Babysitters?

Else-net, I read a post on a message board I've been participating in for about a year...since early in my pregnancy with my daughter. On this message board, someone referred to her husband's taking care of their child as "babysitting." I couldn't even begin to respond to the question she was asking, which was very reasonable one because I was so frustrated at the description of babysitting.

My husband and I chose to have a child together. When we leave the child with someone else to care for for a short period of time, the child will be with a babysitter. (We haven't yet left her with someone, though I'm sure eventually, we will.) But my husband is her parent-and the things he does with her and for her are not babysitting. When he sent me out of the house to the bookstore, because I was touched out and going to lose my mind if I stayed home any longer and said to me, "Leave the baby here" he wasn't babysitting. He was being a parent. When he takes Nacho out to do errands with him and says to me "Have some time for yourself" and encourages me to do things like take a long shower, or a nap, he's not babysitting. He's acting as parent to Nacho, and partner to me.

It makes me angry to hear people refer to time that men spend with their children as "babysitting"-I think it diminishes the role that men play in the lives of children. Nacho's father has all sorts of things that he can share and teach that are different from what I've got. She'll create her own special and unique moments with her Dad just like I have memories of spending time with my Dad, and things he did with us when we were children, and especially times that were spent with Dad alone and not Mom-going to the electrical supply store and being encouraged by the owners to ring all the doorbells, or the annual trip into New York City each winter for lunch, holiday windows and a little shopping. And perhaps, most memorable, the year that Dad decided that we were old enough to learn to ride the subway by ourselves...he handed me a list of places to go, a subway map and a bag of tokens and said "Let's go." I cherish the time spent with my Dad, but he wasn't babysitting...he was spending time with his children, which is, I would say, an essential part of what parents do. Some of that time may have been essentially "giving my Mom a break" but that's part of sharing the parenting responsibility-respecting that parents need time and space to take care of adult needs and adult responsibilities, to nurture themselves and their own personal growth the way we nurture our children and care for our relationships. And sometimes just to go to the bathroom with the door closed.


Let's call the time that fathers spend with children what it is. Parenting.