule and routines and experiment and the DW in that scenario should be okay with it because he's down in the trenches with her.

But when a DH just occasional steps in to solo parent to "give mom a break" since she's the one who does most of it the rest of the time, his job is to follow her routines. Period. You want to be the boss? Then show up and do the work. If you only want to part-time parent, be ready to follow the brief because you have decided to abdicate the power you might have had to run shit when you decided to let your partner do 70-80% of the parenting.

blah blah blah blah... you are exhausting.

You are a control freak with anxiety issues, you won't realize this until you have some major event, go to therapy and they say... you have control issues and we need to treat your anxiety and you'll probably fire the therapist instead of just admit you are wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm so confused by posts like these. Was there really no inkling that your husband was going to be like this?

I am too-- I vetted young men very hard for this when dating. Any trouble with motivation, executive functioning, desire to be an active parent, laziness about chores, irresponsibility or unreliability or entitlement to women's caregiving and they were dropped like a stone.

Lol good luck with that.

So far I've been happily married for 12 years to my DH who is very excellent in these areas. No regrets.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm so confused by posts like these. Was there really no inkling that your husband was going to be like this?

I think what happens a lot is that women also have no real idea what parenting is going to be like, so they don't fully vet partners for these behaviors. If you are 28 and also like being pretty carefree and independent, you are fine with a partner who doesn't always wash the dishes before bed or is sometimes lax about schedules because it doesn't impact you negatively. You can be laid back.

But what I see happen a lot is that when kids come along, women lock it down. Even the most previously carefree, laid back moms I know get their $hit together when they have kids, at least enough to handle the basics like bedtimes, feeding the kids, lining up childcare. This is bare minimum stuff but even with just one kid, if you have two working parents, it takes some planning, effort, and research. And most of the women I know just sort of naturally segued into that when they had kids. Maybe a few bumps early on as they realized exactly how much more planning/accommodating is required, but they get on board pretty quick.

Men don't. They don't experience pregnancy, I think often kids don't really feel real to them until they show up, then they panic, then they shirk responsibility because they are freaked out, and then if their partner starts handling a lot of that stuff on her own, they just kind of pretend it's not happening and think "oh we're 50/50" even though deep down, both partners know they aren't.

There's this whole dynamic where women step up to the plate because, as the one who actually gives birth, you kind of have to. And men, even men who are relatively equal partners pre-kids, sometimes freak out and step back because they feel overwhelmed and are afraid to mess up. And this leads to a situation where the woman does all the things and the man avoids, shirks, and defers. It's not really something that is discussed, and the only way to stop it is to address it directly. But some men are receptive to that conversation and some aren't.

All of which is to say, I don't think these guys are always total layabouts before kids (the kids freak them out and cause them to start shirking) and I don't think these women always had it all together pre-kids (the kids inspire them to get it together because they quickly understand the gravity of the situation). And culturally, we reinforce these responses by having very high expectations for moms and very low expectations for dads. We even blame women when men don't step up, that's how lopsided these expectations are.

well thought out response, esp the bold

No it's a terrible response, especially the bolded. The men are not "afraid to mess up" they are told over and over and over and over... they are messing up... when in actuality, they are not. They are just doing it differently. But they give up because it causes a fight, then you step in to be a martyr.

Now that is a well thought out response.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These whine-fests are never ending. Have you never left your children at home for a weekend with your husband in charge? If not, why not? When you arrive home and all the kids are accounted for and no one had to go to the ER, it’s all good. His way might not be YOUR way, but isn’t that okay? To the super planners who posted…You need a “plan” to go out to dinner? What’s the problem with, “Kids, grab your coats, we are going out for dinner tonight.”

It’s like: I arrive home after a night out and its 9pm and kid hasn’t eaten dinner and DH is expecting me to make it.

Or I arrive home and its 10pm and kid isn’t in bed (guess who gets to handle the fallout)

Or I arrive home and there are dishes everywhere that nobody else will do.

Just go to bed.

So it's like a game of chicken as to who's willing to neglect the children the most?

+1 wtf is wrong with this poster? if you didn't want kids, you shouldn't have had kids.

-1 If you can't go out and come home at 9pm and go straight to bed and have your H handle parenting you are a terrible parent and a f'd up person.

If you want kids you need to let their father parent them, stop being such an insane control freak.

Wanting a kid to have dinner before 9 (or dinner at all) is being a control freak? Wow.

Yeah, either that poster is a troll or is projecting. Like, if you come home and rant at your DH because the kids had cereal and ice cream for dinner that night, I'd say unclench. But she said her DH hadn't fed them and it was 9 (presumably several hours after their normal dinner time). To the PP with this DH -- that's not junior-partner parenting, that's just being an utterly selfish a-hole. There were no indications you were marrying this kind of person?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm so confused by posts like these. Was there really no inkling that your husband was going to be like this?

I am too-- I vetted young men very hard for this when dating. Any trouble with motivation, executive functioning, desire to be an active parent, laziness about chores, irresponsibility or unreliability or entitlement to women's caregiving and they were dropped like a stone.

