husband as "junior partner" in childrearing
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Anonymous
Like badgering my H over every little thing. |
Anonymous
Maybe you can chip them a measure every movement and calorie. |
Anonymous
Even if there were zero red flags, I don’t understand women who go on to have MULTIPLE children with these manbabies. |
Anonymous
Yes, but in real life it’s rare for any of these things to happen. The ‘young man’ that you properly vetted while dating, will turn into the equal partner DH and split parenting duties 50-50. |
Anonymous
| My H fell into some “junior partner” tendencies after our first kid, but I nipped that in the bud by actually leaving the house - like visiting a friend over a long weekend - and letting him figure stuff out. Maybe there were a few more chicken nuggets involved then I’d prefer, but he figured stuff out and gained confidence and our kid was fine. |
Anonymous
My kid with ADHD would do this. She'd get involved in playing on her own in her room and just not pay attention to the fact that she was hungry, getting tired, and probably needed to go to the bathroom. She really does need the external cue of being called to dinner to initiate getting those needs met. Lots of kids need that structure. That's why in most families, the parents dictate when mealtimes happen and call kids to eat, instead of just waiting until kids say they are hungry and seeing how that goes. It takes very little trial and error to discover that waiting for kids to identify their needs and then vocalize them clearly is a good path to meltdowns and frustration. Kids, especially younger kids or those like mine with executive functioning issues, are still learning how to identify and articular needs. Parents are supposed to be helping them do that, not simply hoping they figure it out on their own. |
Anonymous
I hope to god the extreme examples of shitty dads on here are rare. My husband would not forget to feed the kids or have them wear the same clothes for 5 days. No way. But when we were dating he was really excellent at most things he did - excelling in grad school and early career, very good with money and budget when we didn’t have a lot. He did not know how to cook a single thing or do any basic chores (his mom did absolutely everything) but seemed willing to learn to do basic laundry and learn to cook a few simple things. We did get married relatively young but all early signs were of some one who would do a great job on the things that were important to him. It’s been the surprise and disappointment of my life that he doesn’t bring that energy to parenting 90 percent of the time. He loves our kids but he uses himself up at work keeping everybody happy and chasing awards and making sure his work product is flawless and he has nothing left. So he does bare minimum and sometimes it’s really better to do it myself. Our youngest needed an appointment and he promised to be in charge of it and just didn’t. I didn’t nag but eventually I just dealt with it myself. And guess what- the delay caused a lot of problems and a lot of remedial efforts. There are enough examples like this that I just handle the stuff that is important and we have more than some others because of our kids special needs. Things that we might agree as parents are important but then he calls me a worrier and assumes things will magically happen. And I guess they do (to him) because I don’t play chicken with things that affect my kids. I don’t regret having a second even though I knew this was going to be mostly on me- I would do it again. I’m not going to get divorced either. It’s just a really disappointing thing I wish were different. |
Anonymous
Right. Or “in a minute”. Or “as soon as I finish this”. Or whatever excuse. |
Anonymous
Anonymous
| Men who pretend they can’t handle kids are playing you. In our relationship due to my job, my husband handles all aspects of child rearing. Just because someone is a man doesn’t mean they can raise a kid. The person who married the guy who waits for them to come home at 9pm is married to an a-hole and I’d leave that marriage asap. |
Anonymous
|
Listen. One parent reads books and learns about how to grow while raising kids.
One parent doesn’t read a word. Not that reading books makes you good. Lots of people don’t read, but you talk to them, and they have a solid philosophy, or took related college classes, or had a preschool teaching experience, etc etc etc. It’s the effort. The person who doesn’t learn is the junior partner. And they can’t say crap to the senior partner unless they jump in and work at it. |
Anonymous
So that you can split custody with him where he will continue to shirk parenting duties only the consequences for your kids will be much worse? Or so he can torpedo his relationship with your kids, which will have serious repercussions for them as adults? This is why many women stay in marriages with men you are terrible partners but aren't abusive. I don't think anyone here is saying that men can't handle kids. But the PP who talked about "playing chicken" with parenting was spot on. Men play a game of chicken with their partners regarding parenting duties, and women are far less willing to play that game when it comes to the well-being of their kids. I think it's several factors. Women tend to develop stronger bonds with children earlier in life because of pregnancy and sometimes breastfeeding, and that makes them less willing to neglect their kids in the hopes their partner will pick up the slack. There are also social consequences for women who push back on parenting duties that don't exist for men. To use the example from this thread, a woman who chose not to feed her kids dinner until 9 or 10 at night would probably get CPS called on her (or the threat would be there). But in this thread you can see what the consequences are for a man who does this -- his wife gets blamed, or he gets defended as simply "doing it differently." For a mom, that's neglect. For a dad, it's okay. Women are truly in a bind on this. If they divorce, they hurt their kids. If they stay and play chicken, they hurt their kids AND risk social/legal repercussions. But if they stay and just go ahead and do 80% of the parenting, they're a "control freak." You can't win, so you just figure out which of these terrible options is most palatable. For me, and a lot of women, it's to accept that people will accuse me of being controlling because at least in that scenario, my kids get what they need. |
Anonymous
This. It's not about reading books, it's just about putting in the effort and actually focusing on parenting as a valuable undertaking. Someone upthread talked about how if you value something, you'll invest time and energy in it. I think about the effort some men I know put into buying a road bike, a car, following bands, traveling, etc. They do research. They spend time online investigating what experts say, weighing options. They try out different things and see what they like and what they don't. They can talk for hours on these subjects and it's clear they are passionate and invested. I have met a couple men who are like this about parenting. Seriously, like two. But that is the kind of energy a lot of women put into parenting. Not controlling or obsessive, but just like "this really matters to me, I want to do it right." That might mean reading parenting books and trying out some of the techniques, or it could just mean putting in the hours with their kids to learn what works and what doesn't, or just to be present for their kids because they really value the role of parent. |
Anonymous
Agree, but I call troll. No man is ever sitting there complaining he doesn’t get to do a large enough share of the childcare duties |
Anonymous
Some are only casual observers but instead of complaining, they need to step up and do it as equal partners. |