Where did daddy go?

For his generation, my husband was a hands-on-dad--that meant he knew how to bathe, feed and diaper, but when I went to the grocery store I'd still ask him to "babysit." Beginning in the late 70s-early 80s I began to see men who could carry a diaper bag, hand off the kid to his buddy and wipe the spit-up off his shoulder.

I see a lot of dads here at Lakeside on vacation pushing strollers at dawn so mom can sleep in. They stop here at the coffee shop, settle in at an outside table, pull out banana pieces and sippy cup, then unpack the laptop and check the e-mail. Meanwhile, the cutest baby in the world sits in the stroller and wonders where the daddy went.