Julian had discovered, without ever quite articulating it, that he could harvest the full social reward of fatherhood, all the admiration and pride and identity, while performing almost none of its actual work, because the work was invisible and the identity was public.

He got to be a father, in the eyes of the world, at his office, at his fishing trips, wherever men admire one another, while I did the being-a-parent, the invisible three-in-the-morning parts that no one sees and no one applauds.

He wore the medal; I fought the battle.

And this arrangement is so common, and so culturally reinforced, that most of us never even notice it, never think to ask why the person receiving the credit for a family is so often not the person doing the work of one.

What I demanded, in the end, was not that Julian stop enjoying the identity of fatherhood.