A father is many things but he is not a “babysitter” for his kids.

When 17-year-old Reddit user u/Throwaway9876-57 got a call from her older sister, asking to look after her kids, the teen immediately rushed to help. After all, that’s what family is for.

But upon her arrival, u/Throwaway9876-57 couldn’t believe her eyes. The dad, her sister’s husband, was at home. Playing video games. Refusing to “babysit” the kids because it was his day off.

Of course, the Redditor stayed — her sister was in a pinch and she needed help — but the evening got progressively weirder as the guy kept refusing to spend time with the little ones.

Image credits: Alexander Kovalev (not the actual photo)

One of the toughest things to navigate as a parent is making sure that child care is in place when needed. If grandparents and other extended family members don’t live close by and your husband is a terrible father, it can be tricky figuring out how to make it all work.

It’s also probably impossible to give an exact number of stay-at-home dads, but various organizations have tried.

The U.S. Census Bureau, for example, reported in 2012 that 189,000 married men with children under the age of 18 identified themselves as stay-at-home fathers — this number was restricted to those who could identify as men who had remained outside the labor force for at least one year, while their wives worked outside the home.

A 2014 Pew Research Center paper found that 2 million U.S. fathers with children under age 18 still at home were not working outside the home. However, this report didn’t confirm that the dads were the primary caregiver or even providing child care for the children.

Societal standards don’t help the situation either. Stay-at-home dads are sometimes wrongly portrayed as lazy, clueless, or lacking masculinity.

People think the teenager wasn’t the problem in this situation

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