21 responses to “I’m Not a Fun Mom”

  1. Julie

    Well, I take exception to that! As I recall you recently spent a day playing in the dirt with your kids. I’d say that’s certainly a fun mom! My own mother worked full time and spent what little free time she had keeping the household running and clean so she didn’t get to spend as much “fun” time with us girls. And I suppose in hindsight I did spend a lot of what I think of as “fun time” with our daughter (an only child) making crafts, playing board or card games, going to the playground, splashing around with the hose on a hot summer day, riding bikes or rollerblading, going to the pool, etc… but that may have been the result of having only one child. Five is a totally different ballgame in my eyes.

  2. Mary Jo

    Just being concerned about how fun you are makes you a rockin’ Mama! I think as Moms, just like anyone else, we ebb and flow. Some days, I am all black and white, while others I’ll start a tickle fight. When I get the urge to blurt out something silly/gross/odd – I do it and my boys love me for it. I also fly my “fun flag” by having dance parties in the car while on road trips – windows down, radio volume up! I’ll send them odd pranks in the mail or write silly jokes on their lunchbox napkins. But be you. That’s what your kids love you for!!

    Love your kids’ comments, BTW – they’re nothing but honest in their opinion of us!

  3. Kate @ Teaching What Is Good

    Jan, I think you and I are twins separated at birth!! I’m not a “sit down and play” with my children either! So I took your lead and asked my children, and they thought I was fun. One daughter said, “You goof around with us. Well, mostly to us and not with us.”

    So I guess it’s good that God gives us the families that will feel loved, cared for and fun by who we are and not who we THINK we should be. Another reason to PRAISE GOD!! ;-D

  4. Mary Rarick

    I was not much of a sit-down-and-play-with-the-kids mom either, although it’s easier when they’re older. Maybe it’s because there are more activities that we have in common.

  5. Christine

    I have a hard time getting down and playing with the toddler. It is a lot easier to see her teen sister playing with her and makes me smile 🙂 I feel guilty, though, since I did so much more with my teen when she was a baby! As for the older one, we play games together – board games, card games, even video games. We love our Kinect! It is easier now that she’s beyond the dolls and dress-up stage.

  6. shana

    Well according to my kids, I’m a “fun mom”. We do a lot of little things like setting up a little scene with their toys in an unlikely but discoverable place (pez dispensers with the toothbrushes, stuffed animals hidden in cubbies, a fake flower in the frig with a penguin, etc). Sometimes we dress up the cat or dog with some of the kids old clothes. We pretend we are fake superheroes. Sometimes we do no electricity nights and play board games by candlelight. We try to make the kids read us bedtime stories or we make up stories with them as the main characters. We have dance parties at night and just put on music and dance silly dances.

    It’s just the little things sprinkled throughout the day.

  7. Liz

    You’re a fun friend, I know that. 🙂

  8. Carol J. Alexander

    Not sure I can help you. Some days I am definitely pre-occupied. Other days, I will read and play games. But DO NOT ask me to do crafts or anything that requires dragging out a bunch of stuff. One thing I do like to do that I think my kids would say makes me fun is go on adventures. When hubby has to work that odd Sunday we have been known to go walk the mountain trails or something like that.

  9. Tia

    I’ve been set free from my non-fun-Mom purgatory. I thought I was all alone in the I-refuse-to-sit-and-pretend-to-be-a-dog-when-I-gave-you-sisters (aka live-in playmates) Mom category.

    I’m all about having fun on vacation or giving in and taking them to a park or to swim.

    And remember… it would never be enough fun. You’d bark like a dog, but it wouldn’t be realistic enough. I see how they play with each other most days, and quite frankly I don’t want in on that. 😉

    You brighten my parenting journey!!

  10. joanna

    I’m not really a fun mom either, but I think it all depends on how you define fun. I hate crafts and I don’t belt out silly songs, but I love to read with my kids and play games. If they liked to play baseball, I’d be in 7th heaven. I also let my son tell me his 5th-grade dirty jokes — hey, at least I know what’s going around the school yard, right? Just that we’re talking about being fun makes us good — fun — moms.

  11. Jackie Dishner

    Who says you have to be a mom and fun, too?! Too much pressure. Besides, like someone else said, I bet you’re more fun than you think. Playing card games with the kids, helping them with homework, making cute snacks, pushing them on the swings. I bet you’ve done any number of fun things in your children’s lives. And if you were black and white when your kids were younger, that’s because you were just beginning to practice how to be a mom. This is an on-the-job-training job that books really can’t prepare you for, because each child is different. That makes you a different mom for each child. So, I bet you’re more fun than you think you are. But if you’re not, and you want to be, there’s nothing stopping you now.

  12. Lisa

    I love how you’re so honest and open, Jan. If you’re not the most fun, you’re certainly one of the most sincere and most thoughtful moms I know.

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