This past weekend I joined 20 other women for our semi-annual scrapbook retreat. We leave our families for two nights and drives four hours away to a gorgeous bed and breakfast where we are pampered, fed gourmet meals, and sleep in luxurious surroundings. While we mostly talk about our families as we paste photos of them in our albums, we also bond, share girl-talk, and celebrate milestones of womanhood. (“Celebrate” is a loose term.)

In most cases our husbands call only a few times to ask where the toothbrushes are kept or to determine the exact moment of our expected re-entry to the real world. My husband is really good – he usually doesn’t call at all, so when he does, I know something big happened. On Saturday morning I got a note on my Blackberry that my youngest daughter had a fever of 103.4 degrees. He just wanted me to know they had already administered Motrin and he was going to keep a chart of her temperature throughout the day. Some of my colleagues reacted. “Wow, that’s amazing. He is really a great husband to look after three kids like that, especially with one so sick. Are you sure you don’t need to leave the retreat? My husband would be panicking, etc. etc. etc.”

Now, pardon for a moment the rant I am about to have. WHAT?????? Attention women everywhere – we do NOT have an exclusively female gene for raising kids, cooking, cleaning, and taking temperatures. Nowhere on the second x-chromosome is there an indication for making beds, brushing children’s teeth, checking homework, sending thank you notes, or arranging play dates. And husbands who do these things are not miracles or genetic mutations who need to be showered with accolades for simultaneously wiping chocolate off a preschooler while picking legos out of the dog’s bowl. (Sorry, babe!) These are things all men can do, though they may not readily volunteer like we do.

We all need to understand that when husbands screw up something to do with child-rearing it is intentional. It is called, “feigned incompetence” and it is effective both in the workplace and at home for getting out of doing anything dirty, demeaning in its appearance, or just plain not fun. They also seem to have a much better perspective than we do about what is truly important and what is only considered “necessary” because we want to look better than someone else or meet someone’s ideal of the “perfect mother”. (What is that, anyway?)

Whew! Thanks for that. But seriously, if we are going to be successful as executive mothers we all need to expect our husbands to equally match what we do in the home. My husband and I recently came to the realization that our frustrations with the workload had to do with the workload and not so much with how much each one of us was doing. The reality is that, in our household, there is more work than two people can do. So, fighting over who wasn’t doing 50% was counterproductive: Neither of us was capable of doing 50%! At that point we seriously looked at our goals, what we were willing to let go, what absolutely needed to get done, and what we could outsource. In addition to our gardeners and housekeeper, we hired a “Household Assistant” who runs errands, mails packages, make doctor’s appointments, buys groceries, and shuttles the kids to their after-school activities. We also know we can back each other up on any task at any time, if necessary, because there are no exclusively “boy jobs” or “girl jobs”. I can take out garbage and he can brush the kids’ hair like a pro. We both still work like crazy and fall asleep exhausted, but it is comforting to know if something ever happened to me, my family is in good hands.

The crazy thing is that we mothers are often the enablers. We contribute to the problem by creating the magic black box that is mothering, and we belittle men whenever they attempt to participate in the process. My sister recently chastised her husband because she felt he was holding their firstborn infant incorrectly – how on earth would she know any better than he does? We then perpetuate the problem of husbands feigning incompetence by letting them off the hook. Instead we should hold the line and if it is truly important, they will step up. They aren’t going to do something that puts their family in danger, at the end of the day. Finally, we absolve them of their fair share of the work when we reward insignificant contributions. “Oh, good job for changing a poopy diaper! Nice work matching that pink shirt with those butterfly pants! Isn’t he awesome for administering cough medicine!” If men are smart enough to be at our level in the workplace, they are certainly capable of figuring out how to pull a Cheerio out of someone’s nose. I don’t know how insecure we must be if we feel the need to differentiate ourselves from men by being self-appointed household experts. But, if we want to be successful as equals in the workplace, then it’s time for us all to expect more equality at home.