Blurring the Lines Further: Parents Who Play

Karen Murphy — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 19:14:00 GMT

There's been a lot of talk lately about the new wave of parents who have been termed as 42 going on 22. It's really gotten me thinking, that and a little piece I read about snow tubing. Are you familiar with snow tubing? I went once several years ago with The Ex and our then 6- and 2-year olds. It was too cold out for 2, so I stayed indoors with her while Daddy and 6 had lots of fun. I got to go down the slope on a tube that day exactly one time, and I can tell you now that it was exactly the most fun thing I had done in probably 15 years.

I've been a parent since I was 20. Since I was having a baby I figured that I'd better get to work on being a grown-up so we'd know who was who in the family. I started reading woman's magazines like Family Circle and Woman's Day and began worrying about gray hairs and wrinkles. After all, I was going to be a parent! Right? And parents were, like, old. And, well, reserved. Right? So part of me stayed old, and I put away childish notions and pretended to be a responsible adult. Pretty soon I believed it.

Yesterday my two older kids-at-home (that first one is married and pretending to be a grownup now herself, so that makes me, like, really old now!!) went sledding in the 1.2 inches of snow that had fallen. As I stayed home with the smallest, my lad of 3, I lamented a little that what I would really like to have been doing was to be out there myself, playing, kids or no. Playing. After 20 years practicing at being a grownup, it finally felt like time to let go a little and play.

I wrote a piece on my blog a few months ago about how I play with my children. It was a good piece, about being creative and spontaneous and all sorts of good stuff like that, but what I've realized, as I think about it, is that it only dealt with playing for the children; that is, creating a space in which they could play, and it had nothing to do with playing with the children. I mean, in all my play with them, I generally maintain the mom-persona, the glass wall, the authority barrier. But dammit, after 20 years I'm tired of being "just" a mom! And I want to play, too!

As adults there are, admittedly, venues in which we can play. Most of them involve a copious intake of alcohol, and while I'm all for that, the "playing" aspect of it seems to be lost among the mommy-and-daddy-grownup-cocktail-party aspects. When is it okay to really play? Is it ever, as a parent, okay? Can we really let go and let our kids see us being real?

I think we can, and should. Some of us do. It's a big part of this "new wave" of parenting, this breaking down of the barriers we saw in our own parents. And it's a trend I like.

Tomorrow? I'm buying a sled.

Strollerderby : snow tubing

Blurring the Lines Further: Parents Who Play