The Words We Use

A father takes his children to the park on a Saturday morning, and a neighbour says he's babysitting. A man empties the dishwasher, and his wife tells her friends he helps a lot. A woman mentions that her husband does the school run twice a week, and someone says she's lucky.

None of these people means any harm. The words are friendly. But each of them makes the same quiet assumption, and once you hear it you can't stop hearing it.

Babysitting your own kids

A babysitter looks after someone else's children for a few hours. The word assumes the real parent is elsewhere and will be back. When it is used for a father with his own children, it casts him as the stand-in and her as the parent. His time with them becomes a favour to her.

Many fathers dislike the word, and they're right to. It shrinks their role. It also tells mothers something: that the children are theirs by default, and any time he spends with them is time they owe him for.

Helping in your own home

I wrote about the word "help" in one of my first notes, He Helps If I Ask. You help with someone else's project. When a man helps with the house he lives in, the house becomes her project and he becomes a volunteer on it.

The same assumption shows up in research on standards. In a 2021 experiment, Sarah Thébaud, Sabino Kornrich and Leah Ruppanner showed people identical clean or messy rooms said to belong to "John" or "Jennifer". People held Jennifer to higher standards and expected visitors to judge her more harshly for the mess. The home is still treated as her report card, and the language follows.

Lucky

"You're lucky" may be the most revealing of the three. Luck is what you call something you didn't earn and can't expect. When a woman is called lucky because her partner does his share, the share is being treated as a bonus, something beyond what she could reasonably ask for.

Men rarely hear the reverse. Nobody tells a man he's lucky his wife remembers his mother's birthday.

Why the words matter

Language doesn't create an unequal household on its own. But it makes one feel normal. In The Second Shift, published in 1989, Arlie Hochschild described the "family myths" couples use to explain arrangements that don't match their beliefs. Everyday words are the raw material of those myths. If his work is help and her work is just what she does, then even a very uneven split can be described as generous on his side.

The words also shape credit. Help gets thanked. Work that is simply expected does not. I looked at what that does to a relationship in Thank You.

What to say instead

Changing the words doesn't change the work. It does make the work easier to see. A few swaps I hear from couples who have thought about this:

He isn't babysitting. He's parenting, or simply "with the kids".

He doesn't help with dinner. He makes dinner, or it's his night.

She isn't lucky. They have an arrangement that works.

It sounds small, and it is. But a household where both people describe the work as shared tends to be one where it is easier to talk about who does what, which is where every real change starts. I wrote about that conversation in Fairness, Felt and Measured.

Questions people ask

Why do people say dads babysit their own kids?

The phrase assumes the mother is the default parent and the father is standing in. Many fathers object to it because it treats their parenting as a favour.

Is it wrong to say my husband helps around the house?

It isn't wrong, but it frames the house as your responsibility and his work as a favour. Saying it's his job or his night describes shared work more accurately.

Do words really change how housework is shared?

Not on their own. They shape what feels normal and who gets credit, which makes an unequal split easier or harder to see and talk about.