A Dad Walks Onto a Plane with Two Kids in Tow

On solo parenting and double standards

You ever heard of a “hands-on mom”?

Yeah, me neither.

By definition if you’ve gestated and/or birthed and/or raised a child as a mother, you’re considered “hands-on” without necessitating that it be explicitly stated. Yet it’s a phrase used to describe fathers–one I’ve used to describe my own children’s father–generally meant and understood as, he’s about as involved as the child’s mother is.

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It was my husband’s idea to take both of our kids alone on a three-hour plane ride to visit his family. It was his 7-off as a hospitalist, so he had the time off. I, on the other hand, couldn’t take work off short notice and had a deadline on Monday. “You could probably use a break, too,” he’d said.

He’d done this trip before when we had just one kid: she was twenty-two months and I was pregnant and uncomfortable, so I stayed behind at home. It was indeed a break: the house stayed clean. I browsed stores in quiet. I read a book. I went out for brunch. I watched Barbie in theaters.

But two kids—that’s a different animal. Both are toddlers, feral when hungry, tantruming when tired. My son had just learned how to say “NO!” and had begun snatching his arm away if he wanted to go in a different direction than you, like out in the middle of the road instead of on the sidewalk.

“Are you sure?” I asked my husband, my voice thick with skepticism.

Whole discussions were had about this with my friends. “Is this a bad idea?” I asked one. “Maybe I should go out there after the weekend,” I said to another.

And then I realized, would any of these discussions be had if it was a mother flying solo with her two kids?

My eldest sister did this same flight in the opposite direction routinely when her kids were young, and I never gave it a second thought (granted, I was in my early twenties, childless and oblivious to the grind and work of parenting). I myself did another flight of the same duration just a few months ago, and while I was anxious about it, I never doubted my ability. No one ever questioned my competence. There was just acceptance that it would be difficult and it must be done and so I would do it.

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Let me first say that I firmly believe many men weaponize incompetence: “I don’t know how to make that dish,” they lament. “I don’t know where the whisk goes,” they say while pulling it out of the dishwasher and leaving it on the counter. “Can you tell me where the extra wipes are?” they ask, as if the women in their lives were simply born with a superior set of cooking abilities and organizational skills right out the womb. It’s a lot easier to get away with not doing things if you can claim you just don’t know how.

But I also believe that women at times enable this behavior in men. What about a father flying alone with his children gave me so much pause? Why did I anxiously think that my toddler will mouth something and my husband wouldn’t notice? Why do I remind him, please make sure you scan the room for swallow-able objects and don’t let any of them near a pool by themselves—as if any of that needs a reminder?

It is my own internalized sexism at play. It is my own belief in my inherently greater competence as a mother and his inherently lesser competence as a father. And it is applying my own standard—of needing more order and less chaos—onto my more roll-with-the-punches co-parent.

The fact is, we may have to as mothers step down for men to step up. We cannot resentfully grab the whisk and put it in the right drawer or huff and puff to the linen closet and get the wipes. We cannot undermine fathers and doubt them and question whether it’s a good idea when they are searching for flight tickets. We can’t “save” them. It’s not good for them, and it’s not good for us.

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My husband and I are both physicians. We have equivalent degrees and an equal number of years of post-graduate training. And while our careers took different trajectories, it would be tremendously insulting for someone to suggest that I was a less competent physician than he was, or that either of our genders suggested a difference in ability as doctors.

And yet, that’s the assumption we operate on when it comes to fathers and mothers. That fathers can’t manage their kids alone, that they can’t do as good a job. And men benefit from this assumption because it allows them to do less, and women suffer for it because it requires them to do more.

The last 7-off my husband had, I went to the later jumuah while he picked up the kids. After prayer, I checked my phone and saw his messages:

“Listen, [our daughter] needs to pee and she said she’ll only go with you. Not to rush you.”

“Okay, she’s screaming, so come when you can.”

“Never mind. She went with me. Take your time.”

When I got back, I pointed this out. Imagine, I told him, if in any of the days he was away last year—at work, domestically, abroad, I said, ‘Hey, can you come back and do this parenting task real quick?’

“You have to determine if you are capable of managing the kids independently or not,” I had said.

I think his trip was a reply in the affirmative.