When our son was young, my wife and I would speak like naval officers exchanging control on the bridge of a ship. “I have the con,” I’d say to my wife, to indicate that I now have eyes and ears on the kid and she can go do whatever without worrying about him. “Aye, Daddy has the con,” she’d say as she was leaving the room.
When planning schedules, she might ask, “Can you take the con Friday night? I have book club.” And I’d do the same. “You good with the con Saturday morning?”
Of course there were plenty of times when we were both present and watching him, but we liked this method because it ensured we didn’t both walk out of the room thinking the other was responsible for the kid.
It started as a joke because I was writing a book about the Navy and threw out the terminology one day just to be funny. But we realized it was useful and so it stuck.
Aside: We also developed “the Dingbang sandwich” for traveling with the little one. Whenever the three of us got on an elevator, a subway train, airport shuttle, etc., we always entered parent-kid-parent. This ensured that if there was some confusion, inattention, or jostling, the kid would never be left on the elevator or train by himself, or standing on the platform by himself. As we approached, one of us would say “Dingbang sandwich” and that would prompt us to get in position. A small thing but it made first-time parents more comfortable traveling with a little guy in foreign places where things get crowded and confusing.
I think those two women are unusual. I’ve heard lots of women say their husbands were babysitting, and even more women refer to someone’s else’s husband as babysitting *. But I have never heard any one, male or female, refer to a woman caring for her own children as “babysitting”
I used to drive my relatives out of their minds with this. I would go to a baby/bridal shower ( female guests only) and some aunt/great-aunt/cousin would make some comment to the effect of " Oh, your husband is babysitting" . I would say “No, he’s not”. " Well, who is?" “No one is, they are with their father”. “AHA, he’s babysitting!” ( as if they had caught me in an error) “If I was at home with them, and he was out with his friends, would I be babysitting? " “No, you’re the mother.” " Well, he’s the father and you seem to think that’s babysitting”. You would think they would have learned to stop in fewer than five years.
Those two women WERE unusual for other reasons. I’ll leave it at that.
In some circles, fathers are STILL not considered to be “real” parents. In recent years, I’ve heard stories about things like men who were widowed, and the school wanted to know who to call if the kids were sick or had another kind of emergency.
I should add that during the pregnancy, he was moonlighting at a grocery store. I said, “Ah, getting a head start on that college fund, aren’t you?” and he replied, “No, I bought a Jet Ski.” :dubious: I told him, “You’d better use that thing all you can this summer, because you sure won’t be able to after that.” His response? “Oh, no, she’ll be in the cabin with the baby so I can go off and do whatever I want.” :smack: He also seemed to think that he was going to go partying with his buddies several evenings a week, like he always had. I should add that this man was in his mid 30s, which made this all the stranger.
Also at the same place, we had a woman whose mother had walked out on her and her sister when they were babies - and that was in the mid 1960s when fathers having sole custody was totally unheard-of. This woman was HORRIFIED that men in the department were taking their kids to day care when their wives were sick, and believed that a man taking the day off to care for a sick child should be a firing offense. OK, just because her husband, who she always said was a good husband and father, didn’t do that kind of thing doesn’t mean nobody else should do it either.
I used baby sitting when I was with the guys or at work (almost ALL guys.) My wife used the phrase when she was with the girls. When she was at work, she didn’t. When I was out in public with the kids, one or more, it was usually daddy’s time or something like that. With my daughter alone, then it was daddy-daughter date night even when she was a toddler or younger.
But taking care of the kids when one parent is away isn’t all that different. I’ve definitely heard it, in the context where the other parent (yes, usually a wife) is out doing something she doesn’t normally get to do. It’s often an intentionally different experience, where the parent and kids will do something unusual.
So if dad is taking care of the kids like always, then “babysitting” sounds silly to me. If dad is doing extra because mom is out with the girls, then I have no problem calling it “babysitting.” Though I admit it might be ambiguous in like Shodan’s case where people might not know the kids are yours.
