I cover my cellphone with my hand and drag it across the table, into my lap. No need for anyone to see my phone. I’m at a marketing conference to learn the latest trends in mobile marketing. The speaker has just asked the crowd to scan the QR code on the presentation slide, go to the QR code’s website then text him the top word on the Web page.

The first person will win his latest book. That’s when I make the drag. As the director of marketing for a local software company, I’m interested in staying ahead of the marketing curve, which means mobile, although QR codes are yesterday’s news. A text message pings the speaker’s phone, then another and another, a chorus of pings reverberating.

But no ping from me. I don’t have a smartphone, you see, and I’m embarrassed by this fact. Some attendees have an iPhone and an iPad — and a Black-Berry for good measure. But I don’t have one smartphone at this mobile marketing conference. Sad, I know.

Sometimes when we want to compliment a good father, we say, “He’s such an involved father.”

We like that he’s involved with his family, plays with his kids, listens to them. But never once have I heard, “She’s such an involved mother.” Why isn’t that something we celebrate?

We expect mothers to be involved. It goes with the position. To acknowledge an involved mother is stating the obvious, like saying she’s a motherly mother or has wider hips. There’s no need to be redundant. And there’s no need to celebrate when she does what she’s supposed to do. I never congratulate the sun for setting, I just expect it to set.

But it’s different with fathers, isn’t it? We really don’t expect fathers to be that involved. We have a different standard for them. Fathers are the second-string parent, the understudy. They go in when mom’s sick or impaled by a Lincoln log, but only until she’s better. Then dad returns to the background to be his passive old self.

So when we do find an involved father, we make a big deal of it, because we don’t know when another will come along. We gawk and we chortle, “Just look how involved he is,” like we’ve spotted an endangered species, the elusive Involved Father. Maybe we should call the Discovery Channel; quick, take a picture.

I’ve written before that the great sin of fatherhood is absence — physical, emotional or spiritual. This led me to get rid of my smartphone. A smartphone doesn’t make every father absent, but it did me, so I ditched it. Now I’m embarrassed and suffer smartphone envy from time to time, but it’s a small price to pay. I’m becoming the father I want to be.

So what makes you absent? What’s holding you back?

Maybe one day absent fathers will be yesterday’s news.

C.S. Heinz directs marketing for EnergyCAP Inc., writes for ExtantMagazine.   com   and CSHeinz.com  , and is launching PrayerFit.com   in the fall. This weekly column is a collaboration of Centre County Communities that Care serving Bald Eagle, Bellefonte, Penns Valley and Philipsburg-Osceola area school districts, and Care Partnership: Centre Region Communities that Care serving the State College Area School District.