Do dad’s babysit?

One of my pet hates is when mum’s or dad’s say that ‘dad is babysitting’.  You don’t babysit your own kids or so I thought!  I babysat for a friend last night and it made me think about this.  As a teen I used to do a lot of babysitting.  One of my most memorable jobs was babysitting for magicians with pink hair and their dog was pink as well.  As a single parent my mum had 3 jobs at times and one of them was in a bar and they were one of the acts.

Anyhow, when I used to babysit, it meant I had kitchen privileges.  I could help myself to anything in the kitchen, sometimes this included the liquor cabinet (tsk tsk), and I’d sit on my butt all night watching telly, only getting up to settle or check on kids if necessary and usually fall asleep on the sofa in front of the TV only to be woken up by the parents when they came in.

When I think about it my husband doesn’t do much different when he looks after Madame. He’s normally asleep on the sofa in front of the telly when I come in.  So maybe I should call it babysitting??  It’s not like he takes the opportunity to do a bit of tidying, laundry or anything else helpful.  The only differences I can see is I don’t pay him $2.00 an hour and hopefully he doesn’t sneak his boyfriend in!  ;-)

Author: mediocremum

A slightly older mum of one, who drinks far too much red wine and has an unhealthy obsession with her slow cooker. During the day she's an ICT Trainer, Social Media/Online Marketing consultant and does a bit of public speaking. Full Profile on Google+

12 thoughts on “Do dad’s babysit?”

  1. *LOL* my beloved OH does say this even though doesn’t mean it and it drives me nuts! Glad I am not the only one
    Kirsten

  2. You know something I have to ‘ask’ Doo my OH to ‘look after’ our youngling while I go and have a shower or something as sometimes he doesnt seem to think about doing it automatically. He is fabulous dad mind you but you know men they don’t seems to think the way that we do, do they?

    Thanks for sharing, very interesting.
    Take care
    Kate Collings (your newest follower)
    xx

    http://www.katecollings.blogspot.com – always welcoming new followers, guests, and comments xx

  3. My OH does this as well, it really does my head in. So I usually respond with something like ‘no, you are taking an active parenting role with your one and only child, you babysit other people’s kids!’

  4. Ok so I say I’m “babysitting” when I look after our children. The term emphasises how little child care I do in comparison with my good lady wife and how infrequently she goes out in the evening in comparison with me. I think that is simply a reflection of the very traditional parenting roles we chose to take on when we started a family and not insulting. It’s also a marvellous non-PC term which is probably why I like it so much.

  5. My husband seems to think he babysits instead of doing exactly what I do every single night – not exactly sure what is so special about being on night duty for your own children (um can you tell this is a bit of an issue chez Muddling!)

  6. My ex used to say that all the time… and I totally agree with you! It annoyed me so much. He was a real man’s man and on the rare occasion I went out and saw his mates they would ask who was babysitting…. I’d say no-one… the children’s dad is at home… they really didn’t get it!

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