Because women can seem so much better at this parenting stuff, because historical gender roles have often decided for them that most household duties are their responsibility, there is a secret strategy that father’s have been relying on for generations: Pretend to be bad at something and your wife (or your mother or a well-meaning neighbor) will take care of it for you. 

Feign like you can’t figure out the car seat? Here, I’ll do it.

Make a couple really bad dinners. Here, I’ll do it.

Act really overwhelmed. Here, I’ll hire a babysitter to help while I’m out of town.

Any dad can tell you, this works. Deep down, they also know it’s incredibly manipulative and unfair. It’s a violation of a basic principle of adulthood, too, because instead of stepping up for ourselves and our commitments, we’re letting someone else do it for us. 

The Stoics said that we are responsible for blowing our own noses. We are. And when we became dads, we signed up to blow our kids noses until they were old enough to do it themselves. We can’t just pass these responsibilities onto our spouse or their mother or even hired help. We have to do a lot of it ourselves. Because we signed up for it. Because it sets a bad example if we don’t. Because we’ll be better and more confident if we get some wins under our belt.

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