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In the world of child rearing, most people assume mom is the one responsible for the important stuff. According to research, health-care professionals will ask a father one question for every 15 given to a child's mother when both are in the room.

But it's not just ignorance of the value of knowing how to burp the alphabet or the sacred art of the Indian burn. In reality, only 10 percent of fathers are the primary caregiver for their kids.

A recent NPR editorial by child psychologist Richard Weissbourd, entitled "Dads, This Is Your Challenge to Step Up" aims to change all that, by encouraging dads to take a more active role in the lives of their kids. But how?

With that question in mind, we came up with four great ways for dads to step up their parenting game.

1. Teach Your Kids to Be Cheap
Sure, moms can do this too, but no one is cheap like a dad. (Unless you're stinking rich or something, but even then you don't want an over privileged, spoiled kid so you should teach your rich kid to be cheap too.)

Why buy new tires when the scrap yard is full of unwanted tires? Why subscribe to magazines when flea markets and garage sales have whole boxes of them for only a buck or two? Why eat prosciutto when macaroni and cheese loaf is like a third of the price, and it comes with the cheese already in it?

It takes a lifetime of practice to refine the skills of a cheap dad. Start 'em young.

2. Invest in Westerns/War Movies/Cop Movies
From a young age, kids are going to be drawn to cartoons. As they get older, they're likely to stray towards fantasy and maybe, depending on the child, some action. But nothing bores a child away from TV quite like dad sitting down to watch an afternoon of "M*A*S*H" and spaghetti westerns. In this way you can be both involved and uninvolved in nurturing your child. Uninvolved in that you're on the couch watching "Pale Rider," but involved in that you've encouraged your child to leave the house and play outdoors, getting valuable exercise and learning to socialize.

3 Share Some Cooking
Moms, by and large, are the meal makers at home, but they don't have to be. And there are some dishes a mom just can't cook the way dad can. For instance, mom rarely ever has the sausage, hash browns and eggs all in one mass in the pan and just calls it breakfast. This kind of improvisational cooking will be especially important for kids when they go off to college and don't have mom around to cook anymore. It's not cost-effective to buy everything from a cafeteria; sometimes you need to bust out the hotplate, toss a can of soup in a pot with some rice and a pork chop and hope for the best.

4 Give Dating Advice
For far too long, romance has been the domain of women. We're not saying that's bad, but with so many bitter divorces and talk shows that lament how terrible everyone's relationship is as baby daddies are hunted far and wide by Maury, it's time we all took full responsibility for getting ourselves into such a state.

Fathers have all kinds of sage advice for teens when it comes to getting ready to court the opposite sex. From how to tell if a dirty shirt is still fresh enough to wear to spinning smooth lines like, "Your eyes are as blue as the water in my toilet. Wanna see?" -- men have an immense knowledge base to draw from when it comes to romance.