If you haven’t been following my friend Lauren Warner’s wonderful blog, “3 Things for Mom,” you should. It’s a very special daily collection of bite-sized truths, tips, and finds for moms. This week, Lauren is featuring DAD writers in honor of Father’s Day, and I’m honored to kick off the week for her.
You can read my whole post, including my famous recipe for burrito pie and my shout out to Rivka Caroline’s “From Frazzled to Focused” by clicking here
Here’s an excerpt:
Last night, our 23 year-old daughter called with a plumbing problem – the toilet in her apartment wasn’t working again. She asked to talk to her mom.
Our 3 kids are now young adults, living on their own in college or graduate school; our oldest is married. We speak with all of them often (not often enough, of course), usually just to catch up on their exciting lives. But, despite their burgeoning independence, they still need us on occasion. When that happens, they know which one of us to call. Our division of labor was established early on.
Blessed that my wife, Sara, and I have been able to share parenting responsibilities, we have never been bashful about letting the kids know who does what best.
Sara always jokes that my job is to earn the money, hers is to spend it. That’s really not true, though – she earns money, too, and I’ve done my share of spending. But there are much clearer distinctions between our parental roles, and the kids grew up fully understanding them.
Sara took the kids to doctor appointments because, as a doctor, I’m much too neurotic. Computer and other highly technical problems (like turning on the TV) went to Sara because I can barely even manage texting. I handled homework questions and test panics because Sara still suffers from her own residual test panic.
Sara did all the home repairs because she held the flashlight for her dad growing up, and because I consider a hammer to be a WMD. Sara did most of the cooking because otherwise we had to eat my burrito pies (see below). She balanced the checkbook, but I was the budget bad guy. I taught the kids sports, but Sara taught them to have fun.
On this Father’s Day, as emasculating as it may be to admit, I’m very grateful our kids have a mom who understands the flapper flush mechanisms in their toilets.