Do you ever wish you could be the fun parent?

[ScatsThat]

Instead of the boring one?

Weekends with me are trudging around shops for new school shoes. Weekends with him are fun days out. Lunch out with me is a picnic of sandwiches. Lunches with him are fast food. DS's birthday next month and there is something I know he wants that I can't afford. I'll tell his dad to buy it because he'll ask me for birthday ideas the week before and I know it'll be DS's favourite thing and every time I see it it will remind me that I am not the fun parent. DS will probably not remember what I get him.

Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't swap roles really, but it would be nice to be the "Disney Mum" once in a while.

Anyone else feel like this?

[CadburyDream]

I’m just the boring one tbh… ex isn’t even the fun parent he is the “can’t be bothered parent” sometimes I wish he was the fun one 😕

[OhamIreally]

No. Because I am the loved parent. The one with the bond with my child.

DD knows that her dad is selfish and didn't want to put in the work. I wouldn't want to be that parent for all the world.

[Scheanasgreytooth]

I totally feel that at times too OP. I know the dc love me and we have a closer bond than they'll ever have with him, but they're at the age where they still see daddy as the hero even though he does sweet FA to raise them in any practical way. He's always the fun parent and I get the moods and whingeing. I always think how nice it must be to rock up for a set period of time and just purely enjoy that. No drudgery of shoes, homework reminders, booking swimming lessons, after school club and so on, reapplying the nit lotion, washing and packing uniforms and PE kits, planning the weekly shop to last enough days etc etc. I would love to be 'Disney mum' now and again but it's just not going to happen!

[ourflagmeansdeath]

Remember that you're the one he will appreciate more when he's older, when he understands just how much you've done for him. You're the one with the proper loving bond. You're doing amazing. ❤

[purpleme12]

Yes I hear you.
Honestly I feel really sad about it at the minute.
She adores her dad. Obviously he's almost more special because she sees him less.
I do the daily drudge. Put up with the outbursts. Have no support. Take her out to her clubs.
Get enough money from him for her school dinners.
But he's amazing because she sees him less and does less of the rule enforcing.
I'm really down at the minute

[StMarysTrainee]

@purpleme12 I’m sorry you’re feeling low. Could you maybe do some spontaneous little bits with her just for fun? My thirty year old daughter still remembers surprise picnics, and her and I chalking a hopscotch on the way home from school and playing for an hour, eating a cornetto walking home in deep snow, stupid stuff really.

I get down that my ex dies the Disney dad but I wouldn’t want to be one…they somehow manage to switch off/compartmentalise their children to just when they are with them and I’d hate that. I love thinking about my family all the time.
I’m also down because ex didn’t even bother to contact DD on her birthday because it wasn’t one of his “visitation” days with her. Loathe his term but says succinctly how he thinks.