Why Daddies Don’t Babysit

Let it be known that my husband is a saint – a superb dad, a model husband. But he doesn’t babysit.

For that matter – no father worth his salt babysits.

They parent.

Since my first outing alone after giving birth – a whopping twenty-minute run to the supermarket and back – I’ve been haunted by the same question. “Oh, your daughter’s not with you? Is Daddy babysitting?”

I usually just grit my teeth and nod, but sometimes I can’t help myself. “No,” he tell them. “He’s not babysitting. You see, he’s her father, and as such, he doesn’t babysit. Babysitting is what someone is hired to do when her parents aren’t available. My husband, her daddy, is home, spending time with his daughter.”

The notion that mothers parent and fathers babysit is outdated at best, downright insulting at worst. Why are fathers, who in this day and age really do put in as much time with their kids as their female partners considered babysitters? They are, after all, doing the same things their wives and girlfriends do – playing games, disciplining, bathing, etc. They have as much to do with the child’s presence on this earth too; and not only in the sense of procreation. They help support their kids financially and emotionally. They get up late at night and fill a medicine dropper with Panadol to soothe a teething tot, and they get up in the morning to make waffles and pour sippy cups full of watered down orange juice.

I don’t know a dad who would call himself anything less. So why do people still treat them like the hired help?

Image: Sager Scenes