DH does nothing with our 5 yo except let him have electronics

[Anonymous]

2 months of quarantine and beautiful weather. My DH has not once taken our 5 yo outside to do something or done one activity with him indoors. Not one. He has not taken him on a walk, thrown a ball with him, worked with him to ride a bike, taken him on a hike- literally nothing. I used to get around this with activities. DH took DS to Tball and was then motivated to work with him on tball skills. He also would take him to karate and then since we did that with friends, the dads would take the kids to a playground and lunch afterwards. But since those two things are now on hold, DH has done literally nothing with DS. Today I was tired from doing a beach trip yesterday with DS and after spending the morning with DS he was on DH’s watch. My son watched iPad from 12pm to 9pm with one break where they went to the grocery store. I’m so demoralized and tired. I plan so many fun things for DS and do lots of educational things with him but it feels so unfair that all of that is on me. I would like some down time knowing that our child is being looked after well. Not all day screen time. And it means that I can’t do screen time if I need a break bc that’s the only thing does with him. How do I get out of this dynamic? When I try to talk with DH he says that if I don’t like DS doing screen time then I’m free to do something with him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:2 months of quarantine and beautiful weather. My DH has not once taken our 5 yo outside to do something or done one activity with him indoors. Not one. He has not taken him on a walk, thrown a ball with him, worked with him to ride a bike, taken him on a hike- literally nothing. I used to get around this with activities. DH took DS to Tball and was then motivated to work with him on tball skills. He also would take him to karate and then since we did that with friends, the dads would take the kids to a playground and lunch afterwards. But since those two things are now on hold, DH has done literally nothing with DS. Today I was tired from doing a beach trip yesterday with DS and after spending the morning with DS he was on DH’s watch. My son watched iPad from 12pm to 9pm with one break where they went to the grocery store. I’m so demoralized and tired. I plan so many fun things for DS and do lots of educational things with him but it feels so unfair that all of that is on me. I would like some down time knowing that our child is being looked after well. Not all day screen time. And it means that I can’t do screen time if I need a break bc that’s the only thing does with him. How do I get out of this dynamic? When I try to talk with DH he says that if I don’t like DS doing screen time then I’m free to do something with him.

Divorce.

[Anonymous]

Is your husband depressed? Because he was interactive before, I’d cut him some slack during this time.

[Anonymous]

No. He’s always been like this. We got round it before with structured activities.

[Anonymous]

Tell your son to ask his dad. "Daddy will you bake a cake with me?" "Daddy can we go outside and play catch?" "Daddy can we go bike riding?"

[Anonymous]

My stbx was (and still is) like that. Except I couldn’t even get around it with activities after a While - DS became old enough to declare he didn’t want to do anything outside the house, and his dad just stopped trying.
Luckily he moved out and only visits once a week, I can live with one day a week full of screentime.
I worked around it by hiring babysitters, enrolling DS in activities and yes doing the bulk of childcare. It gets easier as kids get older. But stbx also made DS somewhat addicted to screens, so there’s that. Unfortunately I couldn’t divorce earlier. Now I am trying to roll back the screen time and make it more productive (animation and coding vs videogames and YouTube). But it’s an uphill battle.

[Anonymous]

Im in the same boat as you and my husband is a great parent. I plan a bunch of activities because i find spening time in the house with the kids mind numbing and exhausting. I envy that he can sit down and watch a movie, play a video game or chill on the ipad on a rainy day. I occasionally will pull the kids off a screen when they are with my husband and make them read but my kids relish in the downtime. Going from.play date to playdate and activity to activity is just as bad. Kids need to know how to entertain themselves. Each parent offers something different and we each balance the other out.

