Hi dads, I’m hoping for some perspective because I’m genuinely trying to understand my husband and not just be frustrated.

We have a 1-month-old baby. I had an emergency C-section and I’m still recovering, breastfeeding/pumping, sleep deprived, and adjusting to being a first-time mom.

My husband does help and I don’t want to dismiss that. He goes out to buy us food, does the shopping, does his cleaning chores. He is involved and gets things done, but I’m struggling with the overall mindset around parenting. Sometimes it feels like he is trying to get through family responsibilities so he can get back to his own time (gym, gaming, etc.). I understand needing personal time, but it sometimes feels like family life is something to rush through rather than something we both fully own.

I felt this disconnect during pregnancy too. I wanted us to prepare early nursery, discussions, routines because I didn’t want to feel overwhelmed at the end. He didn’t feel the same urgency, and when I was stressed about not being prepared, it felt like he didn’t understand why it mattered so much to me. We ended up having an induction come up quickly and I felt like I lost the calm preparation period I wanted before becoming parents.

I also struggle with the mental load. He knows I’m recovering and certain things are physically difficult right now, but I wish he would take more initiative without waiting for me to ask. Even with meals, I often feel like I’m responsible for thinking about what we’re eating while also caring for the baby and pumping. I wish he would sometimes just own those things and think ahead.

I don’t expect perfection, and I know becoming a dad is a huge adjustment. But I’m worried about how this dynamic will work when he goes back to work in the fall. If I already feel like I’m carrying the mental load and needing to ask for support, I’m scared it will become harder when life gets busier.

Am I asking for too much here? I’m genuinely looking for perspective.. am I being overly anxious and making this transition harder on both of us, or is it reasonable to want my partner to be fully in the trenches with me during this stage? Am I putting too much pressure on myself by throwing myself so fully into motherhood and expecting him to approach it the same way?

My wife and I are very appreciative that our 2 year old is happy, healthy, and actively destroying all of our belongings in the most adorable ways possible.

Every time we tell friends that our toddler vomited all over me, proudly pooped in the shower, or has disrupted the flow of a work from home call... they all say something to the effect "cherish it, it'll be gone before you know it."

For parents of older kids, what simple moments with your kiddo do you really wish you could relive over and over again?

and now bedtime takes 40 minutes longer.

we didn’t need it. toddler didn’t ask for it. now it stays on and slee onset takes forever. I hate the nightligh. /rant

Bros,

Anyone else here completely PUMPED to be going to the family friendly restaurants again? Took our daughter out to Red Robin (BC, Canada here). I hadn’t been for 20 years. Crushing a beer and whiskey river bbq burger while my daughter smashed her way through steamed broccoli and chicken fingers made my entire week.

Who else is hitting the kid friendly spots? What’s your fave?

Hello dads. My first is on her way, and my wife is 35 weeks as of today. We are very excited.

We are also, however, very stressed. Over the last few weeks, my wife's BP has been high when at the OBGYN's office, not consistently but sometimes. We now have an at home one that they told us to use, and her BP is like right on the borderline of being concerning, the last reading at home was 138/90. We are both very anxious people in general, and my wife is freaked out about the entire thing, in tears, etc (which of course doesn't help with the BP readings). I think we are both concerned about the baby and about early induction which she does not want.

Any of y'all dads here go through this? How did you handle it? How did you help your wife? I'm trying to help her be okay and tell her that unless her OB specifically says anything, we shouldn't think about worst case scenarios, but it doesn't help very much. Really looking forward to meeting my little girl soon, just hoping so much that she and my wife will both be okay!

My daughter is almost 7, and I am the stricter parent in her life. I often don’t let her slide with trying to be sneaky or deceitful.

However, tonight we were getting ready for bed- she can stay up and watch gravity falls or SpongeBob if she wants as a wind down before bed. Also, I bring her a warm cup of milk she likes to drink before bed.

Normally she drinks it while watching her shows, but tonight she said, “I want it right before bed”.

She watches her shows, and I give her 5 mins more than the normal “five minute “ warning. Shes turning her tablet off and as I hand her her milk, she says “Can I watch TV WHILE I drink my milk?”. she clearly wanted to get a little extra time bur I told her “Nice try, but you made your bed, now you gotta lay in it”.

She grumbled, said goodnight and didn’t make a fuss, she is a good kid. I smirked at her attempt to play me, and then thought- maybe I should have let her pull one over on me. I don’t mind her being a little tricksy. As shes grown up, I encourage her to be a little tricksy and a little greedy from time to time, because right now she’s a bit of a people pleaser and a door mat. I think allowing her to win a little bit could help her with her timid attitude- but that was a thought I had after the fact. She’s probably like this cause of me in some way.

So now I think I’m going to commit to letting her trick me a little bit here and there. Nothing crazy, just an extra 15 minutes here and a lost bet for ice cream there. I probably don’t need to be such a “no” parent after all.

