Dads Have More Fun

Do you remember that scene from "Mrs. Doubtfire", when the dutiful, full-time working mom, Sally Field, comes home with cake and balloons for her son's birthday, only to find hubby, Robin Williams', chaperoning a full-fledged birthday orgy with barnyard animals, couch jumping, and outrageous shenanigans?  Or perhaps you are familiar with the seemingly universal ritual of fathers getting kids all "keyed-up" with a serious session of horseplay at bedtime? It prompts me to ask, are dads really just more fun? 

There has been many a time when I've returned from my "me-time" (usually one hour spent deliberating over being productive or just being) to find my valiant husband mellowly playing with the still pajama-ed children, chores undone, house in disarray.  Everyone is happy; why am I so pissed? 

My relationships have often suffered because of my industriousness. I often choose utility over happiness and justify it with some sort of "work is love in action" philosophy.  There is the feeling that if I get one step behind of the to-do list, the work will become a tsunami---the wave insurmountable, the damage infinite. Fuck, that's debilitating.  

Confronted by this mental limitation, I decided to pull a Byron Katie and use her useful "reversal" technique.  Really, just Psych 101 "projection", but she has packaged it so folks can hear it and she has made millions on the trick.  So here I go; I shift the question: "Are dads really more fun?"  to "Why am I not more fun?" Ah...eureka!  Why aren't I more fun? 

I am not sure of the answer.  Am I just a product of my generation?  I was fed the 1960's feminist agenda and BELIEVED that I could do anything boys could do better.  And I BELIEVED that I could have it all---career, family, lovely *clean* home, vacations, satisfying creative life?  But I've done it; I "[brought] home the bacon, [fried] it up in a pan, and never let you forget you [were] a man." But what was the cost? What is the cost? Especially, when I relate more to Martha than I do to Gloria.  No one told us girls that to have time to do Martha's crafts you needed a paycheck and time on your hands (a.k.a. rich husband).  

I call for the next wave of feminism. What will it look like? Will motherhood be revered and women who work out of the home supported and single moms worshiped? I realized while watching "Mad Men" that the men, though they seem like they have it all, are ultimately trapped, because the women were not liberated. Emerson said it best, "If you put a chain around the neck of a slave,  the other end fastens itself around your own." Betty Draper should have had more fun and so will I.