They Can't Be Grandmas. Or Mommies.

Earlier this week at o'dark hundred, I was getting ready for a 7:30 am (yes, 7:30 AM) meeting for work, when the Boss quietly crept into my room.

"Mommy, there's something yucky in my bed."

From the look and smell of her, I just knew what the "something yucky" was. Sure enough, she had gotten sick in the middle of the night, all over her bed, and then promptly fell back asleep. She didn't remember the episode at all, and even tried to deny it. But she couldn't escape the evidence -- she was covered in it. I immediately kicked into mommy mode, stripping her and her bed. I started running the tub when I suddenly remembered my work commitment. I woke Hubby up and enlisted his help with the bath.

I went back to getting ready and when the bath was over, Hubby sent the Boss back to me for a quick hair comb and blow dry. As I combed through her wet hair, I encountered a wonderful surprise -- vomit chunks still in her hair and dried puke on the side of her face and neck.

You probably know where I'm going with this. Now, when I've written posts like this in the past, pointing out Hubby's lack of parental finesse, I've been accused by some readers of being too hard on him -- that I'm a control freak who insists on doing things my way. But here's where I get confused. Should removing vomit chunks from a kid's hair and face be a basic minimum requirement of the bath or is it "my way"?

Ever since I got skewered by this guy and these folks for having major control issues (which actually wasn't all bad because it generated all kinds of traffic to my blog), I've been thinking ALOT about this equally shared parenting thing. For 7 months I've been contemplating whether truly equal parenting was possible or if it's all a very lovely and naive pipe dream.

I've decided it's the latter.

There's no question I have control issues that have been clearly documented by a nifty personality test that I recently took for work. I was impressed by how many diplomatic ways there are to say "Amy is a total control freak." ("Amy is seen as a natural leader with a hearty and frank style, who tends to take charge of any situation in which she finds herself...Amy is a good organizer and seeks to control the world around her with structure and discipline.") But I've also come to appreciate -- through this puke incident and others like it -- that Daddies aren't really cut out to be Mommies.

Dr. Karen Enberg, author of my new favorite book, "It's Not the Glass Ceiling, It's the Sticky Floor," says it best in the opening of her chapter titled "Fathers are Different from Mothers:"

"Mothers who embraced feminism and envisioned their lives on par with their husbands made the enormous assumption that all the work of making money and raising a family would be shared equally. There have, it turns out, been several problems with putting this supposition into practice: men didn't make the same assumption; men and women are fundamentally different in many ways; and it takes generations to change culturally established roles."

Sing it, sister.

Men and women are different and to fight pure biology just seems like too much of an uphill battle. Hubby will never notice the vomit chunks. He won't think to plan the birthday parties, keep on top of the school fundraisers or remember to nudge Angel about her science project. He won't ever see the big picture while keeping on top of all the little details, nor does he want to. While he can accomplish any task or cover any responsibility assigned to him, the fact that he can't proactively identify the task or responsibility that needs to get done in the first place, naturally makes him the helper instead of the true partner.

At the same time, I'm no Daddy. I won't ever breeze out the door to work without giving the kids a second thought. I'll never be able to come home from work and then just chill out for the rest of the night without the running list of the 100 things that have to get done cycling through my head. I'll always feel a little bit guilty if I have to stay late at work and alot guilty when I get the rare opportunity to go out and play. There's just something about a mom's inner wiring that makes her much more emotionally connected to her kids.

Being the Mommy doesn't diminish my stature in our relationship. And Hubby brings alot to the parenting table that I don't. Things have come a long way since I grew up. Hubby does alot more than my father did both around the house and in my kids' everyday lives. Maybe by the time my girls are married with children, things will have changed even more. In the meantime, I've given up trying to fight Mother Nature.

If you're not familiar with Free to Be You and Me, listen to the song that inspired the title of this post (Play#5 "Parents are People").

They Can't Be Grandmas. Or Mommies.