Last week my wife was out of town for work, and I can indisputably say that those were some pretty stress free days. In fact, just about any time I am solo-parenting is a much easier day than when doing so with my beautiful wife. There are fewer fights and more agreement. The reason behind this is not too difficult to figure out: with her exit I am instantly the household dictator, my word is the only word (and I’m sure it helps that I’m a pretty benevolent dictator).

Danielle and I agree on most aspects of parenting, but there will always be at least small differences in our approaches when we are together. So when she is not there and Keelyn says for the third day in a row that she is going to wear her Paw Patrol shirt, I don’t give two shits and happily say “go for it!”. When Kaia says she did indeed brush her hair but it actually looks like a dying gerbil is making it’s final resting place there I say “Good job, let’s head out to school!” And of course if I feel ice cream for dinner is the way to go, then ice cream it is.

Daily tasks become easier as well. When I say it’s time to brush teeth and head off to bed, there might be a frown but they go to it pretty quickly. There is not any “but I want to give Mom another huuuuug”, “but, but, but I want to cuddle with Mom”, “but, but, but, but (thinking of excuse) but, but, Mooooom!”

My wife is gorgeous, amazing and an awesome mother. I am thankful (almost) every day that she is my partner in this journey which is parenthood and we do an excellent job of being a united front against child manipulation. Even when one of us makes one of those parenting decisions which invokes an eye rolling exasperated sigh of annoyance from the other one, we back each other up. When Danielle puts Keelyn in a timeout because she is fighting about the shirt Mom picked out, I groan like an old Buick (seriously, you know she’ll fight you about this) but I step in and make sure that decision is followed through. And when I decide….., well come on, all my parenting decisions are flawless so never mind.

When Keelyn (right now pretty much all of these examples are her) came to me and said “Can I have some juice? Mom said I could”, the rest of the conversation went like this”

• Dad: “Mom said you could have juice?”
• Kiki: “Yes”
• Dad: “So if I go ask Mom if she said you could have juice, she’d say yes?”
• Kiki: “Yeeeesssss?”
• Dad: “Should we go ask Mom?”
• Kiki: “Actually, no”

And Danielle backs me up the same way. So it is absolutely amazing to me how much they still attempt to play us off of each other or use the other as an excuse for one thing or another. Which again, is why being a temporary single parent can have its advantages (like making you the cool parent). But D, sweet wife, can you keep it to just a few days at a time? Their stomachs are going to get sick from all that ice cream.