In middle school, I transitioned from living with my mom to staying with my dad full time. This brought many unexpected changes, but one of the main things that surprised me was how people treated my parents differently.
When I lived with my mom, small tasks like picking me up from school or taking me to the doctor’s office were considered normal. Nobody ever questioned why my dad wasn’t the one driving me around or thought my mom was an amazing parent for doing very simple things with me. But, when I moved in with my dad, this quickly began to change.
Doing virtually anything with my father seemed to be unusual to others. Little things like him taking me shopping for clothes right before the school year starts or buying me snacks from the grocery store were usually followed with praise. Cashiers would say, “That’s nice of you to take your kid shopping,” or “I wish my husband would do this,” which I thought was odd. It was a sharp contrast to my mother’s friends asking if she wished she could spend more time with us or questioning why she did not request time off from work to attend a school event.
Not only were people more supportive of my dad, but individuals I barely knew began asking me personal questions about my life simply because they saw my dad do something with me. My routine checkups at the orthodontist started to include, “Why didn’t your mom drop you off?” as one of the multiple questions I was asked during my appointment, which often left me uncomfortable.
Situations like these forced me to briefly mention something implying that I live with my dad. Rather than just accepting it and moving on, older adults usually began to look confused and slightly concerned. This prompted them to ask me another string of awkward personal questions like, “Who cooks for you?” or “So then who drops you off at school?”
I have always found these conversations to be a bit funny since, in my mind, it is obvious that if I live with my dad, he takes on all parental responsibilities. So, it can be a bit concerning that people have such a hard time grasping the idea of a father taking care of his kid.
Living with my dad taught me many things, but one of them was how much pressure is put on mothers to do everything for their children and how little expectation is put on fathers. It makes me understand why my mom occasionally asked if I thought she was a good parent, yet my dad never has since he gets validation from others all the time. I am also more aware of the pressure put on my mom and all other mothers out there because I got to see a taste of the ridicule they get for how involved they are in their children’s lives. It has made me more conscious of how many people see women as nothing more than caretakers, yet men are seen as individuals first and parents second.
There is a high level of unfairness that so much pressure is put onto women to be perfect mothers, yet the expectation of being a perfect father simply does not exist. Women should not be ridiculed for not spending every second of their lives with their children, and they deserve the same amount of praise men get for being involved in their kids’ lives.
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