I recently wrote a post for What To Expect dot com’s “Word of Dad” blog. You can read the whole thing by clicking this link:

My Child’s Failures and Successes Can’t Be My Own

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For the probably lovely older lady at the coffee shop in my neighborhood who thought she was being supportive when she told me how nice it was that I babysit my daughter I’ve put together a list of ten ways you can tell I am not my daughter’s babysitter. I hope she’ll find reading this as enjoyable as I found writing it.

Ten Ways You Can Tell I’m not my Daughter’s Babysitter

1. Not only can I eat anything I want in the fridge, I also picked out and paid for all of it.

2. I’m not getting paid $5 an hour. In fact, if you take hospital bills, mortgage payments, medical insurance, and stuffed animal fees I’ve paid thousands upon thousands of dollars to spend time with this little girl.

3. I don’t need a ride home at midnight. I’m already home at midnight and likely asleep on the couch after having watched half of a documentary on Russia’s Toughest Prisons.

4. If I had a college savings account, and oh for all that is good in the world I should, it wouldn’t be for myfuture college plans.

5. I’m way too comfortable with the fact that I’ve had my daughter’s vomit and poop on me more times than I can count.

6. I can literally stay up as late as I want every single night but I choose not to because I know how hard that makes the morning.

7. Nobody says that to my wife when she’s with our daughter.

8. Not only am I not freaked out by all those scary house noises late at night but I also know how much it costs to replace the boiler that causes them.

9. When I experience personal failure, which is not infrequent, the first person I think about is not myself but the little girl who has made me cry and smile more in the last seven years than I had in the previous twenty-seven.

10. I don’t get extra money for washing the dishes.

Bonus way you can tell I’m not my daughter’s babysitter – I’m her dad

Have you been called a babysitter?

Share your stories of fatherhood disparagement in the comments. Or share your own “I am not a babysitter” photo.