I’ve written before about a good friend of mine who’s in a marriage with a wife and two boys. He’s really a lovely guy, and as a colleague and eventually as my business partner, he made it very clear that parenting was a super important priority for him.

He took an incredible amount of shit for that from other guys and sometimes even from women.

He and his wife evenly split child care responsibilities, and when they said evenly split, they meant it. They meant that sometimes he would stay home to care for a sick child. They meant that sometimes he would leave work early to pick a child up.

They meant that he would no more put work before child care than she would.

The differing reactions were amazing. People expected her to do things like that, even when they didn’t like it at work that she had to. Nobody judged her for it in a personal way.

But they sure judged him! I can’t count the number of times I heard somebody say to him, “What the hell is your wife for? Why isn’t she doing that?” They made it clear they thought he was something less than a complete man.

(He and I worked in a very macho, men-centered industry. She was a highly trained healthcare provider.)

I think their story really illustrates how people not only don’t expect men to be full partners in raising children, but can actively disrespect them when they choose to do it.

And I think that absolutely boils down to not really valuing mothers.