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The Bar Was Set High
Published 6/3/26
Pop culture and society have spent a long time telling us that men are bumbling and incompetent.
That a dad who shows up is some kind of miracle worth celebrating. I want to push back on that.
Not because it isn't sometimes true, but because I think the story we keep telling has become some kind of permission slip.
Permission for men to be less. Permission for women to expect nothing.
That wasn't the home I grew up in
My dad cooked. He cleaned. He was at my games. He was the primary parent who took me to doctor's appointments, who sat in the waiting room during my surgeries. Not because he was some rare anomaly, but because the bar in our home was simply set high. That's it. That's the whole thing.
A few weeks ago I mentioned to him, pretty offhandedly, that I'd been hopping a fence to get to where we keep our cows. Days later, my phone buzzed. A picture. He'd quietly gone out and built a little makeshift ladder right onto the post so I could get over it safely. No announcement. No fanfare. He just solved it.
That's my dad. He's 72, and last summer he summited a mountain with my kids and me. In the winter, he takes my kids skiing every single week. He runs toward life, and he brings everyone he loves along for the ride.
I know I'm lucky
I say that without a hint of false modesty because I genuinely know that not everyone grew up with what I had. Not every woman has a dad who showed her what capable looks like. And it’s hard to break cycles and create change when you haven’t seen the alternative.
Now I've been married 18 years, and I can say the same about my husband. When I leave town I don't leave behind a list of instructions. I don't prep meals or lay out schedules or write notes about the kids' routines. Last year I left and he held down the house, the kids, all of it. No chaos to come home to. Because he's their dad. A good one. That's just what that means in our home.
The cultural narrative that paints men as overgrown children who can't function without a woman managing everything is a story that hurts men. It gives them permission to be less. And it hurts women too, because they start to believe that doing everything alone is just the deal and that capable partnership isn't really on the table.
I refuse to believe that. The bar matters. What we normalize matters. What we expect matters.
Men are capable when the bar is set high.
So set it high.
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