Dear Dads: Football Isn’t An Excuse Not To Parent

Before becoming a parent, my weekends were gloriously free. I could sleep as late as I wanted, marathon watch Law and Order: SVU, day-drink with friends, curl up with a book. It didn’t matter because no one relied on me. Now, as a mom of two, ball games, play rehearsals, and my kids’ increasingly rigorous social lives have put a damper on everything I want to do. And that’s fine: I signed up for the whole “Mom” gig, but TikTok user Samantha (@thenyblonde), seems to have found a loophole. The catch? It doesn’t seem to work for everyone.

Samantha, a mom of two living in New York City, usually posts about fashion, but in a recent post, which she knows might be controversial, she addresses something that has been gnawing at her.

“The past few weeks, I have noticed a lot of husbands/partners have been absent from kids’ birthday parties, playdates, any type of weekend activity,” she observes. “I’m always asking, ‘Where is so and so’ and the answer consistently is ‘Oh, there’s a game on.’ … I just think it is so crazy that we have normalized that it is totally fine for a parent, specifically it seems to be the husband not being there, because there is a game on.”

And as she thought about a corollary for women — a specifically timed televised event that routinely kept them away from weekend responsibilities — not one came to mind.

“I wish I could,” she continues. “I wish I did have something as an excuse to say ‘I’m going to tap out of Saturday because something is happening on TV that I cannot miss at a very specific given time which happens usually to be in the very smack dab middle of the day during all of the children’s events or all the responsibilities that take place.’”

And indeed, according to data from Statista, last year 68% of American men watched at least two hours of football a week, with 21% watching six hours or more. Considering a lot of these games happen, as she pointed out, smack dab in the middle of a Saturday or Sunday, that’s a lot of missed parenting… and that’s only one sport of many.

Despite her fear of this being a controversial statement, commenters were quick to agree and commiserate.

“Imagine a woman telling her husband ‘Housewives is on so I can’t. please take our kid,’” mused one.

“People act like sports aren’t a TV show you can just watch later,” another scoffed.

“Being a nanny in NYC has taught me how few men are truly equal partners in parenting,” lamented a third.

But it wasn’t all bad news: the comments section was also full of folks who found a man who either didn’t care about football or who realized that parenting demanded he watch it later in the day.

One commenter highlighted the benefits of forgoing football season.

“My husband doesn’t give a shit about football,” they wrote. “He tells people he loves football season because Costco is empty on Saturday here in Alabama.”

Honestly, even if being a present and equal partner in a family weren’t motivating enough, an empty Costco feels like a strong argument for just watching the game later…