“Daddy day care?” Nope

“Daddy day care?” Nope by Amy Ahearn of Handbag Mafia

Venturing out of the house, all alone, after having a baby, is a special kind of bliss. Bliss, because you don’t have to feed anyone but yourself. Your arms are free for whatever you want to do with them. Unless you’re truly unlucky, you won’t be vomited/pooped/peed on and you can probably finish a hot drink in one sitting. But that bliss is tempered with a little anxiety, too – after all, you have a new baby!

But, that new baby is with their daddy, who knows exactly what to do. He’s been there for the night feeds, the nappy explosions, the burping, the cuddling. You can relax, right?

“Where’s the baby?” someone asks you. As if you’d just left them at home, unattended. “With Dad,” you reply.

“Ahhhh, aren’t you lucky to have a man who will babysit!”

Daddy day care? Nope.

Your friend (or colleague, relative, acquaintance, hairdresser or whomever it might be this time) probably doesn’t mean anything by their remark. But calling this “babysitting”, joking about “daddy day care” and all those other seemingly light-hearted remarks about fathers caring for their own children really need to stop.

Whether it’s your first time out alone since giving birth, or a night out months or even several years later, the father of your child shouldn’t be reduced to a child-minding service. He’s a parent. There are no reasons that men can’t be just as capable as women when it comes to caring for children.

Mothers have long been seen as the “primary” parent, with seemingly useless dads fumbling along beside them. And don’t get me wrong; historically, fathers weren’t very involved in child-rearing at all. Unfortunately, there are still fathers out there who have very little to do with the day to day care of their children. The stereotype didn’t spring into existence out of nowhere, after all.

Sure, there are dads who have never changed a nappy, fed a baby, done the night-time settling or figured out how to stuff a newborn into a onesie. They absolutely do exist. But, in my experience, these dads are now more likely to be the exception, not the rule.

Perpetuating the stereotype, however, gives those uninvolved dads a kind of permission to keep feigning uselessness. How can their partners expect them to cope with the care of their own child for any length of time? They’re men! Completely incompetent! Har har har!

This adherence to the “useless dad” trope has a far-reaching impact.

How can a father bond with a baby they rarely hold and never care for? And when they are older, how will children know to go to their fathers if Dad is distant and uninvolved? The potential is there to create strained relationships instead of loving, trusting ones. The other consideration that strikes me is what we are modelling for our children. We are telling them that men aren’t supposed to nurture and care for children. That’s it’s a not their role. That women are caregivers because men aren’t capable of that. Is that what we want to instill in our little ones?

If this stereotype describes your partner, it’s time for a conversation. They might be nervous or unsure or they might be clinging to the outdated notion that raising kids is “women’s work”.

They need to realise that having babies and raising children, while wonderful, is hard work.

When a baby is born, it’s always daunting. It can be a first baby or a fifth and it will still be daunting. While the basics might be the same, each child is an individual. Women aren’t born knowing how to care for babies and children, they learn it as they go along. And men are just as capable of doing the same.

It’s only been in the latter part of the last century that our society has shifted in terms of how we parent our children. Women used to end their careers once children were born. Now, it’s far more likely that both parents work outside of the home. It makes sense that fathers have become much more involved in the day to day labour that is raising kids.

I’m not saying that men need to be celebrated each time they change a nappy or stay at home while Mum hits the town for a night out; on the contrary. This shouldn’t be perceived as extraordinary or revolutionary behaviour. It should be normal.

We live in a time and society where terms like “toxic masculinity” are commonplace and widely understood; allowing and encouraging men to be nurturing and caring in their everyday lives is one way to help break that down.

There’s no down-side to men being active, involved parents.