MOTHERHOOD: SHARE THE GLORY

Sometimes parenting sucks, but sometimes it's the most glorious part of being human. In holiday gift-giving expenditures, Mother's Day ranks fourth behind Christmas, Thanksgiving and Valentine's Day. Father's Day falls a sad sixth in spending, coming after Easter. This may be only a rough indication of the involvement of mothers versus fathers, but we tend to put our money where our hearts are.

Until the last twenty years, our society failed to see the importance of having active fathers in children's lives. This is sad for all involved. Mothers may get one glorious day, but they've borne the heavy burdens of parenting alone for way too long. Dads who don't have to change dirty diapers or go to teacher conferences may seem to have gotten a lighter load, but their un-involvement robs them of the same powerful influence and significance that moms have had.

Have you ever seen a pro athlete mouth "Hi Dad" to the camera?

Kids deserve two active parents and parents are at their best when functioning as a true team. How the parenting jobs are divided up matter less than that they are divided somewhat equally between both parents.

There are many tedious, frustrating requirements to raising us humans. We come into this world as squalling, messy entities filled with amazing potential and it's our parents' job to help us move forward into adulthood. Individuals who reach maturity with some level of self esteem and some awareness of their own capacity--well, they're ahead of the game.

I've often said that being in a relationship and being a parent are the two hardest jobs on the face of this earth. That's saying a lot when you consider how amazing we are. We build both rocket ships and bombs with incredible ingenuity. When we look around at the human race, we see both heartrending heroics and horrible cruelty.

We humans have great capacity...and the hardest roles we have are the ones involving our loved ones. The people who make us craziest are those closest to us. You can be brilliant and do amazing things in your profession, but bringing all those smarts home to your spouse and your kids can be really challenging.

So, Moms, share the parenting glory...and share the dirty work. You deserve a bubble bath and the kids' dad deserves to put them to bed. Everyone needs a little snuggle time.