Disneyland Dad

“Disneyland Dad” doesn’t necessarily come with positive connotations. Instead, the “Disneyland Dad” is that dad who always treats his kids to fun times. Many times, or perhaps most times, the DD is the divorced dad who sees his kids on weekends. While mom gets all the mundane tasks of day-to-day care, when DD gets the kids, it’s adventure after adventure, staying up late and eating junk. No homework in sight. I had the opportunity to do the DD thing this weekend (which is ENTIRELY different from the DDs I did in college, but that’s an equally ENTIRELY different story). Since it was the birthday weekend, one of my gifts was being removed from most parenting duties. I didn’t change any diapers. I wasn’t responsible for getting K-Man from point A to point B, getting him to sleep or feeding him. I just had to play with him. If he cried – mom (or someone else) got him back. K-Man and I watched Tiger Woods (win again). We bowled (his first time). I gave him some steak. He ate a bit of chocolate. All that was missing was a beer and a cigar (and don’t think it wasn’t tempting). I was the king of K-Man’s world for a weekend. In between all of the other b’day festivities, it was just all-fun, all-the-time for us. G and I have a friend who has said she, “Loves being a mom and hates being a parent.” Exactly. As DD, there’s no parenting – just being a dad. Dads are fun. Dads are cool. Dads are your friend. Dads hang out. Parents on the other hand? Parents suck. Being a parent is the evil side of the dad (or mom) coin. The irony, of course, is that I missed some of the “other stuff” – the parenting stuff. I missed driving K-Man around and even changing a diaper or two or three or however many. Really. (Well, at least when K is in a good mood and ready to have said diaper changed. Not so much when he’s kicking me in the ribs.) I spent a great deal of time with my buddies this weekend – most of which are dads. (Including one friend, TK, who went from zero to four kids in 23 months. Can you effing imagine that? You’ve got one, you’re happy and want another. Without the use of any drugs – you end up with triplets, which might drive you to start taking drugs. In those early months, being a dad and parent might both suck. But I digress.) In between beers and off-color, mostly inappropriate jokes, we spent a great deal of time talking about our kids. (Except for TK, who was 3,000 miles away from his kids and had no intention of talking about any of them.) We all have similar experiences; we like being the good, fun guy. It’s not that we want to undermine our wives, but when they are parenting and the kid just wants dad, we like that. But we also found that we kind of like parenting, too. One of the things we all talked about was the opportunity to shape these little people. We all love the idea of helping them experience new things and interpret those experiences to create memories and lessons for the future. “Disneyland Dad” doesn’t necessarily do that. (Not on purpose, so much. Though, the kid may learn that too much candy leads to a stomachache.) Every parent talks about the anguish and frustrations that come with having kids. That frustration is simply parenting. But, after playing “Disneyland Dad” for a weekend and not having to parent at all – I was surprised to learn that I actually missed some of those frustrations. I missed helping K-Man work through his melt down and figure out how to move on. I guess it makes sense, really. I’ve never been a huge fan of Disneyland anyway.