Daddy Daycare

[pandafunfactory]

Wtf is it with this? Why are perfectly sensible chaps describing themselves in this way when they are simply looking after their kids. It's naff and twee and American (shudder). I think it should be stamped out.

Aibu?

YANBU!

Surely it's just 'father looking after his children'. I can't imagine anyone looking at a woman with children and thinking 'oh isn't that lovely, she's giving her husband a break'.

Absolutely gets my goat!

Yes exactly nobod6 takes about 'nurturer nursery' or 'mama minding'

YaNBU!!
My absolute pet hate when my DC were younger was if (on rare occasions) I had a night out without DH, someone without kids would say " oh is FatherMorph babysitting??"
I always said no, hes parenting. I went out when DD was 2 and the woman who organised the meal was acting as if DH was an actual rocket scientist because he was looking after DD, and would put her to bed. She had older DC but had to get them ready for bed, make sure they'd brushed their teeth and even had a glass of water by their bed before even attempting to come out. It completely baffled me why being male prevented her DH from doing any of those things. Presumably he could brush his own teeth and knew how to get a glass of water although I suspect he would have asked his DW to do the water for him

If it helps this annoys DH too.

(Today DH has a day off, DD is at home and DS at holiday club. DD asked what she's doing today and DH says "I'm looking after you" which is what we'd both say. For work we'd both say "unavailable on Thursday for childcare reasons")

I hate it!!! My ex used to ‘babysit’ when we were together and these days he takes my son out as a favour to give me a break 😏

It's one of the reason I knew my dh was a winner. I had separated from my ex dh and was out with friends, someone asked if their dad was 'babysitting' for me and dh who was out with some of the people I was with, piped up and said 'that's a ridiculous thing to say, surely he's just with his own children not babysitting'
He was young & childless, so if he got it, there's no excuse for anyone!!

I worked with a man who would say things like ‘got to be off on time tonight babysitting the kids while the mrs goes out’ WTF!!! Bet his wife didn’t refer to her job as SAHP as babysitter or nanny. I pointed out on several occasions he was parenting not babysitting and looked flabbergasted!

Whenever I am out with my DC people will do a sort if comedy double take and ask if I'm missing something, meaning the DC, even the ones who don't do this will ask me "who has got the kids?". Everytime I am out with the DC at least one person will ask this.

From speaking to DH, he cannot ever remember being asked "who has got the kids?" when he is out without them.

That should say "whenever I am out without my DC"

@MotherMorph that would wind me right up as well. Not sure why men are treated like rocket scientists / modern day saints for doing every day stuff. Maybe she was stupid enough to let her husband pull the babysitting card?

My mother is still amazed my fiancé cleans the oven. Why would l do everything? I work just as many hours as him -often more. He eats food in the house and cooks in the oven so why not clean it sometimes as well?

Drives me bananas too.
Not babysitting if it's your own kids

@WhatKatyDidNxt my mum is similar. She was horrified one afternoon to find DH doing the dinner dishes and said "but he's been at work all day!" in a tone that implied I'd perhaps spent the day skipping through meadows.

My NDN is unbelievably old fashioned and chauvinist. He constantly tells me how lucky I am because DH cooks because he loves cooking I usually reply by saying DH is lucky to have me as well, so we're well suited.

YANBU. The attitude to men doing childcare never ceases to amaze me. I worked with a guy who just quietly started coming in late two days a week so he could do a school run. Over time, people figured it out and it was all, "ooh, he's such a good guy. Such a great dad." And there I was, having asked to work from home ONE DAY A WEEK so that I could actually SEE my child before and after work who was treated like I was asking to go to half hours..... infuriating.

It also annoys DH. When he first became a SAHD and DS was tiny, he found two particular responses that made him want to scream:

1. People going on and on about how lovely it was that he was willing to look after his kid
2. People thinking that he needed additional advice. I mean, I think we all get this but for women it's often more a judgement thing, "oooh, you're bottle feeding? Interesting". He would get people (usually older women) coming up to him and literally grabbing the bottle out of his hand to correct his technique or whatever.

[Then had hilarious situation where on a day that had happened, and he was annoyed, he accidentally didn't put bottle lid on and promptly poured milk all over DS....]

One of my friends used to say she couldn’t come out because she was babysitting. Used to drive me mad. No, you are not babysitting, you are looking after your own children! There is a massive difference.

Surely it's just because of the film?

Oh god, I HATE this. So many of my (female) friends use this expression and it drives me nuts. It's a sentiment that's everywhere though - my partner can't take our toddler out for the day without getting congratulated by well-meaning old ladies. Imagine!

@WhatKatyDidNxt I’m amazed that anyone cleans the oven
(Only kidding, it is something that gets done occasionally, but definitely not as often as it should!)

There is a bit of context sometimes - my DH has just taken my DD out “to give me a break”. That’s because she is much more used to spending time with me (DH was not in a position to take paternity leave when she was born, so did very little care in her first year, when I returned to work I was initially part time etc etc) so she prefers to spend time with me when we’re all at home. So since breakfast, he’s been able to do some work in the study while I played with her in the sitting room, but that tends not to work the other way round as if she knows I’m an option, she’ll want to come and interrupt me. So he takes her out “to give me a break”.

It occurs to me that people in the village probably think he does hugely more of the childcare than he does - because he always takes her out rather than playing with her at home, his parenting is much more viewed than mine! I bet there are people that think he’s a knight in shining armour for looking after her “so much”

Yeah I hate this. DH and I call it "on duty" to each other about each other (dh, I'm out Friday night, you're on duty/dw I'm out Saturday you're on duty).

But I do get asked who is babysitting when I'm out. I just say "no one".

My MIL once came round to find my (then) DH ironing his workshirts.

'Doesn't she iron?' he asked him.

I had four children under five. Damn right I didn't iron.

@Zaphodsotherhead I think my real hate for BIL started when, fairly soon after they moved in together, she was working 50+ hours a week in a well paid, stressful job. He was earning min wage, doing 36 hours in the form of three 12 hour shifts. They were arguing about housework and he said, "You know, you should be doing my ironing but I don't ask you to do that, you should be grateful."

It could only go downhill from there....

PS DH keeps offering to do my ironing because I hate doing it so much. But I can't bring myself to let him. I've also never ironed a thing of his in my life.

Mine used to be house husband.
Was very annoyed when his kinder duty was changed.
Roster was changed so he could be on duty when the fire engine came!
Also there was a washing roster, he never got to do the washing for kinder.
Funny how that all changed when he went back to work and I was the house wife. Kinder washing found me no problems.

It’s a dreadful phrase clearly implying that Ownership of parenting lives elsewhere with the mother. And also dad expects big round of applause of keeping his own children alive and fed for a day.

See also people congratulating dads of taking the baby for a walk in the pram or their own children to a museum as if this is worthy of a medal.