Did Rob babysit tonight?

Babysitting vs. looking after your kids when you’re a dad

As I arrived home from an evening out with a girlfriend, my husband asked of her husband, “is Rob babysitting tonight?”

“No, he’s looking after his children” I replied.

Why is it that in 2014 it’s still considered ‘babysitting’ if a man — other than a stay-at-home-dad — looks after his children?

It’s a sentiment my female peers and I encounter a lot when it comes to dads looking after their children.

If my friend’s husband had been out for a drink, I doubt anyone would have asked if his wife was looking after the kids. Even though both my friend and her husband run a business together and each do a share of looking after their children.

It’s a subtle yet insidious issue. And until we can change the perception that the onus for childcare is always first with the mum, no matter whether that mum is a stay-at-home-mum, a work-at-home mum, a go-out-to-work-mum or whatever, we will never achieve equality.

It’s the reason why so many women who work find it hard to network and raise their profile, because they simply don’t have the time to fit in anything that isn’t core to their job and parenting their children.

It’s the reason why stay-at-home-mums get landed with working more hours than those we would consider workaholics.

It takes two people to create a baby, so in households where there are two parents, shouldn’t the responsibility for looking after the children fall equally on both sets of shoulders?