In a move that would make my wife proud, I turned to the blogosphere to look for a consensus on the rewards and challenges of being a father.

The hardest things about being a father:

• Knowing your wife is a better parent than you.
• Finding the time to give everyone the attention they deserve.
• Being afraid you’re doing it “wrong.”
• Worrying about the temporal needs of the family.
• Worrying about the spiritual needs of the family.

The best things about being a father:

• That huge smile and laughter as I come in the door from a long day at work.
• The instant forgiveness from a child after sending him to his room.
• The funny things kids say (see here, here and here).
• Just spending time together, doing thins I love doing as a kid, like playing with Legos, but can’t really get away with as an adult.

But being a father isn’t all fun in games. In April General Conference in 2004, Elder L. Tom Perry outlined three roles for fathers, and they’re a tall order.

1. The father is the head in his family.

“Fatherhood is leadership, the most important kind of leadership. It has always been so; it always will be so. Father, with the assistance and counsel and encouragement of your eternal companion, you preside in the home. It is not a matter of whether you are most worthy or best qualified, but it is a matter of [divine] appointment.”

Your leadership in the home must include leading in family worship.

“You preside at the meal table, at family prayer. You preside at family home evening; and as guided by the Spirit of the Lord, you see that your children are taught correct principles. It is your place to give direction relating to all of family life.

“You give father’s blessings. You take an active part in establishing family rules and discipline. As a leader in your home you plan and sacrifice to achieve the blessing of a unified and happy family. To do all of this requires that you live a family-centered life.”

President Joseph F. Smith counseled brethren to lead their families in a weekly Family Home Evening. “If the Saints obey this counsel,” he said, “we promise that great blessings will result. Love at home and obedience to parents will increase. Faith will be developed in the hearts of the youth of Israel and they will gain power to combat the evil influences and temptations which beset them.”

Along with this role, I want to say just a little about discipline. President Harold B. Lee said, “A father may have to discipline his child, but he should never do it in anger. He must show forth an increase of love thereafter, lest that one so reproved were to esteem him to be an enemy (see D&C 121:43). The Lord forbid the feeling of a child that his mother or father is an enemy.”

This ties into Elder Perry’s next role for fathers:

2. The father is a teacher.

Elder Perry’s talk led me to a pamphlet first put out by the church in 1973 called “Father, Consider Your Ways.” Even though it’s almost 40 years old now, the advice still rings true today. On this role, the pamphlet said:

It must be emphasized that as a father, you are always teaching. For good or ill your family learns your ways, your beliefs, your heart, your ideas, your concerns. Your children may or may not choose to follow you, but the example you give is the greatest light you hold before your children, and you are accountable for that light.

At one time a young father acted somewhat unkindly to his wife. Three days later this same man saw his three-year-old daughter use his very words in acting unkindly to her mother. The man was sobered and came to ask himself this question, “Do I love my children and family enough to repent, to change my life for their welfare?”

We are also supposed to help children recognize promptings of the spirit. I found a good list of a few ways to do this (source missing, sorry!):

1. Help them learn to pray
2. Keep the peace
3. Teach the gospel at their level
4. Lead them in wholesome family activities
5. Talk to them at every opportunity
6. Listen for spiritual promptings yourself

Finally for Elder Perry’s roles:

3. The father is the temporal provider.

Elder Perry strongly cautioned against mothers working for a second income (i.e. one that wasn’t necessary to provide the basic needs in life):

President Ezra Taft Benson expressed it clearly: “The Lord has charged men with the responsibility to provide for their families in such a way that the wife is allowed to fulfill her role as mother in the home. … Sometimes the mother works outside of the home at the encouragement, or even insistence, of her husband … [for the] convenience[s] that the extra income can buy. Not only will the family suffer in such instances, brethren, but your own spiritual growth and progression will be hampered.”

If I can be so bold, there’s one more fatherly role I’d add to Elder Perry’s list:
4. The father is a husband.

“Father, Consider Your Ways” points out:

The obligations, the burdens, the responsibility of being a proper father may seem overwhelming. Fortunately, you are not required to preside and judge and act without counsel, without assistance. You have a wife—a companion, a counselor, a partner, a helpmeet, a friend.

Is she one with you? Do you thank the Lord daily for her? Do you keep the covenants you made with her and with the Lord in the temple? Do you always strive to keep your thoughts and words and actions pure? Do you realize that when you offend her in any way it is like offending yourself, since you are one?

