Just as I believe single mothers should receive recognition on Father’s Day, I believe single fathers – along with all of the moms – deserve recognition on Mother’s Day.

My father started raising my sister and me by himself when I was two and she was six. He planned our birthdays, brushed our hair and pulled it into ponytails before dropping us off at daycare, let me put multiple small pigtails in his hair in front of adult company, allowed us to spy on him from behind the couch with periscopes he made using tape, cardboard, and angled mirrors, dealt amazingly well with first boyfriends and broken curfews, and never allowed us to believe or think we were “just” girls who couldn’t do something – anything – because we weren’t boys. Instead, if we thought we couldn’t do something, he looked at us like we were idiots.

Single fathers aren’t more special than single mothers, but they’re certainly rarer (for a number of reasons), and because we tend to revere the single mother and largely forget the single father, I would like to wish a Happy Mother’s Day to all of the devoted single fathers performing double-duty. Love ya.