^{Originally published May 10, 2013 on BabyCenter.com}

As Mother’s Day approaches, I’m reminded that it’s good to be a moderately competent dad.

My wife is a stay at home mom, so she does everything. To prevent her from completely melting down, I sometimes start the weekend with a grocery run or shopping expedition that’s just me and my son. I call it merrands. That’s short for “man errands.” I’m clever like that.

The merrands give my wife some time to take a nap, watch some TV, or whatever else helps her unwind and feel like an adult human again. But I have to admit that I don’t run merrands just for the benefit of my better half. Part of the reason is because there’s a piece of me that is greedy for praise, and being a dad out alone with a young child is a great way to satisfy that vain little piece of me.

There is lingering sexism in our society, and I shamefully admit that I am its beneficiary. When I was a child, my dad would not let my brothers or I leave the dinner table until we had thanked our mom for making the meal. I now know why he insisted upon that: there was no other way my mom was going to get the thanks she deserved.

I have no idea what it would take for my wife to get a complete stranger to say, “You’re a great mom.” It would probably have to be something along the lines of stopping a rampaging Godzilla through the clever use of cloth diapers. Society just assumes that being a great mom is the default for women.

Dads, on the other hand, just have to avoid shrieking profanities and choking on their own tongues. On a typical trip through the grocery store, I get people beaming smiles at me when I’m chattering away with my son. I have actually had strangers stop me to tell me what a good parent I am, all while my son was just playing with a teddy bear in the cart while I picked out breakfast cereal. Apparently, managing to keep my son from alive and in good spirits is enough to get high praise. And while I realize that these are things I should not receive praise for, a part of me still eats it up like I’m a dog getting pet on the head for not making a mess on the carpet.

If I thought about this more, I could probably get myself upset about it. The praise I get on merrands could imply that I am expected to be lousy at this parenting thing and that just not being terrible is amazing in and of itself. But I assume most people aren’t that malicious to a total stranger, so I let it slide.

This won’t last forever. Hands-on dads are becoming more common, and people are slowly going to realize that it isn’t a miracle when a father manages to change a diaper competently. The closing of that gender gap is a good thing. Hopefully, as dads are expected to do more, moms will start to get the praise they deserve for going above and beyond like they do.

Mother’s Day is a bit over-commercialized, but it is a good time to stop and say thanks to women who don’t usually get the praise they deserve. It is a time when husbands can give their wives a taste of what it is like to be a dad out on merrands. Moms do a lot, and they do it without getting half the praise they deserve.

Give the moms in your life the thanks they deserve this weekend. And on every other day, make sure your child says, “Thank you Mommy” often.

_{Featured Image: Sarah Brooks}