Does she know of your love for her? Is your relationship one of continual courtship? Do you regularly spend time together—alone, where your expression and actions reassure her of your appreciation and reliance on her companionship? Do you exercise righteous leadership with her?

Do you always keep sight of your marriage goal, the creation of an eternal unit bound together by love and by the power and ordinances of the priesthood?

President Gordon B. Hinckley taught, “A good marriage requires time. It requires effort. You have to work at it. You have to cultivate it. You have to forgive and forget. You have to be absolutely loyal to one another.”

Finally, President Howard W. Hunger said, “Indeed, one of the greatest things a father can do for his children is to love their mother.”

I’ve got just five days left for the A to Z blog challenge—and about 18,000 things to get done in the next two weeks. My mom went home today and I’m drained on all levels.

So, for a quick discussion: what’s your least favorite household chore?

I probably can’t say enough about fathers, or say enough to thank the father of my children. The man does dishes, reads with Hayden, and can even put the kids to bed.

Thank you, Ryan!

So go ahead, brag on Dad here!

We never had money to spend on each other, but we had caught early in our lives a sort of contusion [the story says contagion, but I think this misreading is where we got off track] from our mother. She loved to give, and her anticipation of the joy that a just-right gift would bring to someone infected the whole household. We were swept up in breathless waiting to see how others would like what we had to give.

Secrecy ruled—open, exaggerated secrecy, as we made and hid our gifts. The only one whose hiding places we discovered [sic] was my grandmother’s. Her gifts seemed to appear by magic on Christmas morning and were always more expensive than they should have been. She was a drug dealer. She had a plot of fifty marijuana plants out back—

[Ryan had to stop for several minutes while I sputtered, choked and, yes, cried with laughter. We then discussed whether or not those were the real printed words.]

That Christmas I was glowing because Mother had been so happy with the parchment lampshade I’d made in the fourth grade. Father had raved over the clay jewelry case I had molded and baked for him. (“Baked?” Grandma said.) Gill and Emma Lou had been pleased with the figures I’d whittled out of clothespins [Mother less so, I'm sure], and Homer had like the scout pin I’d bargained for with my flint. Then Grandma started to pass out her presents.

Mine was heavy and square. It’s a brick of cocaine!

“You’ll have to cut and deal it yourself, dear. I’m getting too old for that kind of thing.”

I’d been in the hospital with an overdose that year and then on crutches after one of Grandma’s rivals broke my leg with a baseball bat. And I’d wondered how it would be to have an erector set to build with. Grandma had a knack at reading boys’ minds and I was sure that’s what it was. But it wasn’t. It was a pair of boots, brown tangy-smelling leather boots. I turned them upside down and out tumbled—

[The End]

By the time we got all ready and actually got to the hospital it was 3:30. The nurse checked her out and told us she was at an eight and asked if Jordan had wanted an epidural. The moment of truth.

Bit of background: Jordan had a very bad spinal headache caused by a botched epidural during Hayden’s birth. She was basically flat on her back for a whole week afterwards. So when she found out she was pregnant again, she decided she wanted to go natural. She has been practicing self-hypnosis with some good results for several months now. During several of her stronger contractions before we came to the hospital she had doubts that she could go through with it.

Jordan replied to the nurse, “Well, I wasn’t planning on it?” The nurse, sensing Jordan’s hesitancy, told her that she had come this far and Jordan could do it without. So it was—no epidural, au naturel. I believed she could do it, but then again, I’ve never had to go through anything like what she was.

The doctor got there about 4:30 and she started pushing. She had to “learn” how to push all over again since her first birth was with an epidural and she couldn’t feel anything. Only a (what it seemed to me) a short thirty minutes later, Rebecca was born.

A small personal note—I was very proud of Jordan for going through with her desire to go all natural. At times she questioned if she could do it, but she was a champ and did amazing. (With the help of a great nurse.)

All Rebecca’s vitals were strong, which was a relief since Hayden had a few issues after he was born. She weighed in at 5 lbs 13 oz and came in at 18.5 inches long. She almost immediately got to nurse and did so for almost an hour before she was taken away to get some shots and get her first bath. So both mom and baby are doing great other than a bit tired. So hopefully Jordan will be able to get online tomorrow and fill in any gaps that I might have left out.

There was also a good discussion on “how can we justify the institutional and social investments made in these women with specialized professional degrees who don’t use them?” with lots of well-reasoned answers (my answer: being overqualified to raise children and choosing to guide and raise our own children makes us a drain on society?)

