As a single mother, I refuse to celebrate Father's Day on June 21. This is why.

I met the father of my children twenty years ago exactly. He is a New Yorker, first stranded by chance in California, now anchored here by a divorce, two children, and a pension plan. We fell in love over shared politics (Clinton), backgrounds (big, chaotic, Catholic families), and interests (mostly, rap music and cooking). We were just as different as we were alike, but I didn't know that yet.

"Be careful," warned the raspy bartender at the restaurant where we all worked. "You'll end up hating someone for the same reason you fell in love with them." She had been married multiple times. I wasn't sure whether this meant I should take her advice, or disregard it. I chose the latter. Four years later, she sang Etta James as I walked down the asile: "I found a dream that I could call my own."

Next time I get married, I will take the advice of a thrice-married bartender. Because she nailed it.

Next time I get married, I will take the advice of a thrice-married bartender. Because she nailed it. I loved being the decision-maker, the planner, the dreamer. I loved that he let me. Until - I'm not sure when - I started to hate it. We piled on responsibilities: graduate school, home ownership, starting a business and starting a family. One of his qualities I'd first loved most - that he was so agreeable - was something I started to hate. I became more resentful of my management position. When our children were one and three - just babies - I quit.

It's a strange thing to be a divorce attorney, and getting a divorce. This was four years after becoming a mediator, and committing to myself and the world that I would never go to court again. It was time for the president of the cooperative divorce club to become a member. My husband had an opportunity to blow up my career the way I blew up our marriage. But I asked him to handle the divorce without court, and he was agreeable.

This Father's Day falls six years, less three days, from the day we divorced. In that six years, my children grew out of diapers and into themselves: they are loose teeth and lego, fencing and ballet, philanthropy and Harry Potter. At the same time, their dad grew less and less agreeable, and that's why I won't be celebrating him on the third Sunday in June.

Since our divorce, I have learned that I made all the plans because this kept me in control. I wasn't the better planner; I just liked everything to be done my way. Particularly in the raising of children, I, like many mothers, had become a gatekeeper, deciding which tasks to delegate, and how they were to be done. Even then, I often found a way to be critical of the result. Carrying the emotional load was heavy, but half of motherhood is martyrdom, according to our society.

Recently, I heard a prominent lawyer argue that mothers should be compensated for carrying the emotional load of co-parenting. As if it were a thing that couldn't be shared.

Recently, I heard a prominent lawyer argue that mothers should be compensated for carrying the emotional load of co-parenting. As if it were a thing that couldn't be shared.

What do we take from dads when we claim all of the emotional burden for ourselves? In every facet of modern womanhood, we want to be equal - except in this one way, where we want to be better. What does it mean for fathers when we tell them they're inherently less capable parents?

The truth is, moms are not better parents. We just aren't giving dads a chance. When I finally began to share the emotional labor of parenting - and I'll admit, this was through sheer exhaustion, not, emabarssingly, any kind of revelation - my former husband stepped up. He left the room he was renting, moved into his own home, and created a home for our children there. He put up a Christmas tree, booked the doctor's appointments, and wiggled out the loose teeth. He got our son a few truly awful haircuts. So have I, though. The kid has difficult hair.

My former husband now provides for our children in all of the ways. He pays bills, irons uniforms, braids hair, gives hugs on sad days, and gives love every day. He lives with our son, age seven, and our daughter, age nine, for fifty percent of the year. He is their dad 100% of the time. As a single father, he is no longer just agreeable. He is involved.

We share tasks now according to respective strengths. He, the teacher, handled all the quarantine home-schooling. I, the lawyer, constructed an elaborate Carole Baskin mock trial in order to teach my children about the justice system (and entertain myself, let's be real). Our daughter was the prosecutor, our son was defense counsel, and their dad was the judge. He wore a robe, banged a gavel, an exuded more gravitas than half the real judges I have been in front of. He wasn't agreeing to anything, he was making decisions. Turns out, he is good at that.

"Every day is Mother's Day," wrote Hillary Mantel. Maybe so. But in my house, and maybe in your house, every day is Father's Day too. It's the third Sunday in June. It's every Sunday in June. It's every June. It's every day.

I have mediated over five thousand hours of divorces. I see married parents with defined roles (I am the parent who does x, you are the parent who does y) become divorced parents who have to do it all. To do it best, we have to embrace this. Mothers, in particular, have to be willing to allow fathers to experience the full range of parenting, which means giving up control over the task and over the outcome.

Moms, if you really want to celebrate dad, then trust him to be as good of a parent as you are.

Moms, if you really want to celebrate dad, then trust him to be as good of a parent as you are. Celebrate him on Father's Day, sure. But thank him for the bad haircuts, the permission slips, the packed lunches, and all those other moments that are cumulatively known as parenting. In my house, we'll be celebrating Father's Day as often as we can. Join us.

Erika Englund is a family law attorney-mediator-strategist, amateur disruptor, and believer in positive, productive, affordable & efficient divorce. She's a legaltech evangelist, because she hates justice gaps, a former law school professor, a professional speaker and continuing education provider, and a happy co-parent (usually; she's not perfect) of two young children in Northern California. She wants you to know that this isn't legal advice.

If you'd like more information on promoting positive fatherhood, please check out Blending the Family (on every podcast platform), created by Tommy Maloney, who inspired this post. (c) Erika Anne Englund 2020

Thank you, Ryan.