And my wife, lips trembling, said, “I… I didn’t think she noticed.“
The teacher, trying to salvage the awkward moment and perhaps thinking it was a misunderstanding about a doctor or dentist appointment, knelt down to our daughter’s level. “What does Mommy do that makes you scared, honey?”
Our daughter stood up straighter, looking very serious. “It’s not scary. It’s just sad. When she comes home from her office job, she starts her real job. The ‘Mommy Job’.”
She pointed a tiny finger directly at me.
“She picks up his dirty socks that smell like cheese because he leaves them on the floor. She washes the plates he leaves on the table. She cooks the dinner while he watches the TV. She helps me with my math while he plays on his phone. She scrubs the toilet. She irons his shirts. She doesn’t sit down. Not ever. Not until I’m asleep.”
The nervous laughter that had started in the back of the room died instantly. The silence was now heavy, suffocating. I felt the eyes of every parent, every teacher, burning into the back of my neck.
“Mommy looks so tired,” my daughter continued, her voice innocent but cutting like a knife. “Sometimes I hear her crying in the laundry room when she thinks the washing machine is loud enough to hide it. I don’t want to cry in the laundry room. I don’t want to be a Mommy.”
She beamed a bright, innocent smile at the teacher. “I want to be a Daddy. Daddies get to sit down. Daddies get to relax. That looks way easier.”
My wife put her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking.
I sat there, frozen, my heart hammering against my ribs—not from confusion anymore, but from a sudden, crushing wave of shame. The “secret” wasn’t an affair. It wasn’t a hidden crime. It was me. My daughter wasn’t trying to be mean; she was just holding up a mirror that I had refused to look into for years.
I reached out and touched my wife’s arm, but this time, not to question her. To hold her. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, my voice cracking. “I am so, so sorry.”
The rest of Parents’ Night was a blur. The drive home was silent. But when we walked in the door, my wife instinctively moved toward the kitchen, where a sink full of morning dishes was waiting.
“No,” I said, stepping in front of her. I gently took her purse and coat.
“What?” she asked, looking exhausted and confused.
“Go upstairs,” I said firmly. “Draw a bath. Use the expensive bubbles you save for special occasions. Then get in bed and read.”
“But… the dishes? Sophie’s lunch for tomorrow?”
“I’m the Daddy,” I said, rolling up my sleeves and grabbing the dish sponge. “And starting tonight, that word is going to mean something different in this house.”
My daughter didn’t want to be like her mom because her mom was doing it alone. It took a six-year-old to teach me that being a partner means more than just bringing home a paycheck; it means sharing the load so no one has to cry in the laundry room.
