Even if you’re not looking to wrestle with your toddler at bedtime, we can all use a little fun dad energy. This stereotype exists for a reason. Because fathers spend a lot of time playing with their children and tend to enjoy it. In fact, fathers report feeling happier when interacting with their children than during most other daily activities.
Of course, mothers may be carrying more of the emotional burden of childcare, and fathers may have more room to play. On average, mothers are responsible for approximately 73% of the total cognitive household labor, while their partners are responsible for 27%, which they report as stressful.
In order to restore balance to the less fun parts of parenting and housework, we must not lose sight of the fun parts that fathers get right. That means play is important. And it’s good for adults too.
This Father’s Day, here are five fun dad habits worth following.
1. Don’t think too much about fun things
If you put too much pressure on yourself, it will be difficult to have fun. Not all play has to be grand. Fun dads recognize the benefits of a little playtime, whether it’s introducing kids to old Legos or pretending to be monsters with your toddler while getting ready in the morning.
Adults often think that they need to make their leisure time productive. What’s the point of a hobby if you don’t develop marketable skills or turn it into a side hustle? We tend to make fun feel like work before we even start.
Moreover, passive entertainment asks little of us. Sometimes that’s exactly what we need when we’re exhausted.
2. It starts with actions, not emotions.
Adults often wait until they feel playful before playing. But that would be in the wrong order. Most of us are incapable of feeling logically pleasurable.
Fun dads often skip the emotional pre-game stuff. Start with something interesting or turn a chore into a challenge and see what happens after that. Emotions can catch up with you in unexpected ways.
Author Derek Thompson recalled playing monsters with his toddler and said, “Nothing in my life could have predicted the spectacle of these hunters and their prey, and the joy that came from it.”
3. Leave room for interruptions
Modern adults are already quite prone to interruptions, but often in the wrong direction. We tend to get distracted easily by our phones, but it’s frustrating when real people do the same thing.
But if we don’t want to be disturbed by the people in front of us, we will miss their attempts to connect with us. Relationship researchers John Gottman and Julie Gottman refer to these as “bids for connection,” and they found that couples who stayed together were much more likely to make these bids than those who ultimately divorced.
Being interruptible means slowing down on tasks and plans, leaving enough space for real people to participate.
4. Exit administrator mode
Administrator mode has that role. It helps feed the kids, pay the bills, and keep the family on schedule. But play works like improvisation. You can’t plan everything in advance, so you need to be curious and adaptable. You need to pay attention to what is showing up and build from there.
It can sometimes feel uncomfortable because it requires us to let go of some control. A fun dad is able to immerse himself in whatever games, jokes, and adventures his kids invite him to, and he’s willing to look silly and make a few mistakes while doing it.
5. They treat pleasure as part of the point
We often treat play as a rest in life. In a sense it is. Play can help you recover from the demands of work and caregiving by reducing stress and increasing resilience.
But joy and connection are important ingredients for a fulfilling life. They give us something that no other job can give us. As the novelist Michael Chabon said, “[My]books don’t love me the way my children do.”
That doesn’t mean that fun dads are free from the hard parts of parenting. They also have to share unpleasant tasks. At their best, fun dads don’t shy away from serious parenting. They’re having fun because they’re taking it seriously.
They understand what many overworked adults forget. That is, a good life includes work and responsibility. It also includes wrestling matches in the living room, trash talk, and everyday moments that show your loved ones that you’re happy for them.
Dr. Jen Zamzow is an adjunct professor of medical ethics at Concordia University Irvine, an author, and a mother of two boys. You can subscribe to her newsletter “A Well-Lived Life”. Funding for this project was provided in part by the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley, as part of its “Spread Love Through Media” initiative, with support from the John Templeton Foundation.
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