When you differ on parenting issues and one person doesn't want to be the bad guy

[fairfarmhand]

In many couples, one person is the "carer" They care about more stuff with the kids. The other parent is just more mellow. Things that bug the "Carer" don't necessarily bug the non-carer. It's not that the non-carer thinks that the Carer is silly, it's just that those things really don't bug the Non carer to that degree.

 

Stuff like making beds, certain chores, behaviors, whatever.

 

So if one parent is more particular about things, how does the non carer frame things so the Carer isn't always the bad guy?

 

For instance, Non Carer doesn't really get bothered by having to tell the kids to pick up their shoes every single day. Carer gets extremely irritated by such things.

 

Non Carer doesn't care about bed making or towels folded just so, Carer gets frustrated by such things.

 

The Carer frequently feels that the Non-Carer makes him/her out to be the bad guy because Carer is the only person who says anything about those issues.

 

How does that work practically?

 

Or am I the only family with this kind of problem that crops up often.

[Paige]

IMO, the carer should make an effort to chill out if he or she doesn't want to be the nagger and the non-carer should make an effort to care a little more out of respect for the carer. They should both move towards the center- both sides need to compromise. 

[Farrar]

Both sides have to compromise a little. Non-carer has to be able to say to the kids things like, "Hey, you've got to do better," and "Dad/Mom may care more about that than me, but we all have things we are particular about. You wanted those crusts cut off your sandwich yesterday. We have to respect what everyone needs, especially if it's something little like this." Non-carer should definitely never roll their eyes or undermine the carer with the kids about it. But the carer has to let go a little and recognize when things aren't "hills to die on" and to not nag or lose their temper with the non-carer and the kids. Carer has to recognize that some people just aren't bothered by unmade beds or spine up books or whatever and you can't force them to care. And that it's not some deep flaw in their character or anything like that. It's just a preference.

[maize]

Which parent spends most time with the kids?

 

In our case, I'm the laid-back person. I'm also the one doing 95% of the day to day parenting. I would be miserable trying to enforce somebody else's standards all day long.

 

Dh is welcome to politely teach and enforce his standards when he is with the children and actually parenting, but no way does he get to act like my boss requiring me to enforce stuff that doesn't seem important to me.

 

Maybe you can agree together on some mutual standards; this would almost certainly involve compromise on both parts.

[2ndGenHomeschooler]

You aren't the only family with this issue. I was actually just thinking through a parenting issue that our carer/non-carer partnership needs to figure out. I'm curious to hear how other families handle this.

[regentrude]

Person A who cares about issue X is the person who nags about issue X.

Person B who does not consider issue X important will not nag, but also not undermine person A's authority by saying in front of kids that issue X is stupid. But I think it is fine if he or she says things like "you know parent A hates it if you leave your shoes in the kitchen, put them away".

 

Sometimes roles switch and person B cares bout issue Y which does not matter to person A.

 

Parents should back each other up on the important things that have long term consequences or are safety issues and try to present a united front. Unimportant stuff belongs to the person who owns the issue.

So, if it were important to me that towels are folded a certain way, I need to be the one to enforce it. My DH does not give a hoot, and it would be futile to expect him to enforce something he considers as unimportant as towel folding.

Edited February 7, 2017 by regentrude

[Guest]

As long as it's reasonable to me I just shrug and say you know dad wants you to do XYZ.

 

If it's unreasonable.... Usually because he just doesn't know something about our days that makes his declaration very inconvenient..... I just tell dh that.

 

No one is worried about looking like the bad guy, though. We are good parents. Good guys by default :) But I don't have teens, either so grain of salt.

[SparklyUnicorn]

I accept that we each do things a different way, but under no circumstance am I going to enforce a rule that makes my life suck. 

 

This doesn't come up very often though.

 

 

[Bambam]

I believe it is important for both parents to interact with their children as well as remind and encourage them to do or not do things. 

 

If one is the only interacting person, it will not go well for that parent long term. The other parent may well be viewed as 'better' regardless of anything else. 

[Garga]

We ran into this last month.  DH likes the house tidier than I do.  He is happy to clean the house and if I'm honest, he probably does at least half of the cleaning and sometimes more.

 

But every day when he comes home, the school books would be scattered all over the living room on tv trays, making it hard for him to squeeze through our tiny (teeny tiny) living room to get to the kitchen to unload his lunch dishes. 

 

And then, when he gets to the kitchen, our breakfast and lunch dishes are still in the sink.