But that wasn’t the comment that really got under my skin. It was a response to a mother’s anecdotal observation about mothers in her child’s preschool class:

[from the original comment] “In my daughter’s preschool class of 18 kids – maybe 4 or 5 moms work. I am one of two that work full time. In my immediate circle of friends that I met while on maternity leave – I was 1 out of 7 women to return to work. Four years later and I am the only one working. These women are former lawyers and professionals.”

[this anonymous person's response] There must be a lot of key parties in your neighborhood!

What do these woman talk about with their husbands besides the kiddies? No wonder married men cheat!

I hesitate to say anything because, well, from this comment it’s obvious that this person has absolutely no understanding of anything they mentioned, and not just parenting—everything from human nature to marriage to fidelity to working. But I think there is a pervasive attitude of “What do you do all day?” underlying this comment and society’s perception of stay-at-home mothers.

But let’s take this one point at a time.

“There must be a lot of key parties in your neighborhood!”

A key party is one of those parties held by swinger-types (men put keys in the bowl, women take them out and go home with the owner of the keys). What that has to do with the rest of the argument is beyond me, since apparently everyone in the neighborhood is a SAHM—and I’m pretty sure the premise of a key party isn’t to have an interesting conversation. (And who says that working or staying home has any impact in this area anyway?)

“What do these woman talk about with their husbands besides the kiddies?”

Underlying assumptions here: children are boring; men couldn’t possibly be interested in the daily adventures of their children; any and all jobs are more interesting than raising children and better conversation fodder.

In all the words in my vocabulary, “boring” isn’t one I could apply to my child (soon to be children). Granted, I’m not going to argue that every single day is filled with excitement, interesting activities and new milestones. I do get bored sometimes during the ten to twelve hours I spend with Hayden.

Frankly, however, when I worked full time my job was way more boring. I enjoyed it to an extent, but spending eight hours in front of a computer screen has a bit of a stultifying effect on pretty much anyone. My husband works four ten-hour days a week, and I have a hard time getting more than 10-15 minutes of description about each day out of him (and he’s not the taciturn type).

I’m actually not a SAHM; I work from home (WAHM, I guess) 10 hours a week. But even now, while I enjoy my job, it’s not always interesting—and very rarely is it worth talking about with Ryan, who doesn’t know very much about my field anyway.

Maybe this person has a fascinating job and can regale crowds for hours with tales from each day at work, but the rest of us living in the real world almost always don’t. And even if we had things that we found interesting happen during the day, odds are good that our spouses don’t work in the same field and wouldn’t necessarily find them interesting.

On the other hand, fathers have a bit of a vested interest in the wellbeing of their children. If they can’t stand to hear the highlights of the previous ten hours for at most 30 minutes (and that’s if no one else says anything during dinner), then they should probably be subjected to it for that very reason.

Oh, and since this person asked: my husband loves to hear about my day with Hayden. Perhaps once a week, we’ll talk about my job. I try to get him to talk to me about his job, but he usually is in decompression mode during dinner, and doesn’t want to talk until later (or he’s so eager to talk that he’s already told me everything by the time we sit down).

Aside from Hayden, we talk about news, politics, philosophy, history, psychology, sociology, finances, investments, literature, television, films, etc. You know, the things that most other married couples talk about. Guess what? I might be a mother, but I didn’t go put my brain in the toy box.

But here’s my favorite part of the comment:

No wonder married men cheat!

Yeah. Let’s do an informal survey: if you’re a married man, would you cheat if your wife subjected you to hearing about your children? Otherwise boring dinner conversation?

No? How strange.

Just so we can be fair with the stereotypes, here’s my perception of the “professional” couple without children’s dinner conversation: . . . . Oh wait, they’re both still at work.

Every time we turned on the lights, every time he looked up at them (and this light is visible from the kitchen, living room, family room and dining room, so this was a lot), Hayden informed me anew “Night! Night! B’oken! B’ake it!” (Light! Light! Broken! Break it!, for those who don’t speak Haydenese).

If you’ve ever had a two-year-old, you know—this can get old very quickly. Finally, I told Hayden a week ago that Daddy would fix it soon. This placated him for a while, though he would often remind me “Daddy pits it.”

After four or five days, though, this excuse began to wear thin with Hayden. This week, when I told him Daddy would fix it soon, he looked at me. “Mommy pits it,” he nodded solemnly.

Apparently the kid knows who gets things done .

