the pied piper of fun and the queen of routine
by lisa horak

In most families I know there is the Fun Parent and the Other Parent.

The Fun Parent usually spends less time with the kids and is the novelty parent, making up for lost time with tickles and ice cream. The Other Parent, on the other hand, enforces discipline and makes sure life runs smoothly. At the risk of sounding sexist, the Fun Parent is often the father. The dad is the Pied Piper of Fun, taking the kids to the park, movies, and weekend soccer games. The mother is the Queen of Routine, taking kids to school, going grocery shopping, and generally managing the household.

As a stay-at-home mom, it annoys me that despite the amount of time I spend with my two girls, despite the crafts we do and the songs we sing and the play dates I arrange that I am not the Fun Parent. It just doesn’t seem fair. I may be paranoid but I think there is a subtle competition for the most favored parent status. It’s not overt, of course, for that would be shallow and unseemly. But it’s there.

Now don’t get me wrong. I think it’s great for fathers to spend special quality time with their kids. But what is it about the Y chromosome that makes men imprint their fun-ness by tossing their babies up in the air and catching them, while their wives suffer severe heart palpitations nearby? When scolded, these men (or at least my husband) look at their wives like they are ridiculously overprotective. Well, excuse me but I spent forty weeks carrying that little tyke, deprived of sleep, caffeine, and margaritas and now fill my days with her feeding, dirty diapers, and worrying about her overall well-being. Call me crazy, but no thanks, I don’t want her dropped on her pretty little head.

Whew. Glad I got that off my chest.

My husband Mike is the consummate Fun Parent. He is a veritable kid magnet. He relishes this role and it suits him. He is the most cheerful and optimistic person I have ever known. He makes everything fun. In fact, he makes everything so damn fun it pisses me off, because I hate feeling like I’m missing the fun. It doesn’t help that he talks in superlatives. Every story starts out with, “We had the BEST time,” or “It was the MOST beautiful day EVER.” I can’t tell you how many activities I have been talked into simply because I was sure that whatever Mike and our girls were doing would be far better than anything I had planned to do.

About a year ago, Mike took our daughter Molly out to lunch. Eight hours later I hadn’t heard from them and began to panic. By the time they got home not only was I scared but I was also absolutely outraged that Mike hadn’t called to tell me where they were so I wouldn’t worry. When I finally got over my anger and heard about their day I was incredulous. They had gone swimming, saw a matinee of Monsters, Inc., painted pottery, went to a chocolate festival (the most egregious exclusion of me!), and ate lunch at Burger King.

Needless to say it was the “BEST DAY EVER” for both of them. I mean, come on, who can compete with that? Surely not boring old me who gives the kids carrots and milk instead of french fries and milkshakes. And therein lies the difference. That and the fact that I’d have stretched those activities into a week of fun outings. I try to make our days fun, but I need to spread that fun stuff out and save something for a rainy day. Fun Parents, on the other hand, just cram it all into one amazing adventure.

But sometimes things backfire on my dear spouse. My girls are fiercely loyal to me and tattle on Mike whenever he spoils them. In fact, they bombard me with a litany of his offenses. “Dad let us watch television the entire time you were gone and we had ice cream for dessert even though we had candy right before dinner, and he let us stay up until ten o’clock!” Sugar is clearly a key component of his parenting philosophy.

I don’t mean to sound like being fun is a bad thing. Quite the contrary, I think it’s fabulous. It is one of the reasons I fell in love with my husband. Sometimes I think about what life would be like if anything awful happened to him. I think the only way I could cope would be to live like Mike would, to do what he would do and make the decisions I know he would make. In all honesty, I would like to soak up his essence, his fun-ness, and be more like him.

If I sound jealous of my husband, I’m not. I’m really quite happy with my role. If he is the Fun Parent, then I am the Comfort Parent. When he wrestles with the girls, it is me they come to with their bumped heads. When he teaches them to ride their bikes, I kiss their skinned knees. I’m the one who absolutely must give them hugs and kisses each night and remind them to sleep like little angels. I am the chief medicine-giver, cookie-baker, princess-drawer and blanket finder. I’m the one they wake in the middle of the night, and the one they snuggle with in the morning.

I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

Lisa Horak is a stay-at-home mom raising two young daughters, Molly and Isabel. She has written for non-profit organizations and is the co-editor of Heart of the Land and Off the Beaten Path, a fiction and non-fiction anthology of nature writing for The Nature Conservancy. She moved to Asheville last October from Washington, D.C., and is currently working on her first children’s book. [horak@charter.net]