Many parents struggle with figuring out how to manage parenting as a team. Sometimes, parents rely on one party more than the other. Other times, parents try their best to be complete equals in parenting and marriage. However, some parents struggle with finding that “right balance.”
When both parents work full-time, it can be challenging.
Some parents struggle when both parties work full-time. No parent wants to neglect their children, but it’s important to them to have money for their family, too.
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One mother wrote into Reddit seeking advice on the balance with her husband.
The mom shared that the couple has a two-year-old son. Both she and her husband work full-time, so they have a nanny during the day, and usually, grandma helps during the afternoons. Apparently, the mom does all the bedtime routine with her son by herself.
The mom is going on a business trip and asked her sister if she can “help out” for the night.
Her mom is going to be out of town, so she asked her sister to help out with the night routines. Apparently, her sister is a bit confused as to why her husband doesn’t step up to do the nights, as he’ll be home.
But, the Reddit user says the problem is she doesn’t want to “force” her husband to do hands-on child care.
She claims her husband isn’t, “super into the baby stage.”
“My husband (like a lot of parents!) isn’t super into the baby stage, and prefers not to take on the bulk of the hands-on parenting yet. He’s really excited for the ‘kid’ stage to start in a few years, but prefers a more traditional parenting dynamic for now,” she wrote.
She had a routine established with her son after taking maternity leave.
“I took the full three months of maternity leave, so by the time I was back to work full-time, I already had a great routine down with the baby, and my husband pointed out that it was much more logical for me to handle the things I was already good at, rather than stress out our son by leaving him with someone who wasn’t an experienced caregiver (as opposed to my mother and sister and me),” she added.
Her sister claims that the Reddit user is “enabling” her husband.
“My sister says I’m ‘mistreating’ my son by ‘denying him time with his dad’ because I’m “enabling” my husband being ‘an abjectly s***** father’.
I was stunned by this because I feel like he’s a great dad, he was super supportive during my pregnancy and talks all the time about all the stuff they’re going to do with each other once [our] son gets big enough.
It’s not like he refuses to spend time with our son, or complains about him. Plus, he is the one pushing for us to start trying next year for the next baby,” she wrote.
The Reddit user is confused, thinking that their situation is not out of the ordinary.
“I just don’t feel like our situation is out of the ordinary? Or that my husband is any worse a dad than any other dad I know! All of my close friends with kids also work, and I don’t really notice their husbands being any more ‘active’ about parenting than my husband is,” she said.
However Reddit users disagree with this mom.
Many Reddit users said this is wrong and that this mom is totally acting like an “asshole” here.
“What kind of nonsense is this? ‘Into the baby part’??? Ma’am that man is responsible for this child at EVERY STAGE, not when he feels like it. You’ve let this go on for way too long. It’s more than his turn. Your sister is right.
This is not a ‘traditional’ parenting dynamic, this is toxic and unhealthy and it’s the reason the older generations have so much family strife. Make that man do his job. What kind of man doesn’t want to wipe his kid’s butt?” one person asked.
Others said it’s no wonder this dad wants another baby—he’s so “hands-off.”
“No, that’s not normal for a parent not to be able to parent their child. Your sister has three kids and you want to have her take on your kid while your husband gets to be all ‘Meh, kid isn’t fun yet’? Holy hell, dude. Your sister is right. He’s not even close to a great dad. Great dads parent from day one. Not when it’s convenient or fun for them. Of course, he wants another baby! He hasn’t had to do any of the work,” one person added.
Do you agree with the Reddit users? Is it time for this dad to step up?
