responsibility – MamaBlogga

Who you gonna call? The buck stops here.

When I was in college, I worked one summer as a custodian. For part of the summer, this entailed spending 20 to 40 hours a week tending a residence hall—vacuuming, dusting, mopping, sweeping, cleaning, etc.

One day I was cleaning the windows on the top floor when I noticed there was something on the balcony, something that I wouldn’t be sweeping off—a dead bird.

“Oh man,” I thought. “Somebody’s gonna have to take care of that. Who do I call?”

It took me about three seconds to realize—crap. I was the one they were supposed to call.

I feel this way a lot of the time as a mother. “Dang, this is the fourth time a child has cried between the hours of 2 and 3 AM. Somebody had better—oh yeah.”

When you’re the mom, the buck stops here—you have the ultimate responsibility in the households. Now, the exact division of labor varies, but a lot of the time, this means that if the baby is crying, the dinner is waiting or the cat is puking, somebody is calling “MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!” because it’s your job to fix it. (I totally pass the buck on the cat vomit though.)

And a lot of the time, all I want to do is call “MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!” because I don’t want to do any of those things! (I guess my mom probably doesn’t either, LOL.)

But the buck stops here. I’m the one they call; I’m the one who takes care of the tears, the food, the cleaning and the dead bird. (Garbage bag turned inside out and gloves, in case you’re wondering.)

What chores or crises would you pass the buck on, if you could?

Dads are responsible (and important!)

The stats are alarming: more and more children are being born out of wedlock, divorce is on the rise, workaholism, absenteeism, and just plain abandonment result in more and more children being raised without fathers. Now, of course, I think mothers are wonderful and vital to a child’s growth and development—but really, we can’t do it all by ourselves.

Aside from potentially increasing the difficulty level of parenting for a mother, children who grow up without a father involved in their lives face long odds:

Boys without the substantial presence of a father are 70 percent more likely to commit violent crimes, and each year spent without a dad in the home increases the odds of future incarceration by 5 percent.

Girls without the substantial presence of a father are 150 percent more likely to become pregnant during the teen years and will experience 92 percent more marriage breakups than girls raised with two parents.

Both girls and boys raised without fathers are substantially more likely to be sexually abused than their peers in two-parent homes.

—As cited in Nurture the Nature by Michael Gurian

Does having a dad around automatically ensure that all will go smoothly for mothers and children? Of course not. But statistically speaking, it certainly helps.

With all these stats piling up around us, it’s easy to think that the world is sinking into a vicious cycle which can only perpetuate itself. But let me remind you: there are still lots of great dads out there. Dads that take the time to be involved in their children’s lives, whether or not they live together.

So here’s to all the dads that make the time to play with their children, help them with homework or chores, and really try to get to know them. Because there are still plenty of good, responsible dads out there (they just don’t always make the headlines).