This week my wife is out of town in exotic Minneapolis for some business meetings, so it’s just Tucker and I for a few days.

It’s always a strange time, with her gone.

There is a guaranteed extra level of exhaustion, obviously, but time with just Tuck and I alone isn’t really anything new for me. Essentially, it amounts to 2-3 hours each evening where I don’t have my usual “tag team” reprieve, and some slight adjustments to the bedtime routine. No biggie.

The worst part is us both just missing her, frankly.

So this isn’t the situation you see often where a dad is frantic about having to go it alone with the kid(s) for a time while mom is out of town for a few days or even just out for the evening. But what it did do was make me reflect on how often you do see that: friends on Facebook or Twitter, posting about how they’ve “survived Day 1″ or what-have-you.

I want to make clear I’m not saying I’m any better than those dads because this isn’t a big deal for me. I totally recognize that any change to your regular routine can be stressful, particularly if it means having to do things that are out of your comfort zone. But on the contrary what I really want to stress it that this frantic worrying is, in most cases, completely unneeded, because most dads are way more competent than they think…

…and sometimes way more they’d have you think, too.

I’ve written before about the Bumbling Dad stereotype that is so prolific in TV, movies and (especially) commercials, where even the most well-meaning dads screw up everything remotely domestic, from changing a diaper to using an air freshener to cooking a meal. I’ve also written about how low the bar has been set for “Super Dad”.

But the truth is, many guys are actually encouraged – and consciously or unconsciously comply — to proliferate that idea, that they are simply unable to handle domestic duties that amount to more than “helping out a little” without completely bumbling the whole thing. These guys are willing to look a little incompetent at these things, because it actually arms them with a ready excuse to avoid what they feel are unpleasant tasks, like diaper duty or fixing a meal that isn’t cooked outside on a grill. The image of “sitcom dad” has resulted in many a mom letting dad off the hook, because she’d rather do it right herself than have to clean up after Bumbling Dad made a mess of things. And besides, he already read a book or rolled around on the floor wrestling with the kids, giving you a chance to empty the dryer, so you should be thankful he’s helping out at all, right? Right? Add to this the historic perception that domestic chores are somehow a feminine thing only — girls take home ec, boys take shop class — and you can see why men are not that inclined to be seen as being too competent at proper vacuuming techniques.

Confession time! I am guilty of this, too.

Not intentionally, but, for example, I know I’ve taken the instances where I didn’t do laundry correctly — put things in the dryer that I shouldn’t have; didn’t spot-treat certain stains first; forgot a finished load in the washer until it smelled mildewy — and used those as a reason to put doing laundry far, far down my priority list each day. Unless I am literally out of clean underwear, I can usually count on my wife to do most of it eventually.

In fairness to my fellow men, I’m sure this isn’t something only men do. Women are perfectly capable of grilling meat, mowing the lawn, learning basic handyman (handyperson?) skills, and killing spiders, should the need arise. But many are totally willing to not just leave those jobs to the man but to actually feign an inability to do them.

Why do we do this?

It’s easy for me to figure it’s just laziness a lot of the time, especially for guys, but I don’t think that’s the real answer. Some may think it’s excusable because it makes your spouse feel better about themselves, but I’m not sure I buy that there is anything inherently attractive about falling back on those traditional gender roles that mean one has to actually feign or encourage weakness or incompetence. Does it make a guy feel like a fearless Knight when he gets to come to his woman’s rescue by killing a spider (that she could easily dispatch herself), or like some sort of manly Barbarian when he gets to feed his family by cooking dead animal over a fire? Maybe, for some guys, on some level. But I’m not sure that having to deal with endless piles of dirty laundry or dishes does anything to make a woman feel like she’s tapping into her inner Princess.

It seems to me that women get the short end of the stick.

So after all these words, I guess my point is simply this:  Step it up, guys!