I’m tired of hearing men, including myself, occasionally make loose claims to their partners that they could be the primary caregiver of their child/children.

No, you can’t.

Unless you are telling me that you’re capable of doing the following at least as well as your partner can:

1. Be impossibly patient throughout, almost never blowing up and lashing out at her when things get hot.
2. Be flexible enough in your view of her to accommodate both her wanting autonomy and not being able to handle autonomy.
3. Come up with enriching things to do with her that helps her lean into her unceasing itch to be creative.
4. Teach her how to read letters, words, sentences, paragraphs, and eventually, stories. In two languages. Because you know she’s not going to learn all that in school as effectively as she could with you.
5. Cook up meal after meal for her for years, even on days when you really prefer to order fast but ultimately unhealthy takeout.
6. Accept with superhuman grace when she refuses to eat the meal you tediously planned and prepared.
7. Be at peace with the fact that she is your life’s work now and nobody can truly witness that, unlike with a regular job.
8. Live with the possibility that she may never come to thank you for what you’ve sacrificed to bring her up.
9. Be at your partner’s mercy financially because she will be earning most of the money then, despite knowing that you could just as effectively be the breadwinner if only you were given an equal opportunity to.

Only a small subset of men are truly capable of doing this off the bat, not because men are born incapable but because they’ve been conditioned to have qualities that almost incapacitate them. Unlearning that is certainly possible but will take time and practice, and for a while, that renders you less effective at being a primary caretaker of a child.

So shut up instead of saying that you could do the job if you were given the chance. Stop dangling the possibility of a role swap as if that’s going to turn out equally well for your children.

Acknowledge instead that your partner is indeed doing her life’s work, is sacrificing a lot to do a thankless job, and is doing it better than you ever can.