Here's a dad who sets the standard for sharing, caring

The Boston Herald

Beverly Beckham

Ah, yes, the good old days. Dad worked 10, 12, 14 hours, came home, sat down, read the paper, ate dinner, took out the rubbish, shoveled snow in the winter, cut the grass in the summer, and gave the final word in all important decisions.

Your father will be home in 10 minutes. I want you to put your books away, now.

You better watch your step, young man. Don't let your father catch you talking like that.

How different things are now. The monarchy is dead. Democracy rules. Father is no longer a figurehead. Fathers father.

I love to watch today's fathers so comfortable holding their babies, so at ease with words like colic and diaper rash and big-boy pants. They're involved. They talk. They hear. They listen.

They drive their children to school, schedule teacher conferences on their lunch hours, show up in suits and ties for afternoon concerts and plays.

They get up at night to feed and change an infant. They comfort crying babies, they take toddlers for haircuts, they even push baby carriages.

None of this behavior is unusual anymore, but it still surprises me. I hear a child cry for her daddy, and I'm stunned and pleased. This is the way parenting should be.

Fifty-fifty. Mothers and fathers working together.

I had lunch the other day with a 50/50 father. I knew him before he was a father, before he was a husband and though he talked about how his marriage would be an equal sharing of responsibility and how, when he was a father, he would divide the responsibilities of fatherhood, I didn't trust his division.

This 50/50 is the ideal but the reality is that, although men are more involved in fatherhood than ever before, women still do most of the parenting.

This isn't the case with Tom. He really does his share.

He and his wife both work. She leaves the house earlier than he, so he dresses and feeds his son and drives him to day care. His wife picks him up from day care and spends afternoons with him. When Tom comes home, he takes over. He gives the evening bath and puts Miles to bed.

On weekends, it's the same: 50/50.

"Miles has two favorite birds: Big Bird and Larry Bird," Tom said laughing.

"He thinks they're brothers."

He thinks they're brothers because Tom watches basketball AND Sesame Street with Miles. Because Tom spends time with him, a lot of time, his parenting isn't a part-time affair.

When Miles is sick, Jackie isn't the one who automatically takes a sick day to stay home with him. Tom stays home, too. They take turns with everything.

During our lunch, Tom talked about his brother's wife who has breast cancer and is undergoing chemotherapy and radiation.

"I took a week's vacation, packed up Miles and got on a plane to take care of things for her," he said matter-of-factly. "She's too sick to cook and clean and watch her kids herself."

Tom's brother lives in upstate New York. He has two small children, 18 months and 5 years old. Family members have been taking turns caring for the house and kids since his wife got sick.

In my generation, this responsibility would not have been Tom's. It would have been Jackie's. In my generation, it wouldn't have mattered that Jackie has a job, a son and is having another child. She would have been the one to drop everything and respond to this need.

But Tom went. And took Miles because it was over Mother's Day and he wanted to give his wife some time for herself. Plus he wanted to spend his time with his son.

"This wasn't something I had to do," he said trying to explain. "It's something I chose to do."

We changed the subject then. Tom wanted to talk about a book he'd just bought. Had I heard of it? The book was "Sibling Rivalry."