My wife works very hard. We have five children all under the age of 8, and we have chosen to homeschool them. (We can’t afford private school, and the public schools in our neighborhood are on the scary side of abysmal.)She is on call from before sun-up to late at night, because our children are a hearty mixture of early risers and night owls. During the course of a day she is a wet nurse, chef, diplomat, teacher, chauffer, maid servant, coach, and personal assistant; and this is all before the kids’ mid-morning snack. She works very hard all day, every day while I’m off at work.
After I come home from work, I often try to give her a break. Lord knows she deserves it. Anyway, trying to give her a break often coincides with a need to replenish our refrigerator. (We go through groceries at an obscene rate.) So every so often I’ll pack up the kids into the mini-van and cart them off to a warehouse club to buy groceries.
Without fail, every time I take the kids out by myself, someone will stop me and praise my bravery for single handedly venturing forth with my brood of offspring. They wax poetic about what a good father I am. They chide their son-in-law for not doing the same thing even though HE only has TWO kids. They compose beautiful haiku to immortalize this feat of fatherhood for posterity. I’m just standing in line trying to buy milk, eggs, and bread while keeping the twins from poking each other in the eye or without losing one of the…
Hey… Where’s Meghan?
Get back over here you little turkey.
So I get home, and after I count noses to make sure I didn’t leave any kids asleep in the mini-van, I tell my wife about the high praise I received today. I’m very proud of myself. Everyone has been telling me what a great job I’ve been doing all day.
She rightly reminds me that she goes out by herself with the kids on the subway several times a week. No one says a word to her. No one (but me) sings her praises about how hard it is.
It hardly seems fair.