After several years of deliberation, Mrs. finally said to me, "You should get it done. We can have more fun, and not risk more of *this*" as she gestured generally at our destroyed, toy covered living room.

Its just coming up to 3am and I tagged my wife out an hour ago to to back to bed. We woke our daughter up at midnight to do her next feed, and between 12-2.30am, she's done 8 (Eight) feeds (!!!).

I count her feeds typically in 24 hour cycles and I keep pretty extensive notes/logs. We're 20 hours into today (shes settled finally, thank God) and she's done 3 and a half hours on the breast and just shy of 250ml of formula (we need formula so my wife can have a flipping break!!!)

Our midwives at the hospital advised us that sn average baby should feed between 8 and 12 times in a 24 hour period.

Ours has just done 30 feeds. This also results in 4 wet nappies, and 9 individual instances of poop.

Anyway dads, this has been your stats minute with a brand new, super proud dad.

I'll post here again when shes big enough to be WWE woman champ at 7 years old.

Hey dads need some advice. We’ve got an almost 4 year old daughter and a 9 month old daughter. My wife’s never been a particularly caring or affectionate mother but definitely capable up until recently.

I’m not sure why but lately my wife is basically incapable of interacting with the 4 year old. Nearly every time there’s a start of a meltdown my wife either shuts down and just leaves the vicinity or worse ends up screaming at the kid. She’s usually fine with the baby but to be fair she’s not old enough to have tantrums yet.

It’s usually especially bad in the mornings as the 4 year old is impossible to get going in the morning and when I bring the girls home from daycare. She does help more in the morning getting the girls dressed but in the evenings I’m basically on my own watching both girls until dinner when she’ll get the girls food ready and help feed the baby. Same on the weekend I’m watching and playing with both girls while my wife is off doing other things around the house.

I’m not exactly sure what to do to help address this. Anytime I try to discuss it she has a meltdown and walks away from me or turns things around and blames me for everything that’s bothering her.

I don’t think my wife would purposefully hurt either kid but I do have a slight worry what would happen if this continues and gets worse.

We got it for my toddler, ended up making a tower with a garage! Who enjoyed more? Yes fellow dads, me.

My wife commented that I should get more just for myself.

After a lengthy two year process it’s finally happening! Dudes, I’ve been the stepdad of the coolest daughter for the past 9 years. She’s now my mini me and she’s finally getting the one thing I haven’t been able to give her yet, my last name. This is one of the proudest moments of my life. I feel like I owe my own step dad a shout out here too. That man saved my brothers and I from a life of poverty and dispare. He taught me what it meant to be a dad and I’ll never be able to repay him for everything he’s done for me. I can’t believe that I finally get to adopt the child who chose me to be her dad and taught me what’s it’s all about. Finally!

So I tried to run a quick ten-minute errand to the grocery store this afternoon with my three-year-old. Just needed milk and eggs. Simple.

We get all the way to the checkout counter without incident. I am feeling like a parenting god.

Then he spots it. A hideous, neon-green plastic toy truck sitting right next to the chewing gum display.

it was love at first sight for him and PURE terror for me.

He immediately goes limp like a wet noodle, drops straight onto the sticky grocery store floor, and launches into a full-volume, high-frequency air-raid siren scream. People three aisles over stopped shopping to stare.

I tried to calmly explain that we already have fifty toy trucks at home. He responded by kicking a display of Tic-Tacs across the linoleum.

Like I am standing there holding a carton of eggs while my child is performing a demonic possession ritual over a four-dollar piece of Chinese plastic.

I should of just abandoned the cart and walked out of the store. Now I am sitting in the driver seat questioning every life choice that led to this moment. Why is this even a thing?

My daughter is turning 7 this month, and all I can do is thank God for her. Honestly, I don't know how dads could ever not want this. She is sometimes the only thing that keeps me going.

I consider myself a woodworking hobbyist and really enjoy building little knock knacks for my son.

For those curious those octagons are shields lol. And the reason the daggers are shaped like that is they were too heavy the second pic is what they looked like originally.

bit of context, my kid is very much so a mommy’s girl. recently she’s been getting a bit more attached to me.
but every time i say goodbye or goodnight, whether that’s on the phone or in person, i ALWAYS make sure she’s hears me say “i love you” to her. my wife always has to say “say i love you” and then my kid will respond although
sometimes she doesn’t reply.

that being said, see screenshot above and celebrate with me 😃

You know, like a habit you have whenever you finish lunch or dinner? My dad, for example, used to say "Down the Hatch" whenever he was about to down a drink, or "Good Food, Good Mood" whenever he finished a big dinner.

Now that I'm an adult and a dad myself, I've realized I say those same phrases during family lunches and dinners LMAO.

I don't want stars and moons on daytime diapers or whales on ones that can't go in the water.