 

It drove him a little bonkers.  

 

From my POV, school time is school time, dinner time is dinner time, and after dinner is chore time.  When DH works late, it works out great for us. We focus on school all day, I cook dinner as soon as school is done while the kids take a break, and after we eat we're all ready to get up and tidy the house.  But that just doesn't work for DH who has to navigate the books in the living room and then has to balance his dirty dishes on top of ours.

 

 

DH was coming home and immediately launching into lectures about cleaning up and being cranky and overall being very unpleasant to be around.  

 

But in the end, I realized it doesn't take much to tidy up the books and dishes, and I realized it was easier all around to switch our chore time (for dishes and books anyway) to just before he walks in the door.  So, until 5:15, there are books and dishes, and then from 5:15 to 5:30 we clean it up, and when he walks in at 5:30, he doesn't start lectures about "putting things away as soon as you're done with them!"  (Which is pretty reasonable, but ...)

 

I don't know what I'd do if he was that way about everything else in the house.  I couldn't live up to high standards all day long if I don't care about them for myself.  So, it's a balancing act.  The books and dishes were easy to handle.  I couldn't take it if he wanted a spotless house.  We'd both be pretty miserable, because I just don't care about spotless.

Edited February 7, 2017 by Garga

[Seasider]

Well I have been known to actually say to dh every now and then, "It's your turn to be the bad cop."

 

He gets it. He generally enjoys his role as funloving hero dad but can lay down the law if necessary. But we did have to have a conversation when the kids were younger about how it wasn't really fun for me to always be the enforcer.

[lllll]

nm

Edited February 10, 2017 by --Kathy--

[Another Lynn]

Excellent question. This is when I think of the white witch in Narnia - I have no interest in prisoners- kill them all! (Children and non-carer alike. Before it spreads. ). 😂

[eternalsummer]

the question is how do you manage it when you are both home all day.

[kbutton]

If one is the only interacting person, it will not go well for that parent long term. The other parent may well be viewed as 'better' regardless of anything else. 

 

 

Well I have been known to actually say to dh every now and then, "It's your turn to be the bad cop."

 

But we did have to have a conversation when the kids were younger about how it wasn't really fun for me to always be the enforcer.

 

Ideally, it should be a compromise, and it should be based on what is really important to both parties. But, if the other spouse just doesn't engage much at all, I tend to think that spouse is not helping at all by not engaging. It puts the one on top of things in a bad light no matter what, particularly if the kids are high-maintenance (low-maintenance kids, probably not so much).

 

Sometimes even if the laid back spouse says they don't think the non-laid back spouse is silly, their lack of backing up the non-laid back spouse screams otherwise to both the children and the non-laid back spouse.

 

Individual differences may change that equation, but neutral is rarely ever neutral in reality. You're either helping or hindering. 

 

I will also note that sometimes it's more about the timeline of what needs to be done and when--different people perceive laid back or fussy sometimes over the how vs. the actual substance of the chores. Give me a list instead of coming up with things one at a time--if someone gives me little bits of things all day long, I lose my mind, and I would rather not help even if I care about exactly the same stuff. Let me have my list of jobs and back off. If the kids can't handle a list and a little hands-off, that limits things (mine need constant redirection at times), but when I was a kid, it really chapped my hide to think that I was done, and then here comes something else out of nowhere. The task here/task there out of the blue thing made one of my parents seem way more laid back than the other. (Until the seemingly laid back parent was laid off, and we were out in the garden by 7 AM "before it got hot" so that "we could get all work done asap," lol!) 

[Katy]

DH always says, "What did your mother say?"

 

That way he only has to care about backing me up, not the things that bug me but not him.

[thessa516]

You back one another up. "Hey kids, you know Dad doesn't like it when dishes are left in the sink. Please put them in the dishwasher." Then my DH tells the kids, "Hey kids, you know Mom really likes it when her towels are folded a certain way. Let's help her out by making sure we fold them the way she likes them. Won't she be so pleased when she sees them put away nicely?" And in the meantime, both DH and I try to chill out about our particular issues.

[Alice]

You back one another up. "Hey kids, you know Dad doesn't like it when dishes are left in the sink. Please put them in the dishwasher." Then my DH tells the kids, "Hey kids, you know Mom really likes it when her towels are folded a certain way. Let's help her out by making sure we fold them the way she likes them. Won't she be so pleased when she sees them put away nicely?" And in the meantime, both DH and I try to chill out about our particular issues.

