My wife frequently reminds me that her job as a mother is much harder than my 9-to-5 job at the office.
My job has a beginning and an end, while her job requires her to be on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In a previous job, I managed a materials stockroom that required me to be on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. After working several 16-hour shifts and being called in to work at 5 a.m. on Christmas morning, I started looking for a new job. My wife does not have that luxury.
Although being a father requires that I am also available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, my wife usually responds to the early morning distress calls from my son (he usually wants his mommy and not his daddy), and is naturally the one who wakes to nurse our crying baby.
Two Saturdays a month, my wife graciously watches our two children while I work a 10-hour shift as a volunteer with a local law-enforcement agency. In December, she acquiesced to my desire to work two nights with the DUI taskforce, one of those nights being New Years Eve. I started my shift at 6 p.m. and was home at 6 a.m. the following morning, sleeping the next day while she watched both children.
On the first Thursday of every month, my wife enjoys one solitary, guaranteed night without children—book club! I am sure the very thought of being around other adults, carrying on intelligent conversations…without the threat of drooling children or foul-smelling pants is sufficiently exciting. Add some food, good friends, desert and conversation about a good book and you get a group of women truly enjoying themselves.
I used to dread the nights when my wife had book club. Being outnumbered (two against one) and ill equipped to feed a baby with a bottle and corral a hyperactive three-year old boy, I wondered to myself: How does my wife do it? I will take tense negotiations with an unreceptive and defensive vendor over nerve-racking negotiations with a screaming baby and a crying toddler.
Tonight is book-club night and I am a book-club widower. I took my children for a ride, with the purpose of lulling my three-year old to sleep. It worked like a charm. After an active day playing around the house and no nap, he was asleep after just a few miles of freeway driving.
My daughter went to sleep about an hour later, drunk with sleep after consuming an entire eight-ounce bottle of formula. I wrapped her up in a blanket, laid her in her crib and closed the door. Finally, with both children asleep, it is time for me to kick back and relax.
Before patting myself on the back for being such a skillful parent, I remind myself that I only had both children for three hours…and most of that time they slept. My wife has the children for over eight hours a day, alone.
Yes, I have it good. I get to eat lunch without constant interruption, go to meetings without screaming children and spend the day generally doing what I want to do, when I want to do it.
I readily confess that my wife’s job as a mother is much harder than my day job. For that reason, and many others that make me grateful for my wife, I gladly jump at the opportunity to give my wife time away from the house and children. I am a book-club widower, and proud of it!