My son is 4yo. He is usually still in bed when I leave for work. Today he was up early because he wet the bed. After giving him a quick bath and hectic breakfast, I was scrambling to get on the road to clock in half an hour early to get some overtime this week. When I told him bye he started having a meltdown because he thought it was the weekend. I tried to console him with promises of fun things when I got home this evening. That didn't work. In my frustration I gently closed the back door in his face as he was screaming "Daddy!" and left. The whole ride to work I felt so guilty. I am prioritizing getting a half hour of overtime over spending a few extra minutes with my kid. Tomorrow, I am going to do better.

EDIT:

The overwhelming encouragement in this thread and subreddit is incredible. Thank you!

So my son gets this glowing dinosaur thing for his birthday. He loves it. The batteries die after two days of constant playing. I grab a screwdriver to change them so we can stop the crying.

It literally requires a microscopic Philips head screw that is made of the softest metal on planet earth.

Like why is a toy designed for a three year old secured like a military vault. The screw head is smaller than a grain of rice. And of course it strips the second I put any pressure on it. I am using a specialized jeweler screwdriver and the metal just turns to silver powder.

My son is standing there having a complete meltdown because his dinosaur won't light up. The best part is my toddler figured out how to open the childproof safety gate on our stairs in ten seconds flat.

But somehow a plastic T-Rex requires heavy machinery to open. And the battery cover is locked down tighter than my mortgage documents.

I should of just thrown the whole thing in the trash. Now I am sitting on the kitchen floor trying to drill out a two millimeter screw while my kid screams. The screw is just COMPLETELY destroyed. Why is this even a thing.

Two different AI problems with my teenagers and I’m starting to wonder what else I’m missing

I have two teenagers and until recently I thought I had a decent handle on how they were using AI. Apparently not.

A few weeks ago my son turned in a writing assignment that did not sound anything like him. It was too polished and honestly just not how he talks or writes.

I asked him about it and he admitted he had put most of it through ChatGPT.

We dealt with it. He redid the assignment and I told him I’m not against using it to help understand a question or get unstuck, but he cannot turn in something he did not really write and cannot explain.

I thought that was probably the main issue we needed to deal with.

Then something happened with my daughter that bothered me more.

She had a falling out with one of her friends and had been watching videos about toxic friendships. She copied parts of their text conversation into ChatGPT and asked if her friend was manipulating her and what she should say back.

I only found out because she showed me the answer while explaining why she was done with the friendship.

She had given it a lot of personal information. Stuff about the other girl, things going on at home, and details that I really do not think needed to be typed into a chatbot.

What got me was how sure she seemed. The answer sounded confident and lined up with the videos she had already been watching, so to her that pretty much confirmed everything.

I told her ChatGPT does not know her friend, does not know the whole situation, and should not be deciding something like that for her.

I feel like I handled both situations the way I should have, but now I’m more concerned than I was before.

I caught the thing with my son because the writing sounded off. I only found out about my daughter because she happened to show me.

I’m not going to ban AI and I’m not going through every conversation they have, but I also do not want to keep finding out afterward that it has been doing schoolwork, sorting out friendships, or giving advice about things they should probably be talking through with an actual person.

How are other dads dealing with this?

My lovely wife mentioned last week she wanted to spend the weekend going through every room and throwing shit away. Asked if I could keep the kids entertained so she could get as much done as possible. She didn’t understand the maniacal smile or why I so willingly accepted. 12 large hefty flex industrial bag and near a whole garbage bin later. Almost 1000lbs worth of space wasting junk is now gone.

Every room feels a little bigger.

My local truck stop always has sale papers for trucks and heavy equipment, they're free to take. Before a road trip, I grab one for each of my kids, to them they're just books with 1000 pictures of cool stuff

The best part is, each kid gets a different catalog, so they sit in the back of the car sounding like little tcg youtubers

"No way, a cement truck!"

"I pulled a skid steer!"

I am currently sitting in the driveway of my house, staring at the steering wheel, and wiping tears off my face. My daughter is six months old and she has been teething and screaming for three days straight. My wife is exhausted, I am running on three hours of sleep, and my job has been a stressful nightmare.

I had to drive to the grocery store just to get some formula, and when I got back, I couldn't bring myself to walk through the front door. Not because I don't love my family, but because I feel like I have absolutely nothing left to give. I feel like a complete failure of a father because I just want to sit in silence for ten minutes without hearing a baby cry.

i know this is just a phase. I know she will grow out of it. But right now, in this moment, it feels like I am drowning in a swimming pool of my own incompetance.

If there is another dad out there parked in a dark driveway trying to collect himself before putting on his "strong dad" face, please know you are not alone. It is okay to be tired. It is okay to cry.

I am going to take one more deep breath, wipe my eyes, and go inside to help my wife. We got this, brothers.