Richelle Hofer

I wrote a Father’s Day post this year that probably took me way too long to finish. It wasn’t long or flashy—I didn’t write a tribute worthy of a Hallmark card or a sweeping memoir about fatherhood. But still, I spent about an hour writing and rewriting it. Because for me, almost everything I post comes from a deep place. If I’m going to put something out there, it needs to mean something.

Here’s what I ended up with:

I changed the diapers, he cleaned up the puke. I bandaged hurt feelings, he bandaged skinned knees (the boys always thought their dad, being an EMT, was the only one qualified for those kinds of emergencies). I gave sympathy, he laid down the law.

He’s my parenting partner, and there’s no one I would’ve rather taken this journey with. He shows up for our boys, gives it to them straight, makes them laugh, and loves them fiercely.

They know he’s proud of them. They know he loves them.

He’s that kind of dad.

Happy Father’s Day, JR. 🧡

And here’s what I didn’t include in that post—but I’ve been thinking about ever since.

When I was changing diapers in the middle of the night and running on fumes, I had no idea that a few years later JR would be the puke-cleanup parent. He wasn’t naturally drawn to babies. He didn’t intuitively know how to care for infants (truthfully, neither did I—but someone had to figure it out, and that someone was me). At the time, it felt lopsided. And I’d be lying if I said I never resented that imbalance.

But now—23 years later—it’s easier to see it for what it was. We were both bringing our strengths. We were both filling in the gaps. Not always at the same time. Not always in ways that felt fair. But in ways that kept our family moving forward.

That’s something I couldn’t see clearly in the moment. It’s the kind of thing that only comes into focus with time.

People talk about 50/50 in relationships like it’s a fixed formula. But in real life? It’s rarely 50/50. Sometimes it’s 90/10. And then—maybe even years later—it flips. You give 90 when your partner has only 10 to give. And then, one day, when you’re running on empty, they carry the weight.

You can’t keep score. Because the “game” isn’t over until it’s really over. And just when you think it’s never going to balance out—just when you feel like you’ve given and given and it will never come back around—you hit a season where it shifts.

The scales move. Slowly. Quietly. And if you’re both committed to loving each other through the mess and the mundane, they find their way toward balance.

That’s what I see when I look back now. We each showed up when we could. We each leaned in when the other couldn’t. We learned. We evolved. We kept loving.

That’s the messy, holy work of long-term partnership and parenting. It’s not glamorous, but it’s sacred. And it’s worth it.

That’s what I celebrate on Father’s Day—not perfection, but presence. Not perfect balance, but shared effort, trust, and love for the long haul.

If you’re in the middle of an uneven season right now—if you’re carrying more than you think is fair—I see you. And I hope you’ll hang in there. Because the load shifts. The math works itself out in the end… but only if you stop keeping score.