Thursday, August 2, 2012

Things That Annoy Me Thursday: Calling It Babysitting

I stared at the TV in confusion.

What did she just say?

Did I hear her wrong?

“I need to go wake him up,” she had said in a cutesy voice, “because he’s babysitting this morning.”

It wouldn’t have been so strange. Had she not been talking about her husband. The father of her children.

The FATHER.

I was watching that 19 Kids And Counting show and I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at Michelle’s comment. I wanted to shout, “Jim Bob (I’m not kidding, that’s his real name) is not babysitting. He’s taking care of HIS children!”

It’s always been one of my pet peeves when people call a dad watching his offspring babysitting. When Tom watches OUR children? He’s TAKING CARE OF THEM. Like I take care of them. If I want to have a girls night out, I don’t go, “I’ll have to see if my husband can baby-sit the kids.”

Hopefully in the future people will stop referring to fathers as babysitting.

And hopefully Michelle Duggar begins to understand that Jim Bob is also a parent and that he’s not babysitting their bazillion children.

He’s taking care of them.

31 comments:

  1. Oh yes!!! Indeed!! This is a huge bugbear of mine too!! I always roll my eyes when men are proclaimed to be such angels for caring for their own offspring-can't say anyone ever praised me for that!!

    Meanwhile, The Duggars have a reality show? Awesome! I hope it comes to Australian tv :D

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  2. My husband said that once.... once.

    That drives me nuts too.

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  3. I so agree! Babysitting is when you hire someone to take care of your kids. But the dad watching them is just being a parent!!

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  4. That is one of my BIGGEST pet peeves. And, since they have a zillion children I think it is even more offensive!
    My husband is a stay-at-home-dad and the number of people who say to me "wow, that's amazing that he is doing the child care for you" for me? seriously? aren't they his kids too.
    Sigh.
    Hopefully this will change over time. Thanks for letting me rant.

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  5. Funny you will never hear a dad saying that his wife is babysitting their kids ....

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  6. Agreed! They are caring for the kids, just as Mom does.

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  7. So true, I have a buddy that says this one all the time when we ask him what he's doing. I always ask him who he's babysitting?

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  8. AGREED!! I have never understood that.

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  9. That is weird of her to say.. Huh.
    I think I say John is watching the kids.

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  10. I don't get it either. It's called being a Dad.

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  11. That drives me nuts too! What would people think if I answered the question "what are you doing this weekend"...and I answered "babysitting my daughter". I'm sure I'd get more than a few raised eyebrows.

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  12. For reals! It's his baby too! I don't think Brandon has ever "baby sat." He's watched her while I went and did stuff, like a good dad does.

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  13. It is annoying when people say that. I say my husband stayed home with her or is watching her.

    Although, in the Duggar world it is the women who take care of the kids while the men do manly stuff. So I guess for Jim Bob to agree to watch the kids is a big deal. I used to watch that show all the time until I couldn't take it anymore, and they started to bug me.

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  14. That drives me nuts as well. Babysitting makes it sound optional when it most definitely is not.

    Another thing that drives me crazy is when guys say "the wife". As in The wife just called, I have to leave. So derogatory!

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  15. Don't get me started on the Duggars. I could do whole enteries on how much I hate that male,chauvenist pig,Jim Bob. I always tell people,"When it's your niece or your nephew or the neighbors kids you are babysitting but when it's your children it's not babysitting,it's called parenting!" Of course for someone like Michelle Duggar it's easier because they moment she gets knocked up again the one that's still nursing gets passed off to the older siblings.

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  16. Oh, that one gets me up on my soap box as well. Though with the Duggars, Jim Bob is clueless enough to be compared to a teen babysitter. I haven't seen the show in a while - I used to dvr it - such a train wreck! :-)

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  17. I agree completely! Parents cannot babysit their own children, taking care of the kids is one of the parts of being a parent!

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  18. that is super weird. i've never thought of it like that. a babysitter is like a 15 year old who comes over. my honey watches our kids and enjoys it!

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  19. My husband takes care of our kids too, but sometimes I think he would like me to pay him! :-)

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  20. Ugh I could not agree more. My daughter's father 'babysits', because I'm not with him and I actually ask him to. And because he's barely in the picture.

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  21. I hate that too! Yikes 19 kids now that is ridiculous!

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  22. That show is one of my biggest pet peeves! And should those kids not be able to watch each other by now??

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  23. Popped in from SITS! The Duggars fascinate and terrify me.

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  24. That absolutely annoys the hell out of me. And I don't understand how Michelle Duggar's uterus hasn't fallen out of her body yet.

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  25. That absolutely annoys the hell out of me. And I don't understand how Michelle Duggar's uterus hasn't fallen out of her body yet.

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  26. Oh jeez. This is so, so true.

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  27. Huge pet peeve of mine as well.
    It's called parenting.

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  28. My boss once told me he was taking a day off to stay home and babysit. I told him that I believe when it's your child it's called parenting. I think he got it because like a month or two later I overheard him saying the same thing to someone else.

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  29. For some reason I always felt like when my ex was watching the kids he was just babysitting. It was never just assumed he would watch them because that's what I was there for. Grrr...

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  30. I refused to grocery shop with my children. I would tell my husband when I was leaving and what the children were doing. There was no 'asking' if he would watch them, or, 'babysit'! Yikes! How did that thinking get into the equasion? It's like yard work and home maintenance. If he doesn' do it and you do, then you get all the equity when the house is sold. Unless, he's willing to call and pay for a repairman. But, to leave something unfixed just creates problems. Children have a right to irritate BOTH parents. It's that simple.

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