Married guys: is your wife expecting you to babysit more than ever during the COVID lockdown?

No, I don’t “babysit” my own child

Dr. Van Nostrand wrote:

No, I don’t “babysit” my own child

Nice! How do you get out of it?

People without kids acting like they know what it’s like to have kids is something I always get a kick out of. Yes, it’s their choice to have kids.

Kids are difficult. Especially when they’re young. Why can’t people admit it’s hard and talk about it without being called a bad parent? Everyone just supposed to smile and act like their life is awesome at all times even when it’s not?

My wife prefers that I stay home and help with our kids. We can do without the $5/hour I could get from babysitting, but it would be nice to get free popsicles.

yxooooo wrote:

People without kids acting like they know what it’s like to have kids is something I always get a kick out of. Yes, it’s their choice to have kids.

Kids are difficult. Especially when they’re young. Why can’t people admit it’s hard and talk about it without being called a bad parent? Everyone just supposed to smile and act like their life is awesome at all times even when it’s not?

I don't think you'll find anyone that argues that it's not difficult.

But I do think you'll find people standing up to a whining parent that is suddenly face-to-face with the fact that their spouse is doing a tremendous amount of child-rearing that they've apparently been oblivious to, a la the OP.

If you're just hanging out at home with your family its not called babysitting.

just here to commiserate wrote:

Mine sure is. In fact, it just never stops. During "regular life," we basically split the evening so that I have the kids while my wife makes dinner and then we switch off. Now it's like "well since you're home..."

Not that I mind it, but man juggling kids can make simple tasks difficult and time consuming.

Not really but I think I can speak for her when I say she wants all of us out of the F'ng house ASAP so she can have her days back. And I need to go back to work to relax a little! Problems of the privileged I suppose.

During covid both my wife and I work full time (14 hrs days), rotate kid stuff around, and still both workout.

The f you being so lazy about?

14 hours a day working?!?! So that leaves 10 hours for sleep, showering, prepping meals, eating meals, engaging with children, working out, taking dumps, posting on letsrun.... you should spend a little more time taking dumps, because you are full of sh.....

It depends on the ages of your kids too. There’s a reason day care’s charge extra for or don’t take the littlest ones. They need a ton of attention, and if you have more than one it’s tough to do it all day if you’re not used to it, no two ways about it. The key is to find a rhythm, align their naps if they’re little, establish tv time as down time, get outside with them, maybe go for a drive, block off places you can see where they can play on their own. Just being on the floor with them all day definitely sucks, you gotta get into a rhythm.

just here to commiserate wrote:

Mine sure is. In fact, it just never stops. During "regular life," we basically split the evening so that I have the kids while my wife makes dinner and then we switch off. Now it's like "well since you're home..."

Not that I mind it, but man juggling kids can make simple tasks difficult and time consuming.

Troll much? News flash for you: ‘babysitting’ is looking after someone else’s kids. What your wife is asking you to do is called ‘being a father’. Try to keep up, son.

My wife retired a month ago and she wants me to babysit her constantly

Yeah, it's hard to shift your usual pattern. It is a whole new mindset to be selfless. It isn't that you don't want to adapt, it's just not easy. I get it.

Can you imagine what it would be like to have to be that selfless ALL of the time? And then, to have your spouse expect you to always bend your schedule to enable him (or her) to perform well and earn the big bucks at work? I mean, just because you are home, your mind still has to deal with work issues. You need to have some down time to allow for fresh solutions to appear. Your spouse will never get it. And now you have to worry even more about what "work" will be like when we all gamble on dropping the social distancing. It is hard to hold it together. She probably will never really understand you. She has no idea! How does it feel to be constantly marginalized, so misunderstood, so unappreciated?

yxooooo wrote:

People without kids acting like they know what it’s like to have kids is something I always get a kick out of. Yes, it’s their choice to have kids.

Kids are difficult. Especially when they’re young. Why can’t people admit it’s hard and talk about it without being called a bad parent? Everyone just supposed to smile and act like their life is awesome at all times even when it’s not?

+1

Good ol' pretentious people without kids

It’s all about the age. If you have a 2 and a 4 year old it’s exhausting to watch them all day. If they’re older they don’t need your attention every second.

Can’t wait for society to be back to at least somewhat normal. It’s so hard for so many people right now with or without kids. A lot of financial stress and so many unknowns.

I wonder if Tanya makes Mo Farah babysit the kids. He probably isn't allowed to travel away to remote places anymore with all the travel bans now

I have a big crush on my kid's baby-sitter ;).

Some people are actually productive...

6 hrs of sleep, make basic meals and make extra for next day's lunch etc or make meals for a few days. Kids can play by themselves somewhat.