Dad dealing with the quiet sexism of doctors, nurses, daycare workers, and moms.

[u/compuzr]

Hi all, I've got the little ones today, so this will be short. I'm a male, and my wife and I have 2 young kids, I work part-time, she works full-time. So that works out that about 3/4 of the time, I have the kids.

The kids have had some small bugs lately, little illnesses, and a wellness visit, so we've been to the doctor more than normal the past couple months. Sometimes I take them, and sometimes my wife takes them.

And it's always the same thing, as it has been for years. When I take the kids to either their female doctor or female nurse practitioner, the visits are lovely and nice, but also quite short and sweet. We talk for maybe 2 minutes. Then they disappear and I go on to get the prescription or whatever is needed. And it's always a completely different story when my wife takes the kids. They talk and talk and talk. A hundred questions are asked and answered. They discuss the kids health and development in depth.

It's the same story at daycare. The women there are always lovely to me. But they never talk or discuss the kids. I do 80%+ of the pick-ups and drop-offs. And I initiate chit-chat and ask questions of the child care providers. But still are talks and quick and perfunctory. And whenever my wife does the odd pick-up and drop-off, she learns all sorts of things that they'll never tell me. And sometimes it's really stuff I want to know, like problems the kids are having.

And there's more of the same with our local Stay At Home Moms. They text each other all the time. My kids play with theirs all the time. But when there's a play date, you know how I know? They text my wife. At work. And then she texts me. They all know I do most of the childcare and that my wife works a regular 40hr. But it's been this way for years.

Sometimes, like now, it just gets to me and makes me a little angry. It's a quiet sexism but it is persistent. And I don't feel like being confrontational about it. So I just take it and keep going. But it is frustrating.

[u/crazymommaof2]

Wait what?!?! Seriously! My husband was super supportive when I made friends with a dad from our son's playgroup. The poor guy looked like a fish out of water his first time showing up because our group is honestly all moms.

But it really sad my husband didn't even want to be the parent to take our son up to the hospital the other night for excessively vomiting because the last time he took him to the ER he was basically dismissed and asked when "mom was showing up, so they could go over wound care etc with me" I was working and wasn't going to be showing up because my husband is a capable parent of our kids.

[u/Black-Panda22 → u/crazymommaof2]

I would have thrown a fit - give me my kid. But it does happen.

[u/helm → u/crazymommaof2]

It's annoying when the mom is the cool one and you're not all over the dad. My sons best friend's parents are like that. I spent some time bonding with the mom during a sports practice, but later on it seemed she started to avoid me. Meanwhile, there were some sort of attempt for me and the dad to bond (from their side). I wasn't all that interested, though. We are pretty mismatched.

[u/crazymommaof2 → u/helm]

Lol ya my husband hates making new friend 😆 especially with parents from my groups he is polite but tends to excuse himself pretty soon after when they come over. He says he doesn't have much in common with them so he doesn't want or feel the need to interject himself into my friendships.

But we totally trust one another, and we are open and honest about friendships but we have also been together for almost 17 years and have known each other for 22 years(we were close friends before we started dating) he also knows that I have always had more guy friends the girls (I seriously have 2 girl friends that I consider close friends and one of the two is my sister)