This. I mean yes of course there are guys who probably did a complete 180 but I find it hard to believe there weren't glaring red flags for most of these guys. Like the guy who let his kid stay in the same clothes for 5 days straight.

for the record there were red flags and hats off to you ladies who were smarter than me!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm so confused by posts like these. Was there really no inkling that your husband was going to be like this?

I think what happens a lot is that women also have no real idea what parenting is going to be like, so they don't fully vet partners for these behaviors. If you are 28 and also like being pretty carefree and independent, you are fine with a partner who doesn't always wash the dishes before bed or is sometimes lax about schedules because it doesn't impact you negatively. You can be laid back.

But what I see happen a lot is that when kids come along, women lock it down. Even the most previously carefree, laid back moms I know get their $hit together when they have kids, at least enough to handle the basics like bedtimes, feeding the kids, lining up childcare. This is bare minimum stuff but even with just one kid, if you have two working parents, it takes some planning, effort, and research. And most of the women I know just sort of naturally segued into that when they had kids. Maybe a few bumps early on as they realized exactly how much more planning/accommodating is required, but they get on board pretty quick.

Men don't. They don't experience pregnancy, I think often kids don't really feel real to them until they show up, then they panic, then they shirk responsibility because they are freaked out, and then if their partner starts handling a lot of that stuff on her own, they just kind of pretend it's not happening and think "oh we're 50/50" even though deep down, both partners know they aren't.

There's this whole dynamic where women step up to the plate because, as the one who actually gives birth, you kind of have to. And men, even men who are relatively equal partners pre-kids, sometimes freak out and step back because they feel overwhelmed and are afraid to mess up. And this leads to a situation where the woman does all the things and the man avoids, shirks, and defers. It's not really something that is discussed, and the only way to stop it is to address it directly. But some men are receptive to that conversation and some aren't.

All of which is to say, I don't think these guys are always total layabouts before kids (the kids freak them out and cause them to start shirking) and I don't think these women always had it all together pre-kids (the kids inspire them to get it together because they quickly understand the gravity of the situation). And culturally, we reinforce these responses by having very high expectations for moms and very low expectations for dads. We even blame women when men don't step up, that's how lopsided these expectations are.

+1

Right! We socialize women into a culture of intensive parenting, but not the men, so women get angry when the men who aren’t socialized parent that way, don’t do so.

The intensive parenting expectations are absolutely part of the problem. I would argue the biggest part.

[Anonymous]

For many of us it is a constant picking of battles. We KNOW our DH's don't like being told what to do. But when DC regresses after thousands invested in therapy because DH isn't being consistent, or DC's medical issue gets worse because he doesn't want to follow the pediatrician's advice (neither does he discuss it with me), I have to step in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These whine-fests are never ending. Have you never left your children at home for a weekend with your husband in charge? If not, why not? When you arrive home and all the kids are accounted for and no one had to go to the ER, it’s all good. His way might not be YOUR way, but isn’t that okay? To the super planners who posted…You need a “plan” to go out to dinner? What’s the problem with, “Kids, grab your coats, we are going out for dinner tonight.”

It’s like: I arrive home after a night out and its 9pm and kid hasn’t eaten dinner and DH is expecting me to make it.

Or I arrive home and its 10pm and kid isn’t in bed (guess who gets to handle the fallout)

Or I arrive home and there are dishes everywhere that nobody else will do.

Just go to bed.

So it's like a game of chicken as to who's willing to neglect the children the most?

+1 wtf is wrong with this poster? if you didn't want kids, you shouldn't have had kids.

-1 If you can't go out and come home at 9pm and go straight to bed and have your H handle parenting you are a terrible parent and a f'd up person.

If you want kids you need to let their father parent them, stop being such an insane control freak.

Wanting a kid to have dinner before 9 (or dinner at all) is being a control freak? Wow.

Yeah, either that poster is a troll or is projecting. Like, if you come home and rant at your DH because the kids had cereal and ice cream for dinner that night, I'd say unclench. But she said her DH hadn't fed them and it was 9 (presumably several hours after their normal dinner time). To the PP with this DH -- that's not junior-partner parenting, that's just being an utterly selfish a-hole. There were no indications you were marrying this kind of person?

I don't believe this. No kid would let it get to 9 without demanding dinner or something to eat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These whine-fests are never ending. Have you never left your children at home for a weekend with your husband in charge? If not, why not? When you arrive home and all the kids are accounted for and no one had to go to the ER, it’s all good. His way might not be YOUR way, but isn’t that okay? To the super planners who posted…You need a “plan” to go out to dinner? What’s the problem with, “Kids, grab your coats, we are going out for dinner tonight.”

It’s like: I arrive home after a night out and its 9pm and kid hasn’t eaten dinner and DH is expecting me to make it.

Or I arrive home and its 10pm and kid isn’t in bed (guess who gets to handle the fallout)

Or I arrive home and there are dishes everywhere that nobody else will do.

Just go to bed.

So it's like a game of chicken as to who's willing to neglect the children the most?