1. What is his name?
Ryan.

2. How long have you been married?
Going on four years.

3. How long did you date?
Well, let’s see. . . . from the day we met to the day we married was 325 days. Our first date was 256 days before our wedding. We were engaged (with ring) for 94 days.

And today is the first anniversary of our first kiss! It’s true. Our first kiss was 144 days before our wedding.

4. How old his he?
29. Seriously.

5. Who eats more?
Usually Ryan. Sometimes Hayden, if it’s macaroni and tuna, especially .

6. Who said I love you first?
I did. Grumble. I contend, however, that he felt it first but was afraid to say it. We had only been dating for a few days, so he has an excuse.

7. Who is smarter?
I’m smart enough not to answer that question. He would say me, but I think we have the same college GPA. Good enough?

8. Who does the laundry?
In fits and starts. Lately it’s been me, but at times it’s been mostly him.

9. Who does the dishes?
Ryan washes the dishes, I unload the dishwasher. But we’ve just arrived at this arrangement. Here’s hoping it lasts.

10. Who sleeps on the right side of bed?
We both do. The “right” side of the bed? Sitting at the head of the bed, facing the foot of the bed, I’m on the right. Standing at the foot of the bed, facing the bed, he’s on the right.

11. Who pays the bills?
Autopay, mostly.

12. Who cooks dinner?
Usually me unless I’m feeling lazy or not so good.

13. Who is more stubborn?
Dunno. Maybe me?

14. Who proposed?
Ryan, of course.

16. Who has more siblings?
Ryan—he’s fourth of five, I’m first of four.

17. Who drives when you are together?
Usually Ryan, though I’ll do it if I feel like it, if he’s too tired, or if I know the way and don’t feel like navigating.

18. Who has more friends?
Real people: I would say he does. “Imaginary” Internet people (no, not you, you’re real): probably me.

19. Who wears the pants?
Most days, we both wear pants. But neither of us wore pants for our wedding:

The other day, I sang a little song for Hayden. I told Ryan about it that night, and Ryan got the goofy look on his face that he gets whenever I sing (which is usually accompanied by a “You should sing more often”). Here is the song. You may recognize it. It was first popular in 1918. Not that you’re that old; it still gets sung a lot.

H-H-H-Haydie, beautiful Haydie,
You’re the only b-b-b-boy that I adore
When the m-moon shines, H-H-H-Haydie,
I’ll be knock-knock-knock-knock-knockin’ at your door.

After I finished repeating the song for Ryan, Ryan has a sentimental look on his face. “Did he like it?” he asks, thinking that he knows the answer.

“Actually, no. He hated it. And he really wanted me to put him down.”

And I didn’t even tell Hayden that the song’s originally about a girl. Sigh. At least my husband still likes my singing.

My father has told me a lot of things (if you know him, I’m sure he’s told you a lot of things, too ). One that has always stood out in my mind was when he invited me to watch the very end of the movie Fargo with him (edited on TV).

It’s probably the least interesting scene in the movie: policewoman Marge Gunderson is sitting in bed with her husband, Norm, talking about his entry in to the duck art stamp contest. He’s disappointed to take second; she reassures him that he’s done well (and that people will use three-cent stamps).

“That’s love,” my father informed me. “That is real love.”

At the time, I was probably a young teenager and just had to take his word for it. But today, I have to say that I agree. I see that same level of real love in my relationships of all kinds today.

Love is paying attention. It’s knowing what your loved ones are doing, what they care about, what their aspirations are. Love is encouragement. Love is hoping the best for one another, thinking the best of one another, and finding the best in one another.

Love is being there. (Can you even imagine where you’d be without them?) Love is remembering one another. Love is caring for and about one another.

Love is listening to my husband’s account of his day with interest. Love is rehashing the same four political discussions we always have. Love is helping Hayden climb onto the couch even though he just jumped down. Love is making dinner despite Hayden’s constant clamoring to see into the cooking pans—and despite the fact that he probably won’t eat it.

Love is the sum total of every action that shows that we are thinking of one another. Love is the constant underpinning of a secure family life.

Despite this talk of love, I don’t plan much of a Valentine’s Day celebration. We may not have a ton of chocolate or flowers or balloons or cards or romantic dinners for two (though there will be tokens, I’ll admit). That’s okay with me; honestly, I appreciate the tokens more when I get them because it was his idea, not the calendar’s.

For Valentine’s Day, like the days before and the days after, our family will have love. May yours also.

Enter Scribbit’s February Write-Away Contest, too! Oh, wait, I mean, don’t enter. Just let me win .