~by Haley Lynn Gray~
My husband was thoroughly confused the first time he took our three oldest children to the zoo by himself. People kept approaching him all day to congratulate him — on babysitting.
Let me be clear, in case there’s any doubt: it is not babysitting when they are your own children. It is called being a parent.
What that word gives away
Babysitting is something you do for someone else, temporarily, usually for money. Using it for a father with his own children reveals the assumption underneath: that the children are fundamentally the mother’s responsibility, and he’s covering her shift.
Nobody has ever stopped me in a zoo to congratulate me on babysitting.
The same assumption shows up as “helping.” He’s helping with the children. Helping with the house. Help is what you provide with someone else’s job.
It costs fathers something too
This is the part that gets missed. The framing patronises men as thoroughly as it burdens women.
It treats a father spending a day with his children as an unusual event deserving applause, rather than an ordinary Tuesday. It sets the bar on the floor — and a bar on the floor is its own kind of insult.
Both parents can look after children perfectly competently. Differently, sometimes. Competently, both.
And it shows up at work
The workplace version is quieter and more expensive.
A father who leaves early for a school pickup is often admired; a mother doing the same is noted. A man who takes parental leave is unusual and praised; a woman taking it is expected and, quietly, marked down.
The assumptions are the same ones, wearing office clothes — and they shape who gets offered the demanding project.
If you employ people: notice whether you describe a father’s childcare arrangements differently from a mother’s. Most of us do, without intending to.
What to say instead
To a father with his children: nothing at all is fine. Or “they’re lovely” — which is what you’d say to a mother.
To a couple dividing the work: ask how they’ve arranged things, rather than assuming one of them is standing in for the other.
And at home, divide by ownership rather than assistance. My husband isn’t helping me with the laundry. He owns it — and has done, undisputed, for 34 years.
Not babysitting. Parenting.
