MARK MY WORD: THE U.S. DIDN'T INVENT MOM. BUT WE LIKE TO THINK SO

We talk about mom as almost a mythical creature, a part of our culture like baseball and apple pie.

That's not surprising.

Moms manage our family history. They look out for us when we're growing up.

They serve as the family taxi driver without ever once asking for a fare. They see to it that the kids dressed for school every morning and get a bite to eat.

Joni has a knack for doing stuff like that. In minutes, she can find matching tops and bottoms for our kids from a pile of clothes. I could look through the same pile all day and never come up with the right combinations of pants and shirts.

I usually have the task of finding the children's shoes. I've developed a real skill for this. Besides, that way I feel like I've accomplished something while Joni does all the other stuff that is needed to get children up and out of the house on school days.

With all that moms do, it only makes sense to have a Mother's Day so we can send the very best to them and make money for the greeting card companies.

Dads are more than happy to let moms bask in the glory for a day. We don't want moms to go on strike and suddenly leave us to do all the stuff they do.

If Becca and Bailey had to depend on me to clothe them, they would be a sorry sight. Like most families, Joni does the shopping when it comes to buying children's clothes.

I've never understood kids' clothing and shoe sizes. Children's clothes have their own size numbers, which don't seem to relate in any way to adult sizes.

A man would never have come up with such a system of sizing clothes. If a guy were doing it, he would have just one number system for everybody, with low numbers for kids and the biggest numbers for the biggest guys.

Of course, our whole system of retail sales would be jeopardized without moms, who seem to instantly know of every kids' clothes half-price sale in a five-state region.

As for dads, we're lucky if we know the price of bread. We do, however, know important stuff like the cost of playing golf and baseball scores.

Moms also are instrumental in convincing dads to take the family on a vacation every summer.

This is not an easy task when you're thinking of spending long hours in a car with an 8-year-old and a 4-year-old.

We're planning to take a trip this summer, the kind that requires us to pack up the family van and spend eight hours on the road trying to reach our designated vacation location.

You can't just do that at the spur of the moment. It takes major planning to prepare for such an adventure.

You have to pack stuff. My advice is to let the moms do the packing.

When I pack stuff, I always manage to forget important things like clothes for the kids.

More importantly, you need a game plan for all those hours on the road so your kids won't turn to fighting as a form of entertainment.

I suggested we could ship them Federal Express to our vacation location, but Joni felt it would be better if we just borrowed a portable TV that we can use in the van. That way the kids can watch tapes and hopefully we won't have to serve as fight-night referees.

There's something else to consider when you take a trip.

If you get lost on vacation, remember that mom will want you to ask for directions.

That's a tough task for men to handle. We like to think we know where we're going.

Of course, if we had really known where we were going in earlier times, we would have never settled the West. And we certainly wouldn't have taken the children with us in those cramped covered wagons if we had known about all the hardships of traveling in rugged country where there were no Holiday Inns or fast-food restaurants.

If you're likely to get lost on vacation, my advice is to let mom drive. That way she can ask for directions.

Mark Bliss is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.