ninanevermore

Today on my drive into work, I was thinking that I must learn how to accept my role as a parent to my son, as opposed to a co-conspirator. For too many years, my role as the childless adult was more that of a playmate than a position of authority when I was around children. I enjoyed this. Other adults were serious, but I was fun. I could take the children's side on issues and be relatively safe. Now Jeff, who is a better mother than I am, has called me on this.

"Don't tell him I'm mean," he said to me the other day, "we're supposed to be a united front. We can't to undermine each other."

He was standing at the sink, washing dishes, while I tried to find something to feed our son for dinner.

I stopped and made the same big, sad eyes my son had made at Jeff just moments before. He was right. I hadn't been thinking. I forgot, for a moment, that Jeff wasn't the only authoritative figure in the room when it comes to this child – I have to be one, too.

I don't recall what our son was doing, but it was something I usually let him do on the 5 evenings a week that Jeff is at work, so long as it keeps the boy busy so I can think. I don't care if he hides behind the curtains and plays peek-a-boo, or if he takes all of the soup spoons out of the drawer to line them up across the kitchen floor. The curtains need to be replaced, and a toss into the dishwasher will make the soup spoons as good as new. My parenting style, at least when my hands are full, can be best be described as "lackadaisical."

Jeff, on the other hand, it the kind of competent parent that every mother aspires to be and every child should have. He's firm, but tender. He's consistent. He acts like a great mom, and he makes me look like the sort of inept father that one sees in TV sitcoms. I often think that if Jeff had been able to breastfeed, there would have been no real use for me at all in our son's life.

When I said, "Daddy's mean," in a stage whisper to our son, Jeff stopped me in my tracks and I had to take it back. I knew I was in the wrong, but I felt a need to defend myself, anyway.

"He doesn't know what mean is yet," I pointed out.

"He's learning. He doesn't need to hear that from you."

"Can I say, 'Daddy's a hard ass'?" I asked.

"Nooooo." Jeff used the tone that a mother uses when a child makes an unreasonable request.

"Hmmm," I said, "and I probably shouldn't point out that you're not any fun, either, should I?"

He sighed. He was being serious, and I wasn't. It's a defense mechanism of mine to make light of things, especially when I've been caught red handed. Still, while our life is a comedy, it's a comedy of errors, not a sitcom. Unlike a sitcom dad, I know when to give up.

I apologized and promised to think before I spoke in the future.

"Thank you," my chagrined spouse said, "It's important."

I decided to try to make things right.

"Daddy's not really mean," I told our son, who was listening to this conversation between his competent parent and his co-conspirator parent with intense interest.

I looked at Jeff, then back at our 2 year old. "And sometimes he's fun."

"I'm fun a lot."

"He's a lot of fun, sometimes." I picked up our little boy, who was smiling at us. He thinks we're funny. I decided to change the subject.

"What does a cow say?" I asked him.

"Moooooooo!" he answered, his lips pursed in a perfect, lowercase o. He is an expert in animal noises, especially at cats and cows.

"He's a genius," I said to Jeff. My son and I grinned up at him, and he grinned down at us.

“He really is,” Jeff agreed. He gave each of us a kiss. All was forgiven.

Like the good mom that he is, Jeff is patient. While having a parent willing to let him stand on top of the coffee table and run naked through the house is fun for a kid, he needs structure, too.

Our son lucky to have a good such a good mom willing to give him this structure, even if she does happen to be his father.

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