The "Disneyland" dad...

I was raised by good parents who instilled in my sisters and I what a man should and shouldn't do and what to expect from our future spouses. And sadly from the time I was in high school I have seen many a man be what is called a Disneyland dad, and not what my parents would define as a good spouse. If one doesn't know what a Disneyland dad is he is a man who has little to no input or takes little or no responsibility for the raising of his child or children. He is more into the having fun and giving gifts and spending only the minimum amount of time required interacting with them and then ignores them the rest of the time. The moms of these kids is left to often carry the brunt of the responsibility for making sure everyday things like getting up, going to school, feeding themselves, making sure homework is done, etc. is addressed and often these moms have little to no life beyond being that disciplinarian role. The moms of these kids usually work either full time or part time jobs and barely make ends meet and often look years older than they are. I dont know if it was the mentality of some of my parents later generation who thought it better to be their kids friend, rather than a parent to them because that would make them uncool to their kids that instilled this attitude or some other factor, but I have seen more and more of this trend with the men of my generation. I'm going to be 35 this year and have been with a very good man for 15 years and married to him for 10 of those years. He and I got married when I was several months pregnant. Now yes that is usually what would be the catalyst to the trend from my previous observations, but was not the case with him. He not only stuck with me but has been a rock and my partner though the many ups and downs of raising our daughter. Now I mentioned sisters at the beginning and yes my sisters are both married, and one of them is everything our parents taught us was a good man, but the other is all that is a Disneyland dad and more. I will admit that he has changed a little bit but not much. He also tends to backslide a great deal and my sister says that his behavior is because of his mother and her husband. But he hasn't lived with them in more than a decade when does making excuses for someone stop and they are held responsible for their own behavior. I was taught by my parents that you are responsible for yourself and can't blame anyone else for how you act. So the question is the behavior of a Disneyland dad learned at their parents knee or is it a conscious decision of behavior?

The Unsupervised Teen Mob...

I'm sorry to all those that it's been so long between posts will do better this year, promise. I know this probably dates me but when I was a teenager I was never allowed to just go up to the biggest mall in the area, just because I could on a Saturday afternoon. The few times I would ask to do that I was given this response: are your chores done and is the homework done?? Usually my response to this was no but I have tomorrow to do it, but funny thing my parents come back was: no if you have things to do here then I don't need to be wasting the gas to take you somewhere else. Yet I go to the malls on the weekends now as I have gotten older and have found that that's what parents will do. They will drive whole groups of 4,5,6,7, etc number of kids to local malls pullover and say 'bye calling when you want to be picked up...' Or 'you have enough for the bus right?' This completely floors me everytime I see it or hear it. These are usually the same adults who complain about the number or crimes committed by juveniles. I'm always like wanting to turn around and give them a a Gibbs head smack saying 'hello your contributing to it by dumping your kids at the mall instead of keeping them home doing something constructive like reading a book or cleaning their room.' People can't comment about the delinquency of minors of they are going to enable them by expecting shopping malls to be their children's babysitters and soul source of engagement. That's not what the malls job is nor is it the people who work the stores in the mall. I worked retail at several of the local malls for a number of years and I hated and dreaded the weekends and it wasn't the traffic or the fact that there was never enough parking it was that I would see groups of teens roaming the mall just going from store to store using products, trashing the stores, disrupting displays and mannequins leaving clothes and product scattered everywhere and they would never have a parent with them nor would they buy anything because they were only given enough for a coffee in the morning and some cash for lunch and maybe a movie later. These kids would be there for HOURS! I was always like I don't remember it saying in my job description I'm to clean up after groups of roaming, wandering parent-free children. It would drive me crazy. I was always like don't these kids have homes with chores for them to do and be at? So a ask to all the parents out there who do this please put yourself in the shoes of the mall cop, or the sales clerk, or the makeup girl at ugly or Sephora and ask yourself are they responsible for my teenager or am I and can't I come up with something other then the mall for them to do on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon? Just another thought from the Cop Mom