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 How many of us have faced this criticism before - You're called a Disneyland Dad who doesn't really participate in the 'real' raising of your child by the child's custodial mother. What should we think about this? Are we all 'Disneyland Dads' who only look to have 'good times' with our child, without a care for discipline or accountability in our child's actions? Or in hopes to alleviate guilt over divorce and avoid other child rearing responsibilities with our child? Or, are we fathers who take our limited visitation accesses to create memorable experiences with our children in attempts to maintain a meaningful relationship with them, including maintaining discipline, moral turpitude and basic child learning experiences - not out of guilt, but out of love?
Let's be clear that not all vacations, or memorable experiences with our children involve taking a trip to Disneyland, and are not opportunities, as vindictive mothers would say, used to excuse discipline, morals or structure in the child's life, or necessarily attempts to sway a child's like or dislike of a parent. These activities can be as simple as going to a movie, fishing, camping, going to a sports game, or even just hanging out with dad. Inevitably these activities, due to the child's exhuberance over the activity that created a bond with the father, whether simple or grand, get the father labeled as a 'Disneyland Dad' by a vindictive and jealous mother.
This will always be the crux of the argument. In my own situation, the
few visitations opportunities I have with my child are times to create
memorable experiences, and those 'allowed access' times usually fall on
holidays and weekends, which as it ends up are normally times we all,
(whether single, married, or divorced), take vacations, or engage in
family activities outside the normal day-in day-out routine. Why would
we not think that these times would include activities that include
special events or activities that fortunately create opportunities for
bonding as a family.
More and more vindictive and alienating mothers use the 'Disneyland
Dad' argument as an excuse for their own unhappiness with and jealousy
over the father's success and bonding with the child. Their own failure
to engage their child in activities outside the home lead them
interfere with, or disallow these bonding visiations, and even to
further denigrate a father who takes those opportunities to share with
the child. By their own admissions, these mothers have the 'primary
care and custody' of the child, which is based on actual physical time
that the child is in their care. That being the case, and further
receiving monetary support from the father, the mother should be in an
excellent situation to create many of these experiences that would be
comparable to the few 'Disneyland Dad' experiences offered by the
father that they so despise.
Why then are fathers punished for offering and engaging in these
experiences with their child? And why do fathers feel the need to
create these opportunities for their children? In a nutshell, the
mothers who have a problem with this, can not get over the fact that
their child is entitled to have those experiences with their father as
part of the 'child raising' process and as part of creating and
maintaining a meaningful relationship between the child and father.
Their own ego and jealousy blinds their judgments and would rather have
the child hate their own father rather than allow them to participate
in an father/child bonding activity that the child would enjoy. Oh,
yes, their's is the argument that the mother has to 'raise the child'
and deal with all the bad aspects or teaching discipline and morals,
while the father gets the child without having to deal with the
downside of teaching these to the child, and thus makes the mother out
to be the 'bad parent' all the time.
This argument just does not hold water as a child's rearing needs to
include the 'good times' along with the bad. The custodial mother
having the child the majority of the time, should have the ability to
create those memorable opportunities as well. These mothers often
neglect to admit that fathers who only have limited access to their
child, also have limited time to instill the basic discipline and
morals required, and more than often receive a poorly disciplined or
alienated child for his visitation. If the mother actually feels this
way, then she can always offer to involve the father in the child's
rearing. Offer opportunities to the father to take the child on
'school' or 'church' related outings where education and culture are
taught outside of his 'minimum visitation schedule'. (for example, a
trip to the capitol, boyscouts, girlscouts, etc.). Many times this is
not possible, as one of the reasons for divorce is over the proper
raising of the children. This only fuels the accusations of a
'deadbeat' father or 'Disneyland dad' by malicious mothers who use this
as reasons why the father should not be involved with the child,
whether justified or not.
Even if the father does not participate in the primary rearing of the
child, the mother should look at the child's time with the father as
her own opportunity to organize, take time to herself, and to know that
the her child is having an opportunity to have fun for a short period
of time that the child may not have otherwise had. It is unlikely that one week with dad in a 'Disneyland' environment can realistically undo
proper discipline and morals that have been instilled in a child. What
is unrealistic, is the expectation that a caring father would not want to create positive experiences with his child by engaging in memorable or unique experiences. Especially, given that fact that fathers and children are given 'minimum', if that, visitation, which is usually only two weekends a month and a few weeks out of the year.
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