Yesterday, Maria and Jenny came down from New York for one of our completely unsexy booty calls. They brought Kyle with them and, for the first time, I got to babysit.
Being a two year old, Kyle is at that age where prying him loose from his mommy for more than a few minutes is a feat unto itself. It was easy enough for Maria and Jenny to slip out since he had a whole room of toys to play with and Anastasia was there to keep him distracted. Buuuuuut….five minutes later, he noticed that Mommy and Other Mommy (no, seriously, that’s what he calls Jenny. I think it’s adorable as hell) were gone and started crying.
He ended up slumped over on my stomach, watching cartoons with me and Anastasia for the next two hours. Every 20 minutes or so, he would cry for mommy or just give a shudder and a sniffle. Otherwise, everything went pretty smooth.
But halfway through the time Kyle was with me, I realized that I was, indeed, babysitting. On the one hand, woohoo! On the other hand, it depressed me a bit.
Let me explain.
One of the things I’ve had to deal with as a stay at home father is people (in New York, anyway) constantly remarking that I was “babysitting” the kids when we went out. The underlying idea that a father does not actually do any child-rearing. I had to point out on more than one occasion that I was not “babysitting” my own kids, I was raising them.
But that’s not the case with Kyle. I was simply babysitting.
It bothered me in the sense that, at last, what those annoying people said was true. I was babysitting “my” kid. It also bothered me in a deeper but more abstract way, that I would only ever babysit Kyle. But that was always the deal: I’m the father but not a parent. I’ll never be more than a tangential figure in his life by design.
But like I said, it’s an abstract concern. I have two little bundles of joy of my own to deal with. Even if I wanted to be more a part of Kyle’s life, I couldn’t. Never mind the distance, my two don’t leave me with enough time to even try!
At this point, my only real fear is that Kyle will grow up and resent me for not being in his life. It’s not a particularly rational fear because he has his Mommy and Other Mommy (daaaaawwww!) and it’s not like he’s going to be shortchanged for parental affection or guidance. And I trust Jenny and Maria to explain to him who am I without making him feel like he’s missing anything in his life. They’ve been doing perfectly fine for the last two years so my faith in them has been well rewarded, thank you very much.
I’m sure there’s plenty of literature that will tell me that I’m being silly but I haven’t bothered consulting with anyone on how to be a baby daddy in the first place so why start now?
The Baby Daddy Chronicles 