To (respectfully) play the devil's advocate, is it possible your husband just gives less fucks than you about the dance?
It might well be. But that still prompts the question, why does he care less? And why does almost every other father also care less?
We're socialized to think that we're supposed to care more. And that certain jobs are "ours" in the family. And often at work, for that matter.
And since both men and women are socialized to think this, both men and women tend to think that it's "natural," instead of possibly a social construct.
https://qz.com/work/1286996/an-extremely-clear-definition-of-emotional-labor-from-adam-grants-podcast/
I am not sure why he does not care. In all honesty, neither one of us signed up to chaperone because we are quite confident that it would not be "cool" to our son for us to be there. I love dances and dancing but I would never be there and embarrass him. It's hard enough to be almost-13 and the height of your average 9 or 10 year old without adding mom to the mix.
It's interesting though to think about who cares about what. Like: sports. Neither of us are particularly into sports. We both played one sport in HS. We played volleyball together a lot when dating and early married. Our big kid tried a couple of things, wasn't really into them, and then did 3 years of baseball starting at age 9. Recently quit. In any event, we were discussing him and whether to get him into "something else", and also started discussing the 6 year old. (It's rare for us to have time to actually talk to each other.) It started with "should we sign 6yo up for a sport?" I said "no. He doesn't appear to be interested - big bro wasn't either at this age - and I don't have the bandwidth." Husband pointed out that it wouldn't be THAT HARD and I just laughed. He's incredibly stressed out right now. We are BOTH swamped with work and just juggling drop off and pick up at two schools, plus dentist appts, orthodontist appts, early release days, is a pain! PLUS he's been traveling a ton and everything falls to me. No thanks. I think we agreed for now, no sports.
But a great deal of it isn't necessarily "lack of interest". He's an incredibly involved parent - household chores are basically 50/50. When it comes to school things, he just is far less likely to volunteer - and that is the case for most men at our school. Our school is not a school with a passel of SAHMs either. Almost the entire PTA board since I've been there has been made up with FT working parents - about 90% moms but we've had 4-5 dads in there too. I've been to many of his company events and spoken to many of the VPs and the President. I know how they think. They really want mom to be at home and like having men working for them who are unencumbered and can work more hours. It's the expectation. The only thing he's volunteered for at the school was something I basically signed him up for. (It was a good fit - teaching the math club for our son's grade when he was in it. But it was a fair bit of work. If he hadn't signed up there would not have been a math team from our school for those 3 years.)
"I can't because I have to work", for most of the dads that I know means "My job is more important than yours". It's not like I have this great gig at work either. I take PTO for all of these things.
Not to keep quoting Kris, but I will:
Well, the thing is, I think that the idea of men going "above and beyond," as you say above, is part of the issue. And the fact that those kinds of things also tend to be one-time, large projects -- often initiated by the man himself -- instead of daily/weekly/monthly tasks designed to keep the house going.
It's not that that stuff isn't great. It's precisely that it's considered "extra." Whereas the work I'm talking about is considered "expected." I think it's great that my husband does stuff like that. But it's stuff that he actually enjoys, and engineers as a project. I am very appreciative. In between cleaning out the litter box and doing the laundry, that is.
Edit: Example of "emotional labor" that I am doing in our household, that probably "should" fall to my husband, all things being equal: Buying Christmas and birthday presents for his two adult children (I have no children of my own), their spouses, and the grandkids. My husband barely remembers his daughters' birthdays, and has no idea when the grandkids' birthdays are.
(N.B.: In my household, the labor is actually very equally distributed as to the regular household chores. I am not complaining about that. But yes, on top of that, I still am the emotional labor person, for sure.)
I've had this exact discussion with my neighbor several times in the last 6 months. It's a frustration of hers. Her husband (and mine now) have both been VERY involved in house projects or landscaping projects. They are both engineers so they decide what to do, design it up, plan it out, work on it all weekend (for many weekends). Large, fun projects. My husband and I did that together when we first bought the house. Painting, building cabinets, staining doors, etc. What frustrates her IMMENSELY is that she's stuck with mountains of laundry and cooking all weekend long (and during the week). And he's always asking "what's for dinner?" The emotional labor involved in constantly making sure there is food, deciding what to make, cooking it (for a full family) - plus the physical labor of that and laundry is...crappy. She'd love to spend all weekend working on a landscaping project and ask "what's for dinner?" at 5 pm too.
Thing is, someone has to look after the kids and put food on the table. I get frustrated too (less than she does because my husband does all the laundry). A couple of nights a week I get home late and I'm really tired of having to plan every frigging meal. Figure it out!
On the gifts and such - I've slowly just backed off. His family is more into gifts than mine. I've just stopped getting gifts for his sister, niece, nephew, parents. Look, they are your family. That is your job. Of course, that means he missed his mom's birthday in Nov and then kept asking me what to do for Christmas. I really didn't want to think about it, but in the end I said "well, you missed her birthday, just buy her a flipping plane ticket." So in the end, I didn't get out of it either.