Every week, on Monday nights, Meera has swimming lessons. She always wants Braydon to take her, not me. Her main reason for this? He is “gentler-er” when washing her hair post-swim-lesson. So, every week, he goes with her. And every week, he washes her hair afterward, and gets her into her PJs, and drives her home, and then reads to her, and then hands her over to me to put her to bed.
This past Monday, I went along for the ride, just to see the Meera-Papi Monday Night Routine for myself. I watched as he washed her hair in the communal shower (sure enough! he’s way, way, way “gentler-er” than me!!). There he was — my main man, my husband, the father of my children — after a long day of work, standing in the shower with all the other mothers, washing Meera’s hair with more gentle patience than I’d ever have.
So often, there he is, with all the other mothers. I’m not saying that the fathers are never there– every once in a while there is one or two. But let’s be honest about the situation: it is not common. Let’s call it as it is: there are certain kid-zones (mainly, just about anything kid-centric that does not involve sports) where dads just aren’t too frequent; these places and spaces are overwhelmingly dominated by the moms. Obviously, there are lots of reasons for this, and a whole lotta history that’s shaping this, but let’s not try to deny it: it is what it is. And there is Braydon — chaperoning field trips, escorting on the birthday-party-circuit, sitting in doctors’ offices’ waiting rooms, scouring Barnes and Noble for Junie B Jones books, washing hair in the shower at the swimming center… him and all the mommies. So often, that’s what it is. He doesn’t ask for credit for this, and he definitely doesn’t want extensive praise for it (thank goodness!), but I feel pretty strongly that he does deserve acknowledgement for it.
Yes, he works a lot. So do I. No, he can’t cook a meal to save his life (that’s embarrassing). I can’t manage our cars’ maintenance or check a tire’s pressure or change the oil either (that’s embarrassing too). Is he always an excellent father? No. And I’m not always an excellent mother either. We fall short, we screw up, we are surely messing up our kids in all sorts of ways. And there are many, many things that drive me crazy about him (and not in a good way). But, man oh man, does he ever rock the Papi gig for swimming lessons on Monday nights. And for that, I’m eternally grateful.
I had tears of joy and gratitude in my eyes as I snapped that photo with my iPhone the other night.
I admire how you both work together. You are a great team. Xo
A really sweet post, and really touching to hear this particular example of Braydon’s parenting. My heart melted reading this Heather and the significance is not lost of me at all. I so get it, and I also so get any trepidation you may have had in crafting this post and I hope people reading this will hear your heart-felt words in this post.
I agree with your words whole-heartedly especially:
“He doesn’t ask for credit for this, and he definitely doesn’t want extensive praise for it (thank goodness!), but I feel pretty strongly that he does deserve acknowledgement for it.”
So true! I personally have an hands-on Dad (and so so thankful to have him as a role-model for my future partner and father to my children) but there are some things he would be out of his comfort zone and this is it — and frankly when I am in male-dominated environments (or if I put myself in Braydon’s shoes) I do feel isolated and not too comfortable to say the least. So like how when Braydon writes posts praising your mothering, I would like to commend Braydon on his fathering here and always — I always really touched by the posts Braydon writes and I think it’s great you both are blogging and sharing online as a team as not many bloggers include both parents (or maybe I haven’t seen them!) – very cool! And kudos to Braydon on being gentler-er!!
I so admire how you both navigate your parenting gig as a team, the responsibilities and thank you so much for sharing slices of how to balance it out with the online world wide web, I recognise it can’t always be easy — the parenting and the sharing publicly but like you’ve mentioned before it is important for people to see a variety of examples of parenting as it is in a heterosexual dual career household with no immediate family around or household childcare help (here, dual career parent households function because parents either have the grandparents living with them or a live in nanny (or both) as the alternatives such as daycare is really expensive and the hours don’t extend long enough as Mums and Dads are often working really really long hours 6 days a week with little work/life balance considerations :().
– Kate