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[quote=Anonymous]There is far less pressure on men to parent well from all corners. I know I get pressure from my family, my husband's family, my friends, coworkers, society, the DCUM boards... I know I'm a good mom, but I also work really hard at it. And I STILL feel like people are judging me for my parenting.

Meanwhile, when my husband takes our kids to the grocery store (pre-Covid, obviously), people will literally stop him to tell him how great he is doing. Not an exaggeration. The standards for men across the board are so low that a man doing the grocery shopping while keeping an eye on a couple kids is a folk hero. Meanwhile, a billion women do this and more all the time and people just roll their eyes at us and gossip about whether or not we're doing it right.

So OP: yes, maybe your friend could be looking for ways to facilitate her husband becoming a more competent father. Certainly I would recommend she do that for her own sake, because being a mom is incredibly hard and having a partner who can't parent on his own AT ALL would make it so much worse. But also, what are his parents like? Her parents? Does his job accommodate him being a primary parent or do they do what most employers do and just assume his female partner with handle the bulk of childcare? This isn't entirely on her. In fact, maybe the fact that our societal expectations for fathers are in the basement has made her think that she can't expect anything more from her husband either. How about instead of shaming her anonymously, you tell her that while you think she's a great mom, you think it's ridiculous that her husband isn't stepping up. Be on her side. Maybe no one else is.[/quote]

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