When it comes to parenting, I don't buy into gender stereotypes or biological imperatives or how they feel on "Mad Men."

It’s 2019! Parenting tasks are no longer divided solely by gender, at least not in my house. It's a team effort, a total 50/50 proposition, and moms and dads both have to go all-in to make it work.

That said, there are definitely some things my wife does better than me, and most of them aren’t gender-specific. (Unless you count being sick. Women totally dominate there.)

Five Reasons My Wife is Better Than Me

• Her body is a wonderland. Or at least a factory with a solid break room (WINK WINK!). My body is more like a construction zone in a town that went bankrupt and had to stop all work before the project was completed. Regardless, if I tried to fit a baby inside my stomach? It would probably fit, as I’ve been letting myself go lately – but it certainly couldn’t survive! I just don’t have the right equipment. She wins this by default. (And yes, I know babies don’t grow in the stomach.)
• She’s amazing at spotting messes. It’s a real testament to my wife’s superior eyesight that she can not only spot my son’s hidden enclaves of Play-Doh, and mac & cheese, and Play-Doh IN mac & cheese, but she can also predict where they will appear and successfully slide a coaster or paper towel or a place mat under my son’s bowl of Spaghetti-O’s before the inevitable sauce explosion. Living with my wife is like living with Nostradamus if Nostradamus constantly yelled at me for making a mess and then yelled at me for not cleaning it up and then yelled at me for not cleaning it up well enough and then yelled at me. She’s much nicer to my son. (Disclaimer: we’ve never and WILL NEVER served my son Spaghetti-O’s. I can’t believe I used to love that swill!)
• She’s an incredible snuggler. Not that I’d have any idea. But I can tell because my son loves cuddling up with her on the couch, or in our bed, or at the dinner table. When I try to get some cuddle-time with him, he hisses at me like one of those cat-people in Avatar. What gives? It’s not like I’m not soft; I already mentioned that I’ve been letting myself go! I think it’s my breath? It doesn’t matter. He wants nothing to do with me.
• She’s great at multitasking. She can cook dinner, praise my son’s (pitiful) drawings and choose his outfit for school pictures, all while simultaneously planning a vacation and demanding that I turn off “SportsCenter” and help with cooking dinner, choosing his outfit for school pictures and planning a vacation, just so she doesn’t have to do everything her goddamn self for once!
• She has the patience of saint. She doesn’t raise her voice at my son as quickly as I do. She doesn’t put him in time-out as quickly as I do. She doesn’t not come home and spend hours at the bar because kids are a huge pain in the ass as quickly as I do. Of course, when she does reach the end of her rope, look out! If she gets to that point, she’s not messing around. But it’s rare that she gets there, and when she does, it’s usually warranted. Meanwhile, I’m operating in constant yell-mode; I merely adjust the volume accordingly. It’s a stressful place to be. I could really benefit from my practicing some of my wife’s patience but if my son doesn’t stop throwing things in the vicinity of every expensive digital device we own I am going to LOSE IT!

Neither of us is perfect, but Mom and Buried is pretty much crushing me at this whole parenting thing. To be fair, she doesn’t have to live with someone who’s constantly rubbing their superior patience, snuggling, and multitasking abilities in her face all the time! So I’m doing pretty well, considering.

I’ll be back soon with a list of things I do better than my wife, so long as one thing (drinking) counts as a list.

This post originally ran on Dad and Buried.

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