The other night, my husband went out for a “guys’ night” with some other dads. It was his second time in as many weeks.

Before I get into this, I wanna be fair and point out that my husband is a dyed-in-the-wool extrovert, so he’s always trying to hang out with people anyway. When we have to stop someplace quickly, I almost never let him be the one to get out of the car, because he’ll almost without fail run into someone he knows, and then I’m stuck in the car watching almost in slow motion as he gets wrapped up in a conversation. Then we’re ten minutes late and he’s wondering how.

My husband is invigorated by people, where I feel like a slug with salt poured on it after too much. So yes, this will play into things a bit. But not much.

See, after the guy’s night was scheduled, I felt inspired to do the same with a group of moms in my area that I tend to get together with every once in awhile. And we successfully planned dinner. For a month later.

As I’m entering this into my calendar, I mentioned to my husband how it’s just a little irritating that he gets to leave the house for adult conversation once a week when I don’t. His response?

“I mean…you all could just get together more often, too. Why don’t you?”

He was kidding, somewhat, so I didn’t kick him in his shins. My good deed is done for 2023.

Thing is, after he asked me this, I was seized for a moment by this indignance, this sudden rush of “YEAH! Why don’t we?!” And then I looked at my calendar, and I remembered exactly why we don’t.

Because we can’t.

Now, I’m sure that there are some moms out there who read that and rolled their eyes, because nowadays, we’re seeing a rise in the Empowered Mom. Don’t get me wrong; I mostly love the EM, because I’m also her, kinda. She’s well aware that self-care is integral, she doesn’t plan beyond her energy levels, and she understands that there’s nothing wrong with letting your kids feel bored, rather than being their constant source of entertainment. I am all those things.

But sometimes, the EM also likes to act as if parents literally don’t have to do ANYTHING they don’t want to do, and that’s…not true. Especially because some days, I don’t even want to be a parent, and I kinda can’t do that. So, when I say that I can’t get together with my friends on a whim every week, I mean I can’t.

“Now, now, Arianna,” some of you are still saying, “you mean you don’t want to. Because technically, you can.”

OK. Yeah. I also don’t want to. Because after a day filled with appointment-making, school drop off, paying bills, cleaning up animal puke, sometimes cleaning up kid puke, working, light house chores, reminding everyone else in the house to take their medicines, reminding myself to take medicines, running errands, doctor and vet visits, client meetings, and God-knows-what-else, I barely have the time to lie down and wallow in the things I still didn’t get done before the kids get home from school.

And then the kids have struggles with school and with life, and those things call for sudden changes in daily behavior and routine, things that I have to ultimately orchestrate. So when all of that is on my shoulders, no, I do not generally want to also have to find the energy to converse with others and eat with utensils.

Don’t get me wrong: my husband is no hands-off dude. He cooks all the meals, orchestrates all the work outside, makes way more money than I ever will, and handles finances and small chores of his own. If I ask him to help me with anything, he generally does so with very little complaint.

But still, I’ve noticed that, almost universally, dad groups can get together on a whim, and mom groups can’t. Because, regardless, Dad isn’t expected to handle these things, even if he does.

So Mom handles them, because the unspoken rule still exists that she should, and then she’s fucking exhausted and disinterested in having one more thing to give her energy to, even if it’s her friends, even if it’s important for her to keep her mental health straight.

It’s a bizarre phenomenon, but even my best friend, who is also an extrovert (shiver), won’t usually make plans weekly or last minute. Sometimes, she and I will hang out one-on-one, but that’s because we live down the road from each other, and there’s an understanding that the night can end whenever the hell we choose, even if it’s after 30 minutes. Anything else takes planning, showering, driving, and set-up to execute, and when all of your mental and emotional energy belongs to everyone else all the time, you just can’t spare any last minute like that.

The truth is, while society has made some strides, Mom’s physical and mental energies are still spent like endless currency until there are literal pennies in the bank, and then there isn’t much left to spend on her. When you live like that, you need time to make sure you save up; otherwise, the results are disastrous.

I can’t stress enough that I’m in no way saying that fathers don’t deserve their time with friends; all parents do, I think. But it also drives me nucking futs how we still haven’t corrected how obviously uneven our expectations of heteronormative parent couples are. What is everyone thinking this is, exactly? That mothers just don’t like hanging out as much as fathers do?

“No no,” I imagine people saying, “it’s just that Mom prefers to sit at home with her kids while Dad is out drinking and talking about something that isn’t farts. They’re both doing what fulfills them as people; don’t ruin it.”

I don’t know when this will change, but I do know that I’m not the only one who’s noticed this, and I think it needs to change. And if you’re like “OK, Arianna, how do we change this? What’s the first step?”

My answer to this is: HAVEN’T YOU BEEN LISTENING?! MY BRAIN IS ALREADY SPENT FROM WRITING THIS ARTICLE. YOU FIGURE THAT OUT AND GET BACK TO ME.

Or you can wait a month til I have the energy to do it. Up to you.