My name is Al. I'm a dad. Not someone who looks after the kids when my wife isn't around!
I'm passionate about this, and so I started my website, The Dad Network, in order to create a space for dads to come for support and encouragement to be 'dad.'
The thing is, I'm beginning to think that dads are slowly becoming more 'baby' sensitive, which is leaving me in 2 minds. Does that mean we'll go the whole hog and start crying at rom-coms whilst petting 'cute' puppies? Or does it just mean that we are wising up to the world around us and breaking into a cultural shift where the realisation that 'dads have babies too' is creeping in! Hopefully, it's the latter...
I read an article recently about stupid things people say to dads. I was struck by it because I saw plenty of truth in what I was reading. I, too, had experienced people saying ridiculous things to me. Things like, "looks like dad dressed the baby" and "Where's Mum? Are you babysitting?"
Well... I have some thing I'd like to say about that...
DADS DON'T BABYSIT! It is impossible to babysit your own kids. Actually impossible! When a mum is out with her kids, no-one in their right mind would suggest that she is babysitting. Yet throw it round to dads and all we ever do is apparently 'babysit.' Since when did looking after your own kids become babysitting?
There is, in fact, a campaign called, "dads don't babysit." Hundreds of dads are joining up and expressing to the world their discontents with the perception around dads looking after their children.
Some dads even say that they're babysitting themselves because it's become so accepted. It's not acceptable.
And breathe.
What do you think about when people suggest that dads are just babysitting?
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