As my wife would say, everything’s not about you. And making sure we don’t miss the point, it is Mother’s Day today. Father’s, your day is coming. Today is mother’s day and I will be the first to tell you how much you are appreciated. You are often the glue that holds the family together. You are the car pool driver, the nurse, the comforter, and the support network your children need. And you hold one other very important role, you are the sole reason we are fathers.

Okay fathers, we may think we are the important person in the family, but our role doesn’t exist without mothers. Without mothers, we would have no to do lists to get done. There would be no one in the passenger seat to tell me all the driving mistakes and laws I am breaking. There would be no one to tell me to get directions. No one to repeat all the directions my navigator is already telling me, by the way, thank you whoever that alluring voice is in my navigator. There would be no one to be the person I always told my child to go ask for permission. No one to remind me it’s not all about me.

Without mother’s, or even surrogate mothers, we would never get to be fathers. I would never get to hold the child she gave me in labor, that she carried for nine months, that she nurtured long before I even met them. I would never have gotten to play catch with, to sing Karaoke with, to yell support to her as I watched from the bleachers, or to put my arm around her as she sobbed after a rejection or just a bad game, all the while telling her life wasn’t always going to be fair. To answer the hard questions and sometimes the really tough ones, or just to worry about her on every date and every new boyfriend.

Today is a day to honor mothers. If you needed another reason to appreciate her, I hope this message gave you one. You just wouldn’t be a father if not for a mother.