Moms definitely get the short shrift when if comes to credit and praise.
Case in point: We’re at a BBQ last week, hanging out with some old friends, and I’m holding Ada and playing around with her, and one of my friends said to me “I always knew you’d be a good father!”
My first thought was “Hey, thanks!” My second thought was of a story from Michael Chabon’s excellent book, Manhood for Amateurs. I hope he’ll forgive me if I quote a bit too extensively from it (go buy the book so he lets it slide–$10 in paperback!).
The handy thing about being a father is that the historic standard is so pitifully low. One day a few years back I took my youngest son to the market around the corner … I wasn’t quite sure why the woman in line behind us kept beaming so fondly in our direction.
“You’re such a good dad,” she said finally. “I can tell.”
I looked at my son. He was chewing on the paper coating of a wire twist tie … I thanked her … went off with my boy in one arm and a bag of groceries in the other, and when we got home I put a plastic bowl filled with Honey Nut Cheerios in front of him and checked my email. I was a really good dad.
I don’t know what a woman needs to to do to impel a perfect stranger to inform her in the grocery story that she is a really good mom. Perhaps perform an emergency tracheotomy with a Bic pen on her eldest child while simultaneously nursing her infant and buying two weeks’ worth of healthy but appealing breaktime snacks for the entire cast of Lion King, Jr. In a grocery store, no mother is good or bad; she is just a mother, shopping for her family.
It’s so true. I get the same beaming look that Chabon got in the grocery store, just for pushing a stroller down the street or carrying Bumblebee in her Baby Bjorn. I guess I’m a great dad because I take my baby someplace without her mom. That’s not a very high bar to try and clear. During the week, I see my kid maybe 2 or 3 hours a day if I’m lucky, and when I’m not with her, I’m doing the same thing I was doing before I became a parent: I go to work. Meanwhile, Corinne’s life has changed completely, and she’s with Bumblebee pretty much every second the baby’s awake.
To paraphrase Chabon’s point, we tend to measure fathers in instants. For example, dad flying a kite in the park with his kid = great dad. Dad goes to kid’s soccer game = great dad. Dad playing with kid at BBQ = great dad.
Moms, on the other hand, are evaluated over the course of years, decades, and lifetimes. Chabon says “Good mothering is a long-term pattern, a lifelong trend of behaviors most of which go unobserved at the time by anyone, least of all the mother herself.” And sometimes the final judgment on a mom isn’t pronounced at all until her funeral. “She was a great mom. She was always there for me.”
Well, it’s almost insulting to say this on Mother’s Day (it shouldn’t need to be elicited by such an occasion), but both the moms in my life are incredible. In fact, so is Corinne’s mom. They deserve to be told that more often, so I’m going to work on that, starting with a lame blog post. And I’m going to make sure Bumblebee grows up knowing what a great mom she has, and what a great mom I had.
Now go call your mother.
