The Rare Dodo

I wonder sometimes if I’m the only one of my kind. Although I suppose everyone feels that way at times, I’m thinking mostly of the way our family works.

Gender roles have certainly shifted over the past … what, 30 years? However, you don’t always see that reflected in the media or in the way people think. Since our older child was born, I have been working part-time; when our daughter was born, I cut back further to half-time. My wife works full-time, so I am the primary caregiver for the kids. In fact, as a minister she has a lot of evening commitments, so that means extra responsibility for me.

Beyond that, food-related tasks have never been her forte, so I am also responsible for cooking and grocery shopping. And since I have less time committed to my job, I also do the vast majority of the laundry and dishes. The temptation, of course, is that anything that needs doing goes in my column (“since you only work part-time”), but I definitely resist it.

Hey, we’ve basically worked it out between ourselves in a way that (usually) works for us, but I still get the feeling that I’m a mutant in the eyes of “the world”. A few relevant examples:

• It’s a disorienting experience for a dad to read a magazine like “Parents” or “Parenting”. Or maybe I’m just expecting them to live up to their names. They really should be called “Moms” and “Mothering”, because there’s seldom any acknowledgement that dads are part of the equation. The articles that relate to dads are usually advising women how to get their tentative or just lazy husbands to take a more active role in raising the children (I’m thinking that the only way I could be more involved is to carry them in a pouch like a kangaroo).
• Some time ago I was running errands with the kids – which of course is the only way anything ever gets done around here. I popped them out of the car and we headed for the door of the bank. There was a bank guy standing outside the door smoking a butt; he kind of smirked at me and said, “Babysitting today, huh?” I always try to set an example of calm and reason for my children, so I didn’t hit him. I kept right on going, but as I passed him I said, “No, just being a dad.”
• It’s not just the parenting stuff either. I still get remarks sometimes when my wife has to go out of town for a few days – “Guess you’ll have to cook for yourself!”, or, you know, “How are you going to survive on your own?”

I don’t know, I can’t see into everyone else’s house. Maybe every other dad comes home from work, plops down with a cold one, and lets “the little woman” handle the kid stuff. And I certainly didn’t get into this setup to get other people to tell me how swell I am. I have learned, however, about the power of expectations... so if we hope for parents to be equal partners, maybe we ought to at least act as if it's theoretically possible.