How many times have I felt like going OUT somewhere with the girls equalled fun/education/enjoyment AKA "quality time." I read a great article today in Parenting called "Daddy Day" by David Kushner (a writer for the New York Times and Rolling Stone) that does a great job in capturing the humor within this guilt as well as the truth behind Chuck E. Cheese, . . . with a great underlying message as well:
"I plotted every potential diversion within a 45-minute radius: Amusement park? Check. Science museum? Check. Living-history farm? Absolutely. We could ride rides, pet pets, farm farms. But my ambition, inevitably, soon got the better of me. After a few dozen Saturdays, I was running out of ideas and my sense of worthiness as Fun Dad.
"I asked Samantha what, if anything, she would do for her Ultimate Daddy Day. She chewed her lower lip, batted her eyelashes, and said, with a nod, 'Chuck E. Cheese.' I gulped. As I knew ahead of time, going to Chuck E. Cheese required intense preparation. I needed patience. Caffeine. A Hazmat suit. To make matters worse, Mia had been up late and was in dire need of a nap. But in the name of quality time, I grabbed my bucket of tokens and ventured forth.
"I quickly paid the price. When a sauce-stained bully refused to relinquish the Barney ride, Mia melted down. The fire spread to Samantha, who, because of Mia's tantrum, couldn't get me to play air hockey. The life-size animatronic Chuck E. rat cackled defiantly. Lights flashed. Sirens blared. Skee-balls flew. We left.
"The next weekend, as the sun came up, I gathered the girls. 'Where are we going?' Samantha said, somewhat warily. 'Somewhere very special,' I said. 'The kitchen!' As the girls helped me make 'M' and 'S' shaped pancakes, I could see that my decision was just fine with them. For years I 'd been working to entertain my kids when the answer, all along, was waiting for me back at my house. . . . The key to fun together, I found, isn't in trying to be the perfect dad for my girls--it's in just being their dad."
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