As you may have been made aware from the 1 or 2 or 12,396 times I’ve complained about it, I travel quite a bit for work. It seems that every time I tell people that I am traveling, I get a similar response: “Oh no, what will you do with Jack?”
What in the heck do you mean, what am I going to do with him? Do you think that just because I’m out of town that he’ll be left in his playpen with a bowl of water and a can of prescription formula? I mean, my kid’s pretty advanced but I’m not sure that he’s quite ready to start measuring out a perfect 7 oz bottle every 3 hours. And PLEASE believe that if this child was capable of changing his own diapers, we’d have implemented that whole “fend for yourself” strategy long ago. But alas, my child requires fairly constant care. Care which people around me clearly don’t think he could possibly get if I am in another town. Yes, he has a father. Yes, he has a nanny. Yes, he has aunts and a grandma and grandpa just 10 minutes away. But if I’m out of town? Foggettaboudit—this kid is doomed.
Someone asked me this question last week when I told him about an upcoming trip. This man is a father. He has a little baby at home. Yet when I indicated that I’d be away, he looked shocked and said, you guessed it, “Oh no, what will you do with Jack?” I said, “What do you think he’s doing right now while I’m at work? He’ll be with the nanny.” “Yeah, but what about at night?” Ah yes! The night! I forget that Jack, the daddyless wonder, is only cared for by me at night. I feed, bathe, change, and put him to sleep while my husband sits on the couch with a Spotted Cow and a bag of potato chips. Surprised that this dad couldn’t figure out that Jack could be adequately cared for by his daddy, I said, “John will take care of him at night. He does it with me every other night. He can handle it.” Shocked, he replied, “Well why don’t you just bring him with you?” Bring him with me?? To what? Sit in the hotel room all day while I attend meetings? Yes, that would be high quality parenting right there. MUCH better than leaving him with his clearly incompetent father. “What about the nanny? Can’t she come?” Oh yes, because we can obviously afford to fly the nanny to another city and pay for her hotel room, meals, etc. all to spare my husband the dread, absolute dread, of caring for his own flesh and blood.
I kind of want to tell people, “You know, my husband does like his child. He’s kind of fond of playing with him and taking care of him.” But I always decide against it. Instead I just go on with my martyrdom—oh woe is me! Jack, the daddyless wonder, will never be able to survive without me for a few days! I hope I don’t come back to find him covered in soot now that he is pulling himself up and standing next to the fireplace. Surely John won’t be able to watch Jack AND the Cardinals game. Oh, whatever will we do?
Actually, it’s cute to hear about John and Jack together. John tells him all about sports and the science of why Jack feels cold when John pulls him out of the bathtub (evaporation, if anyone was interested). Maybe I should go out of town more often so that Jack can get all learned and smart from John. Who cares if he’s got a little bit of bananas from yesterday’s breakfast on his face?
3 Comments:
My sister used to get the same thing when she made plans to be away from home! People would ask her if her husband was babysitting. She'd be like "Ummm, we call it parenting..."
Aunt Lois was very amused reading this post. People are so silly sometimes!
It really cracks me up to read this.. I'm not really surprised, but HELLO, IT IS 2010!!! You rule, John rules, Jack rules--everyone else is dumb :)
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