Personal Essay: Dads Don't Babysit
Taking care of our kid doesn't make my husband a saint.
by Jeanne Sager
May 6, 2009
So why is it now culturally acceptable for men to be involved parents, but not to let it go uncelebrated? If I go out into public without my daughter in our small town, someone will invariably ask if "Daddy's babysitting." In 2009, I get that question a lot, even from women my age, women with children and partners of their own — women who should know better.
Calling my husband a babysitter is insulting. He doesn't get paid. He doesn't spend time with our daughter because he's required to or because it's going to get him something (money, sex, whatever). He spends time with our daughter because he is her father, and he kinda, sorta, really likes her. Isn't that why men become fathers? Because they want children?
The comments from women on a recent Strollerderby post about the Daddy-babysitting issue poured in. One woman recounted the story of a kindly seatmate tapping her on the shoulder on a plane to tell her how "lucky" she was because her husband helped give their child a bottle. "Clearly, he deserves a nomination for Man of the Year, because those are the little woman's jobs, and any man who does them is worthy of a ticker-tape parade," she said.
Good mothers are, well, there. And good fathers? They're idolized. Hence the paradox. It's no longer culturally acceptable for men to lay the entire burden of parenting at the feet of the women . . . but he still earns a big pat on the back for doing what women are automatically expected to do. Make no mistake: we are still expected to be good mothers. Even as it's become the norm for women to get out of the kitchen — indeed out of the house — there's still been more backlash against Brit than there has against K-Fed.
Bad mothers are strung up. Bad fathers are shrugged off. Good mothers are, well, there. And good fathers? They're idolized.
A Washington Post article from 2007 meant to celebrate Father's Day ends with what's intended to be a sweet reference to dads' ability to hear their kids crying in the night before their partners do. It turns sour when the author dubs it "mother's intuition."
Because fathers can't be intuitive? Tell that to my husband the next time he hears our daughter cry out, and he's on his feet before she can fall fully from her toddler bed onto the floor. Tell that to a father who fishes a doll's hairbrush from the toilet while his daughter hiccups out an unintelligible string of pleas for help.
Yes, fathers should be respected for being fathers, just as mothers should be for being mothers. Parenting is a hard job. But all the gushing about what a super-duper guy a father is because he figured out how to work the pull tabs on a diaper comes off as patronizing. He's not a martyr because he spends time with his kids and likes reading bedtime stories. He's a parent.
About the Author |
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Jeanne Sager is a freelance writer and photographer living in upstate New York with her husband and daughter, Jillian. She maintains a blog of her award-winning columns at jeannesager.blogspot.com. |
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