+1 wtf is wrong with this poster? if you didn't want kids, you shouldn't have had kids.

-1 If you can't go out and come home at 9pm and go straight to bed and have your H handle parenting you are a terrible parent and a f'd up person.

If you want kids you need to let their father parent them, stop being such an insane control freak.

Wanting a kid to have dinner before 9 (or dinner at all) is being a control freak? Wow.

Yeah, either that poster is a troll or is projecting. Like, if you come home and rant at your DH because the kids had cereal and ice cream for dinner that night, I'd say unclench. But she said her DH hadn't fed them and it was 9 (presumably several hours after their normal dinner time). To the PP with this DH -- that's not junior-partner parenting, that's just being an utterly selfish a-hole. There were no indications you were marrying this kind of person?

Yes, it’s controlling. Do you control freaks it sounds completely normal to come home at 9 o’clock and start in on your husband… Have the kids eaten? Did they do their homework? Did you do spelling words? Do they have their pajamas on? How much TV did they watch? Did they brush their teeth? Did you wipe down the counter?

blah, blah, blah, blah, blah… give it an effing rest

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These whine-fests are never ending. Have you never left your children at home for a weekend with your husband in charge? If not, why not? When you arrive home and all the kids are accounted for and no one had to go to the ER, it’s all good. His way might not be YOUR way, but isn’t that okay? To the super planners who posted…You need a “plan” to go out to dinner? What’s the problem with, “Kids, grab your coats, we are going out for dinner tonight.”

It’s like: I arrive home after a night out and its 9pm and kid hasn’t eaten dinner and DH is expecting me to make it.

Or I arrive home and its 10pm and kid isn’t in bed (guess who gets to handle the fallout)

Or I arrive home and there are dishes everywhere that nobody else will do.

Just go to bed.

So it's like a game of chicken as to who's willing to neglect the children the most?

+1 wtf is wrong with this poster? if you didn't want kids, you shouldn't have had kids.

-1 If you can't go out and come home at 9pm and go straight to bed and have your H handle parenting you are a terrible parent and a f'd up person.

If you want kids you need to let their father parent them, stop being such an insane control freak.

Wanting a kid to have dinner before 9 (or dinner at all) is being a control freak? Wow.

Yeah, either that poster is a troll or is projecting. Like, if you come home and rant at your DH because the kids had cereal and ice cream for dinner that night, I'd say unclench. But she said her DH hadn't fed them and it was 9 (presumably several hours after their normal dinner time). To the PP with this DH -- that's not junior-partner parenting, that's just being an utterly selfish a-hole. There were no indications you were marrying this kind of person?

I don't believe this. No kid would let it get to 9 without demanding dinner or something to eat.

Exactly, you know they ate they just didn’t eat the exact dinner. Mommy wanted. Controlling mommy wanted exactly 1/3 vegetables 1/3 complex carbs, 1/3 low, fat protein.

Could you even imagine it being 9 o’clock at night and your wife goes in on you?

Girl go to bed!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These whine-fests are never ending. Have you never left your children at home for a weekend with your husband in charge? If not, why not? When you arrive home and all the kids are accounted for and no one had to go to the ER, it’s all good. His way might not be YOUR way, but isn’t that okay? To the super planners who posted…You need a “plan” to go out to dinner? What’s the problem with, “Kids, grab your coats, we are going out for dinner tonight.”

It’s like: I arrive home after a night out and its 9pm and kid hasn’t eaten dinner and DH is expecting me to make it.

Or I arrive home and its 10pm and kid isn’t in bed (guess who gets to handle the fallout)

Or I arrive home and there are dishes everywhere that nobody else will do.

Just go to bed.

So it's like a game of chicken as to who's willing to neglect the children the most?

+1 wtf is wrong with this poster? if you didn't want kids, you shouldn't have had kids.

-1 If you can't go out and come home at 9pm and go straight to bed and have your H handle parenting you are a terrible parent and a f'd up person.

If you want kids you need to let their father parent them, stop being such an insane control freak.

Wanting a kid to have dinner before 9 (or dinner at all) is being a control freak? Wow.

Yeah, either that poster is a troll or is projecting. Like, if you come home and rant at your DH because the kids had cereal and ice cream for dinner that night, I'd say unclench. But she said her DH hadn't fed them and it was 9 (presumably several hours after their normal dinner time). To the PP with this DH -- that's not junior-partner parenting, that's just being an utterly selfish a-hole. There were no indications you were marrying this kind of person?

Yes, it’s controlling. Do you control freaks it sounds completely normal to come home at 9 o’clock and start in on your husband… Have the kids eaten? Did they do their homework? Did you do spelling words? Do they have their pajamas on? How much TV did they watch? Did they brush their teeth? Did you wipe down the counter?

blah, blah, blah, blah, blah… give it an effing rest

If you think doing a good job as a parent is the same thing as being controlled, I don't know what to tell you. Ideally a father would motivate for nutrition, academics, health, and sleep on his own. If he doesn't, that's junior partner behavior and he deserves to be treated that way.