 

 

This. If we're talking about things that really don't matter but that are really more a preference then we both try to respect the other person. 

 

I think it's important in a marriage to realize that the other person has issues that they care about and try to respect those and do them when possible. It's also important to realize that the issues that you care about might not be ones the other person does and if they do something differently it's not because they are a terrible person. I think we try and pass that on to our kids as well. In my opinion it's ok to just tell the kids that the reason to fold the towels a certain way, or load the dishwasher or whatever is because Mom/Dad likes it that way. It could be said in a dismissive and disrespectful tone "Oh, kids, your Mom is so uptight. She has to have the towels just so." Or it could be said in a caring and respectful way like in the quote above. Similarly, the person who does care can be nagging and uptight "How could you not put the towels away correctly? How  many times have I asked you guys to do it the right way? Your Dad never does it right?" or can be understanding..."Hey guys, I know this is just a thing of mine but I really like it when the towels are folded this way. I know I'm a little crazy but I really appreciate it when you guys do it that way." 

 

if we are talking about bigger issues, like amount of screen time or bedtimes or curfews or something then we would always try to talk it out first and then come to a compromise before telling the kids. Sometimes if I'm not sure what dh thinks about an issue I'll just tell the kids "I need to talk to Daddy first and see what he thinks." And he would say the same thing if he wasn't sure what I thought. 

Edited February 8, 2017 by Alice

[Guest]

Well, in my family, I'm the Carer. It is also known that I am the bad guy when it comes to certain issues. I guess I'm not all that bothered by that being my role; I simply care more about order in my environment and the Non-Carer mostly just goes along with it; i.e., "Guys, you better clean up the Nerf Darts because you know Miss D is going to get sick of them."

 

But there are a few instances where DH is the Carer and I'm the Non-Carer, notably the ubiquitous "kids needs a haircut" argument and "why is everyone still in bed?" Argument. I'm the Non-Carer about these things. Let their hair grown into a pony tail if they want who cares? But the Carer cares. So eventually the haircuts happen.

[Guest]

You back one another up. "Hey kids, you know Dad doesn't like it when dishes are left in the sink. Please put them in the dishwasher." Then my DH tells the kids, "Hey kids, you know Mom really likes it when her towels are folded a certain way. Let's help her out by making sure we fold them the way she likes them. Won't she be so pleased when she sees them put away nicely?" And in the meantime, both DH and I try to chill out about our particular issues.

I'm outta likes. But - yup. This.

[LMD]

I agree with regentrude, and just wanted to add that I may appear to be unsupportive/uncaring, but if it's not a priority for me it's difficult to even see the issue!

Carrying on with the towels, I'd hope that after a long while I'd remember out of respect to parent A, but I likely will forget occasionally because noticing how towels are folded is not something I naturally do.

[foxbridgeacademy]

I am the carer.... was the carer.  I fussed over everything, until I realized it was making me miserable.  I decided I wanted to be happy so one of things I did was stop fussing over every little thing.  Guess what? I'm happier and so are the kids.  Odd thing happened, the non-carer started to fuss more often, not a lot but definitely a noticeable amount.  It did help me when DH would ask (in a gentle please don't rip my head off voice) is it really that big of a deal?  And when I got down to it, it wasn't that big of a deal and I was in actuality upset about something else and I just fixated on the "thing".   I started to consider do I want happy smiling children or a clean house? Which was more important to me?  Kids win every time.

[Artichoke]

the question is how do you manage it when you are both home all day.

 I'm assuming only one of you is employed outside the home. 

 

 

DH works at home for some part of every day and all day some days.   He has a spare bedroom as an office and keeps to himself.  Before that he worked in our bonus room with the door shut.   It's like he's not even here.  Otherwise he's distracting the kiddos ( one kiddo now ) and then not happy when we interrupt him.   He does come out at lunch and occasionally during the day, and I also take him water and coffee.   Frankly, I'm "the boss" during week day school days since I'm the one dealing with day to day activities.    

 

The first few times he worked at home, it was chaotic.  We had to sit down and talk about his work goals and the kids' school goals before things got better.  Dh also had to decide if he wanted to give up his favorite work spot in the dining room, or if he wanted to deal with disruptions.  As pp have said, it's a compromise.   Best wishes as you find a solution for you and yours.

[eternalsummer]

We both work from home, and in the main living space; we don't have a separate office at the moment.

 

Disruptions is putting it mildly!  But I remind myself that someday I will miss the chaos, even though my house will remain clean for more than 5 minutes.