[Anonymous]

Maybe this is hopeless, but I’d try and push forward with the conversation:

You: I’d like it if you’d do something with DS rather than just give him the ipad.
Him: you can do something with him if you want.
You: yes, and I do. In the last three days we’ve done X, Y, and Z which has been great. But because whenever you’re in charge he does screens, I never feel like I can give him a screen when I’m in charge, because that’s too much screen time. That doesn’t seem fair to me. How much screen time do you think he should get in a week?
Him: I dunno
Y: You’re his parent, that’s not a fair answer. Can you take a moment and think about what’s reasonable?
H: I dunno, maybe 5 hours a day?
Y: that feels like a lot to me, but sure, let’s do that. We already discussed you being in charge tomorrow afternoon. Since you’re taking half the day, you get half the screen time - that’s 2.5 hours. But you’ll have to find something else to do with the rest of the time.

Etc etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe this is hopeless, but I’d try and push forward with the conversation:

You: I’d like it if you’d do something with DS rather than just give him the ipad.
Him: you can do something with him if you want.
You: yes, and I do. In the last three days we’ve done X, Y, and Z which has been great. But because whenever you’re in charge he does screens, I never feel like I can give him a screen when I’m in charge, because that’s too much screen time. That doesn’t seem fair to me. How much screen time do you think he should get in a week?
Him: I dunno
Y: You’re his parent, that’s not a fair answer. Can you take a moment and think about what’s reasonable?
H: I dunno, maybe 5 hours a day?
Y: that feels like a lot to me, but sure, let’s do that. We already discussed you being in charge tomorrow afternoon. Since you’re taking half the day, you get half the screen time - that’s 2.5 hours. But you’ll have to find something else to do with the rest of the time.

Etc etc.

Sorry, hit submit too fast.

Then, the next day, stick the kid on the iPad for 2.5 hours during your time and relax!

Note that there is give and take here. You can’t make choices unilaterally- if your acceptable amount of screen time is a quarter of your husband’s, too bad. Go with his number for a while. Let him be an equal on the decisions, and he can do his half of the enforcement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Tell your son to ask his dad. "Daddy will you bake a cake with me?" "Daddy can we go outside and play catch?" "Daddy can we go bike riding?"

You're then training the kid to annoy the dad. That's not fair on their DS and the dynamic between father-and-son as they develop.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:2 months of quarantine and beautiful weather. My DH has not once taken our 5 yo outside to do something or done one activity with him indoors. Not one. He has not taken him on a walk, thrown a ball with him, worked with him to ride a bike, taken him on a hike- literally nothing. I used to get around this with activities. DH took DS to Tball and was then motivated to work with him on tball skills. He also would take him to karate and then since we did that with friends, the dads would take the kids to a playground and lunch afterwards. But since those two things are now on hold, DH has done literally nothing with DS. Today I was tired from doing a beach trip yesterday with DS and after spending the morning with DS he was on DH’s watch. My son watched iPad from 12pm to 9pm with one break where they went to the grocery store. I’m so demoralized and tired. I plan so many fun things for DS and do lots of educational things with him but it feels so unfair that all of that is on me. I would like some down time knowing that our child is being looked after well. Not all day screen time. And it means that I can’t do screen time if I need a break bc that’s the only thing does with him. How do I get out of this dynamic? When I try to talk with DH he says that if I don’t like DS doing screen time then I’m free to do something with him.

Divorce.

+1

[Anonymous]

WHere do you live? Only one family member should go to the grocery store. He shouldn't have gone with him.

As for your broader question, I'm sorry. That sucks.

[Anonymous]

My kids have the same dad except he never took them to activities. They are young teens now and don't care for him much. My son told me the other night that I was his mom and dad. I guess all the work I did to make up for my husband's slacking has been good for my relationship with my kids. However, it would have been better if he could be even an average father. In hindsight, I probably should have divorced years ago.

[Anonymous]

You needed downtime from noon to 9pm without engaging your kid? That sounds weird, OP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You needed downtime from noon to 9pm without engaging your kid? That sounds weird, OP.

I agree, though I do think the OP has every right to be exhausted by this dynamic. Perhaps she was just totally tapped out after many days and weeks of being the sole parent, or wanted to see what would happen if she didn’t intervene? I am way too much of a control freak, and would have been in there after a half hour asking my DH what the plan was. But obviously her DH is totally unresponsive to her needs and that of their child. You and your son totally deserve better, OP.