Video Nails How Ridiculous It Is To Treat Dad Like The Babysitter

A new Buzzfeed video shows what would happen if we treated moms like dads.

Most couples who have kids see each other as equals, but that doesn’t always mean the world treats them that way. In a hilarious new video, Buzzfeed created an alternate universe where the assumptions we make about the roles of moms and dads are completely reversed. It’s called “If Moms Were Treated Like Dads” and it’s an eye-opening look at ridiculous parenting stereotypes.

In the video, parenting roles are swapped out, and moms are the ones getting asked ridiculous questions, like whether or not they’re babysitting their own kids. Meanwhile, the dads are viewed as the default caregivers and homemakers, and every time the moms help out, it’s seen as a special gift.

Can you remember the last time you got a shout-out and a sincere thank you for doing laundry? Yeah, neither can I.

The video opens with a dad asking a mom if she’s been forced to change any diapers yet (ha!), and then goes through a handful of different scenarios where we fling an unfair amount of responsibility on moms or treat dads like second class citizens.

At a meeting with a school administrator, a mom — playing the role of a dad, remember — is instructed to “go home and talk it over with your husband” before she’s allowed to make any decisions about her child. In another scene, two moms sit together and talk about whether or not they’re okay with their husbands working outside the home.

Later on, a mom finds out there are no changing tables in the women’s restroom — because only one parent is responsible for cleaning up poopy diapers, right?

Then, she’s accused of babysitting her own child, and fires back with, “Well, I’m not getting paid, so I think it’s just called parenting.” Hear, hear.

The video is meant to be funny, of course, and it is, but it also does a really great job of pointing out the many sexist perceptions we have about parents. Moms are usually seen as the nurturers, the taskmasters, the ones expected to stay home with the kids, and the ones who just naturally possess some sort of parental instinct. Dads are expected to be the breadwinners, and they’re often viewed as fumbling, bumbling idiots who don’t do things as well as moms and certainly don’t have a responsibility to maintain their home or participate in the most basic parts of childrearing.

In reality, none of these stereotypes are true. If there’s one gift our modern world has given us, it’s the knowledge that both moms and dads are whole people, capable or being nurturing and responsible, wanting to work, thriving at home, and playing an equal role in raising their kids.

Even though we know those things, we still ask silly questions and make ridiculous assumptions sometimes, and this video does a great job of pointing that out. Stereotypes are frustrating for both moms and dads, and it’s beyond time we stop pretending that our ability to be hardworking, attentive, and nurturing parents has anything to do with whether we’re male or female.