I just read a CNN blog post by Jeff Pearlman encouraging dads to “wake the hell up.” Surprisingly, I agree with every point he makes. Especially the one about dads golfing for five hours on weekends after being gone all week for work. That may be an unpopular opinion among dads, but shit, we have to pull our weight. Turns out many of us dads aren’t doing our fair share and thus probably don’t deserve that gift mug this father’s day.

Below is an excerpt from the story, but I encourage you to read the full text here.

Really, wake the hell up. Now. I understand that most of you have 9-to-5 jobs, that you leave tired and come home tired and just wanna chill in front of SportsCenter with a bowl of chips. But, seriously, you have no remote idea: Being a stay-at-home parent is exhausting. At the office, you can hide. You can take lunch. You can pretend you’re working while scrolling the Internet for Yankees-Blue Jays and, ahem, Lindsay Lohan news. You have genuine social interactions with folks over the age of, oh, 12. People ask questions about your day — and listen to the answers.I

Don’t get me wrong, I’m no “perfect dad” and I would never claim or try to be. However, I do my damnedest to make sure that many of the child-rearing responsibilities are shared. Yeah, it’s hard as hell. And do I always want to be doing these things (changing diapers, going to the park, etc.), no, I don’t. But when we as fathers admit that there’s more we could do, that’s a start. I, for one, will try to get up with my child in the morning on more days so my wife can get some extra Zs. Guess I’m taking this whole “wake the hell up” thing literally.

When I tell people I have to be home right after work, I often say, “I’m babysitting.”

But that can’t be right, can it? If it’s your own baby, it has to be called something more like “parenting.” But my wife would occasionally argue with me on that point: she sometimes thinks I’m a little too relaxed in my parenting style.

To illustrate the point, witness the scene below. My friend and I were “in charge” of our kids one afternoon and just happened to be filming when things got a little dicey. But really, it’s no big deal. And I think all dads would agree that getting your hair pulled every once in awhile builds character.

Babysitting from TODD BEEBY on Vimeo.

What kind of not-so-mother-approved things have happened when you were on watch?

by regular contributor Brian Hoover

Yesterday, at the wholesale club, as I guided the fat cart down an aisle stacked twenty feet high with mega-packs of bread crumbs and canned beans, kicking at the back-right wheel to quiet its screeching on the concrete floor, my daughter Leslie, fifteen months and fighting a fever, said, “Mom?” and I said, “Yeah, sweetie?”

Leslie wasn’t confused about who I am. I speak her language pretty well, and I understood her “Mom?” to mean, “Where’s Mom?” or, “Are we going to go see Mom?”

Still, I answered as if she were addressing me. I’ll chalk it up to absent-mindedness—to the way I’m trained to respond to speech with speech; to bargain-hunting without a shopping list, as is my custom; to wanting to get out of the warehouse as quickly as possible so we could hit the bank, fill up the car, grab lunch, and make it to the doctor for a 1:45.

Then, at the accountant this afternoon, my wife held Leslie while I settled our tab with the government for this year. “Mom,” she said again—this one more just a “Nice to see you” by nature. “Yes,” my wife and I said, together. “That’s Mom,” I affirmed quickly, in a tone I hoped deflected the weirdness I felt at answering to my wife’s title for the second time in as many days.

I’m not confused about who I am: I’m Dad.  I’m also the primary caregiver in our family. My wife chairs the Fine Arts department at a nearby high school; she teaches in two disciplines and runs the theater program solo. As such, her schedule doesn’t permit her to be at home until dinner. I also work—two afternoons a week at an organization that provides behavioral services to children on the autistic spectrum (and has in-house day care), and three nights a week at something a little more menial. I’ve got about a semester-and-a-half left of grad school, but foremost, I self-identify as “Dad”—the only job I’ve ever felt truly predestined for.

I’m not ashamed of who I am—not at all—but I still sense people’s surprise when I tell them what I do. Our family’s type of arrangement has become more common in recent years—moms with careers, dads who nurture, the bread-winning and child-rearing roles reversed—but I am still regarded with the same kind of disbelief you’d expect to be reserved for mythical creatures.

Or maybe that’s all in my head. I’m a sensitive guy, after all.  If I weren’t, I wouldn’t be doing this.

Leslie can say my name, too. Her pronunciation—“Da-eee!” (exclamation point hers)—ranks among my favorite sounds on earth. But to do what I get to do—spend my days in the thrall of this little person (I’ll admit) I’m not strong enough to be away from—I would answer to just about anything.