Attention Dads: Be the Good Cop and the Bad Cop

The two parents in our home have different titles. (FYI: my wife came up with these.) We have the utility parent (Heidi) and the novelty parent (Me).  The utility parent is the grinder.  The one who makes sure that there is food and clothes and is getting kids places on time.  She is the one who is always there doing the bulk of the work with the kids.  In what can sometimes be a thankless job, I publicly give thanks to the utility parent in our home. You are the best!

The novelty parent isn’t typically around during the day.  I’m typically around from dinner to bed time during the week.  The girls have been with the utility parent all day.  They’ve been told no a few times.  They’ve been leaned on to do chores and get their stuff done.  It’s not unusual for there to have been a dust-up or a kerfuffle or a brouhaha or some falderal (I love all these words).  This happens in homes to moms all over the world.  Parenting is relentless.  Mom is tired and the kids are getting frustrated.

Enter the novelty parent. (While this post may be most applicable to families with a stay at home mom.  Even when both parents work outside the home, it is still very common for the mom to be the utility parent–the one who gets it done with the kids.)  The novelty parent comes home and what does he do?

A typical dad will choose one of two roles.  Dads either become the mean one or the fun one.  The mean one is the one who comes in and cleans house (metaphorically of course, though literally would never be a bad idea either, but that’s for a post called Chores: Your Wife’s Real Love Language or A Healthy Sex Life Begins with Dishes and Laundry)  By cleaning house , I mean that he comes in and starts fussing and disciplining the kids for making their mom upset, for not doing homework, for whining, for whatever.  Dad comes in with the big stick.

The fun one comes in and starts handing out candy and playing video games with the kids.  He tells his wife that she needs to relax and says that chores and homework can wait. Let’s have fun!

What do I suggest, you may be asking?

The worst option is to choose neither.  The worst thing that you can do is come home and not engage with your family.  You cannot come home and be off the clock, especially if your expectation is that your wife is still on the clock.

The best option, and the one that I try to choose is both.  I want to be both the fun one and the mean one.  I can bring a fun calming influence when it is called for and I can bring the thunder when it is called for.

When you pick just the mean one, you have a warped relationship with your kids.  They begin to dread you coming home.  They believe fathers are angry and judgmental.  Not only does that damage your relationship with them, but it gives them a picture of God as Father that is unhealthy as well.

When you pick just the fun one, you undermine your utility parent.  You make it where she has to enforce all the rules and you get to break them.  Now instead of you being the ogre, she is.  Neither of those options is good.

Because of my role as novelty parent, I have more energy to play the extremes.  Heidi may be too exhausted to have fun or too exhausted to bring strength.  I can do both, depending on what is needed.  I can buy Laylah a sucker because, why not? I can also tell her that she can’t have any treat of any kind because of the way that she has treated her mom.  I may have spent work energy all day, but I still have parenting energy.  I haven’t used any of that.

If you come home and you feel you don’t have any parenting energy, allow me to give you a piece of advice, man to man.  Suck it up and find some.  Your wife needs you, your kids need you and you need them and you need to be a great husband and dad.  Said differently, you get to be a great dad and husband.  Don’t waste the opportunity by telling yourself that you are too tired.

I find great joy in being a dad.  I find great joy in being the novelty parent.  Not only do I get to serve and love my kids by playing and giving and serving.  I get to serve and love my wife by being the heavy hand when her hand is just too tired.

Now Dads! Go out there and give your kids treats and play games and have fun!

Now Dads! Go out there and put your kids in time out and take away their stuff!

You win both ways.