When I first heard the term “Disneyland Dad” I thought, does that mean he’s from California or from Florida?
Then I dug a little deeper and read some more about what the term actually meant.
A Disneyland Dad is typically a Dad in a divorce situation who says yes to everything when it comes to the kids, disregards the rules surrounding healthy diets and bedtimes. Essentially, visiting this Dad is like visiting Disneyland.
But I think married women are also using the term to loosely describe a less severe version of a similar scenario.
I heard a couple of women describe (quite angrily) how their husband/partner was the “fun guy” the one the kids went to for entertainment, always the softie, always the one with a joke, magic trick, potty humour, never the disciplinarian and I thought, wait a minute, I married that guy!
But I don’t have the same hostility toward our set up as the other women did. Firstly, how can anything related to Disney be bad?
I guess I feel as though there’s a balance. I don’t mind being the one who enforces the rules, says no, clips the bag of chips when they ask for seconds. As much as kids need the fun parent who recklessly rides horsey around the family room, they also need someone who provides some boundaries and holds firm on the rules.
I think this type of relationship works if you let it and you don’t get caught up in “Why am I always the bad guy?” I actually think it works to my advantage on the rare occasion when I do cave or let them have a second jube jube or stay up ten minutes past bedtime or stop combing their hair at night when they hit 99 strokes. It means more to them than when it comes from the guy who says yes to everything.
Conversely, I think Greg, the fun guy is away from the kids for 8 hours every day so the little time he does have, quality family time, why not let those moments be the ones that matter? He looks forward to hanging out with the kids all day.
It sure beats hearing, “Wait ‘til your Father gets home!”
Also, I am going to rock their worlds when we go to Disney.
