When I was a kid, when my Mom asked me to pray (which was often), I prayed that she would be a Field Trip Mom someday. As an immigrant who owned a convenience store, didn't trust hiring anyone outside the family, and was raising seven children while also supporting various immigrating family members, my Mom had zero time to be Field Trip Mom.
I knew it was never going to happen. But I still prayed for it.
One might assume that as a parent I would overcompensate and go on all the field trips with my kids. As it turned out, though, not long after becoming a parent I left academia to attempt to create a career on the internet from scratch. The hustle was continual. There was no time for me to be Field Trip Mom. And, more importantly, I eventually realized that I didn't even want to be Field Trip Mom. Dealing with other people's children en masse is not my strength.
Earlier this week after a brief run with guilt about how my workload impacts my ability to be Fun Mom (which was followed by an emphatic, internal “fuck that!”), I shared my new summer self-acceptance mantra: Even though my workload means I usually can't be Fun Mom (the one who hangs out at the pond with my kid) I can be Fun Facilitating Mom (the one who coordinates with another parent and gets my kid to/from the pond), and that shit matters.
Cue all the “100” response emojis. Clearly, Fun Facilitating Moms the world round needed validation. I am here for it.
This experience made me think of my recent Washington Post piece on how parents eased up during the pandemic and how it helped everyone, in which I share how chopping off all my hair with dog scissors and letting my 10-year-old get a blue streak in her hair were moments where the pandemic helped me learn to be a less uptight human being--to decide what was actually worth fretting over in the context of the bigger problems of the world. When I think about things my kids will remember from the pandemic, those hair moments are legit Fun Mom moments. To whit, after I emerged from my bathroom, fistfuls of hair in hand, my teenager squealed delightedly and asked me to chop off her hair too.
We all get to define what fun looks like. Being the Fun Mom and being the Fun Facilitating Mom are equally important. The village needs all people. Choose your fun lane and relish in it unapologetically.
