Solo Mother

Playground pangs for the single mom

by christina on September 9th, 2007

The King and I stopped at the park on our way home from our usual Sunday ritual of coffee and sweeties and juice at our favorite coffee bar (if your till is $10 over, then I did indeed give you a twenty, lady!). The park was quiet, as we arrived just after the lunch hour, traditionally a good time for naps in small kid households who aren’t headed by the King of Everything, apparently. He was disappointed at first, but perked up when the first few post-lunch bravehearts strayed into our enclosure.

Sundays at the park are different than the other days of the week. Sundays at the park seem to be all about dads and their kids. The moms are largely absent until the late afternoon shift. What we get are dads and their daughters, dads and their sons. I assume that these men are happily married souls giving their well-loved wives a break–if these guys are single fathers, they aren’t advertising it. What makes my heart ache every Sunday that we stop in the park is the way these fathers, single or married, interact with their children. The dads today were no exception to the rule. Dad #1 was with his five year old daughter, giving her a merry chase around the play structure and making her squeal with delight. He’d take daring shortcuts up the side of the thing and surprise her with a chin lift and a jump over the rail. He ran pell-mell to make her scream with delight when he caught her. He kept this up for a solid half hour, and my son tried desperately to get him to chase him, make him scream with happiness, too. I bit back tears so hard my tongue bled. We watched another father enjoy an involved game of make-believe chase on the spring-loaded motorcycles, and my son had hungry eyes. I could hardly breathe. Now that he’s in bed, asleep, I can finally have a good cry.

If I could say anything to a new father, I would try to help him understand how important his active involvement is in every step of his child’s life, from first black poop to setting on the swing porch with his own child’s children. I coudl count on the fingers of both hands, with some left over, how many diapers my (ex)husband changed. I can still hear my tearfilled voice begging him to pay some kind of consistent attention to his infant, and later toddler, son. I know he thinks that what he did was enough. I know he thinks I was obsessive, excessive, and probably nuts where the subject of our son was concerned. But this kid isn’t a laissez-faire kid. He’s an extrovert the likes of whom the world has rarely seen. He needs people. He thrives on being with other human beings. He needs the interaction, the constant give and take. I don’t know how my husband did with his son on this past visit, but I know he did better than the first one, because I didn’t hear my kid declare he wouldn’t talk to his father anymore. He managed to meet the King of Everything after school most times, and went with us to school in the morning more often than not. And I hope that he appreciates the child he helped create. Because I have some pretty hellish memories from when we were still married. Memories that were stirred by the notion of husbands who would happily take their kids to the park to play with them while their mamas slept in on Sunday. I thought I’d write about how it was in our household on the weekend mornings I’d ask for a few extra hours of sleep… suffice to say, I didn’t get many. The ex would grumble, would coerce, would growl at a child who wanted more than anything else for someone to play with him (at seven in the morning) and wouldn’t take no for an answer. More often than not, I’d end up getting up, getting the little guy dressed and fed, while the ex went back to bed. On those occasions when he’d actually take the boy out of the house so I could have a four hour weekend, they wouldn’t do anything father-son special. They’d meet up with another dad friend and his kids, go to the grocery store, and inevitably end up in a pub where the friend could begin his daily drinking, the kids could eat french fries, and the dads could smoke and bitch about their wives when they thought the kids weren’t listening.

I know they must have done something fun sometimes. But every time I went along with them on a weekend outing to an indoor play park made for kids, the ex would read while the boy ran amok or I played with him.

Today was just so hard to watch. More than anything, my son wants a man in his life who will run and chase and play with him, do guy things with him, be his. I know my father does a good job of filling this need in my son, because the little guy called him Dad the other day. But I know my little boy is looking for a man that’s all his.

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