Thanks to this thread I have learned that apparently I am (at least sometimes) coming off as an asshole. Maybe it’s my utter rejection of bondage to the MW definition of words but I fairly frequently use the term babysitting when I describe caring for my own children. I am a complete #3 on the list, to me the word just means to have sole care and responsibilities of some number of children without regard to getting paid, whose children they are, desire, etc. Most often I’m using it to indicate that my wife is not available for backup so I any activity will have to take that into account (“Yeah I’d love to meet up at the driving range for beers but I have babysitting duties on Tuesday…”). Maybe it comes from a general use of the term from growing up spending my summers ‘babysitting’ my younger siblings, who were neither babies nor was I paid for the job. It’s just taking care of people who need someone to watch them.
For the record I don’t mind taking care of any children and I do the majority of childcare within our family. I can see where it might indicate you have some unpleasant job that you’d rather not do, depending on how you say it, but I had no idea people read so deeply into that particular word choice.
The one and only bad interaction I had with my mother-in-law in 20 years was over her use of the term ‘babysitting’ to describe me watching my own kids while she and her daughter went out. To be fair, she was a fairly traditional mom and was the primary, and often sole caregiver, despite being married to my father in law for the entirety of her own children’s lives. She just always viewed it as her husband ‘helping out’ rather than ‘doing his goddamn job’ when it came to the kids. (FTR, I grew up in a similar household).
A large of the reason people read so deeply into it is that is is rarely* used in the same way for women. You don’t hear people refer to a mother as “babysitting” if her husband is “out with the guys” , or at work or otherwise unavailable for backup. Those relatives I mentioned earlier, who thought my husband was “babysitting” while I attended a shower would not have considered me to be “babysitting” when I was the only parent taking care of my kids whether it happened once a year or five nights a week.
Backcountry Medic , do you ever say “Yeah I’d love to meet up at the driving range for beers but it has to be a day my wife can babysit.” You might, but I’ll bet you get more strange looks when you do that than when you refer to yourself as having “babysitting duties”.
As for that “intentionally different experience” - that almost assumes it is an infrequent occurrence for that parent to be solely responsible for the kids. One parent and the kids are not going to do something unusual if it’s a regular occurence, like one parent is home with the kids every Mon, Wed and Friday night while the other parent is working , or every Thursday night while the other parent is bowling.
nearwildheaven mentioned two women who refer to caring for their own children as babysitting, but I have literally never heard it used to refer to the children’s mother.
My kids are 27 and 26. When they were quite young I was a freelancer as I am now and there were plenty of days when their mom was off at work and I was with them all day. Had a lot of people ask me if I was babysitting them.
I told them I was lucky to be with them this much of the time. That a lot of fathers living where we lived didn’t see their kids much during the week at all because of the long commute coupled with a full-time job.
I sometimes say I’m babysitting, but I use it the opposite way. Babysitting is a statement of fact for why I can’t leave the house. I watch my kids all the time, though, and that’s not babysitting. That’s just my usual life.
I’d agree with those women, though. The husband isn’t just caring for the children and providing for them. He’s specifically on duty in order to relieve a parent from the responsibility. He’s taking care of them because you need to go out and do something. If a mother returns from somewhere at an appointed time in order to take the kids away from the father so he can go do something, I’d say she was babysitting.
If my wife is cooking and I’m playing with the kids, and she has to go to the store for a forgotten ingredient, I’m not babysitting…I’m caring for the children as part of a normal routine. If my wife needs to go to some event on a Saturday afternoon, and I am specifically in charge of caring for the children in order to enable her departure, then I’m babysitting.
When I take my kids to the park to bond with them, that’s not babysitting. When I do that on Mother’s Day specifically so mom can have a few hours to relax, that’s babysitting. It all hinges on why you’re watching the kids, not the fact that you are.
But you don’t really agree with them - remember, they specifically told me I would *not *be babysitting if I was taking care of the kids while my husband was out with his friends. Because I’m the mother, and as far as they were concerned, it was my responsibility to take care of them- if he took care of them alone, even while I was grocery shopping, he was doing me a favor. I should have taken them grocery shopping while he was at work, and it didn’t matter if my pesky job interfered with doing that.
Now , you may not mean that when you refer to caring for your own kids as “babysitting” , but lots of people do. In thinking about it ,I’ve heard a lot of people refer to a father caring for their own kids as “babysitting”. I’ve heard the fathers themselves do it, other men, non-parents and I’ve even known SAHMs who refer to their husbands or other fathers as “babysitting” their own children. The one group I don’t ever recall hearing it from is women who worked outside the home when their children were young.
