World's Greatest Dad, World's Okayest Mom

The mom-dad double standard

The other week, as I sat sipping coffee on a table outside a cafe near my house, a stranger walking his dog past me smiled.

“Mommy’s taking a break, huh?” he said.

I took a second to clock what about my posture screamed "I'm on a break!" One hand was on my daughter’s stroller, where the baby was occupied with a wooden toy. My foot was lightly on my dog’s leash, to keep him from shoving his nose into every dog ass that passed within twenty feet. I had not taken the time that morning to do anything to my hair or put any makeup on. At that moment, I was directly responsible for two little lives.

So what made it a “break”? Was it because, at that moment, neither the baby nor the dog were demanding something pressing and specific from me? Was it because I was drinking coffee and enjoying the silence? Was it because sometimes people just awkwardly say things without thinking because they’re trying to be nice? [Probably a little of all three columns, apart from the fact that it’s always weird to call a stranger “Mommy.”]

Instead of responding with a bitchy diatribe, I just did what I usually do in response to irritating small talk from people who more than likely meant well: I said “Haha, yeah” and let it go.

My husband often takes our daughter out into the world– to the grocery store, on hikes, to the mall with all its shininess and K-Pop displays. I appreciate this immensely, because it gives me a chance to get work done or, my favorite leisure activity, which is “be the only person in my house.”

He’s taken the baby and dog to the same cafe where I was Mommy’d by a dog walking stranger. As far as I know, while he was there, even if he was spacing out and drinking coffee or trying to decipher the sidewalk chalk scratchings left by other children who play in the park across the street, he’s never been told he must be “taking a break” while he’s looking after Juniper.

In fact, when my husband is out in public with our baby, he gets compliments!-- Compliments! Strangers remark on how involved he is for pulling off such superdad feats as “carrying his own child around in a grocery store” or “interacting with his baby in public.”

I’ve never been complimented on my maternal involvement while out in public performing basic daily tasks with my daughter. I don’t expect to, either. That’s not because I have a martyr complex or think that parental tasks shouldn’t be recognized– being a parent is work and it’s nice to feel noticed and appreciated–it’s because things that are taken for granted from moms are celebrated as incredible accomplishments by dads.***

I’m far from the first to point out that mothers get too little credit and fathers get too much for doing nearly identical things for their families. But boy it’s annoying that nobody asks a mother taking care of her own children if she’s “babysitting.” It’s irritating that it’s uncommon for dads on their own at a social function to be asked “Who’s watching the kids?” It’s obnoxious that the phrase “daddy’s girl!” gets tossed around with such abandon, but when a baby girl shows a preference for her mother, onlookers do not say, “Aw, she’s a real mommy’s girl!”

A mom who sacrifices everything is simply doing what any mother would do; a father who does a fraction as much gets his own Disney movie.

I’m not going to clean up the baggage of centuries of devaluing “women’s” work by writing a pithy newsletter about it. The Second Shift was first published in 1989, and since then, the gap between the amount of house and care work that men and women in romantic partnerships do has only gotten more “grotesque.” Every time there’s been a “reckoning” about household division of labor, women have been like, hey, this is a problem, and men have been like, wow, I had no idea, and then everybody has just carried on as they always have.

I can’t fix the fact that women do an average of two hours more of housework per day than men do. I can’t right the imbalance between the long-lasting, irreversible physical sacrifice that women are expected to make in order to bear children and the way that fathers are allowed to cherry pick the fun stuff about parenthood in order to be declared father of the year. I can’t change the fact that for generations, problems that were caused by a father’s genetics were blamed on choices that mothers made.

At the same time, I believe that fathers who are doing a better job than their fathers did deserve some credit. When we compare this generation of men to the generations that came before, they’re, on the whole, doing a better job, and all of the research into the role of fathers shows that more involved fathers leads to better outcomes for children.

Still, judging one’s productivity by how bad a job people have done in the past doesn’t seem fair. If I took a job with Boeing designing airplanes, and my airplanes didn’t take off, it wouldn’t be seen as a valid excuse if I told shareholders that I was actually a pretty good airplane designer because unlike previous generations, the airplanes I design do not crash and kill people (especially if other airplane designers at other airlines were able to make airplanes that safely take off and land). In the same manner, fathers should not be judged based on how dogshit their own dads were; they should be measured against whether or not they are meeting the needs of their children and partners right now.

So here’s what I can suggest, as a tiny little weight on the lopsided expectations society places on moms and dads: rather than complimenting fathers less, let’s compliment mothers more.

Try it. The next time you’re out in public and you see a mother going about her day with her kids, tell her that she’s doing a great job. If you see a woman in public with her children in a context in which you’d expect a man to receive a compliment, toss one her way.

I guarantee that hearing “How old is your kid?” “Wow! They look great! You’re doing great!” will make her day and make her feel appreciated. Especially if you don’t call her “Mommy.”

*** I'm speaking about the nuclear family in the US-- male-female couples with children that live in the same home. Single-parent families, functional co-parenting arrangements, same-sex couples, and multi-generational households have different dynamics that are beyond or outside the scope of this silly little essay.

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