When All She Wants is Mommy

When it comes to building an “awesome tower” out of blocks, digging in the dirt or making Saturday morning pancakes, for our girls there’s nobody like their Daddy. When life is good, or Mommy is mean (it’s TOTALLY unfair that Mommy hands out time-outs for hitting your sister with a truck!), when there is fun to be had and energy to burn our two girls are 100% Daddy’s girls.

He’s their guy, they ask me 400 times a day when he’ll come home and run to meet him when he does. It’s fair to say they adore him. Then bedtime comes, somebody falls or Daddy decides he’s going to implement the time-out and it’s all about Mommy.

If I’m anywhere in the semi-close vicinity when they are sick or hurt, they want nothing to do with their daddy. If a bad dream wakes them up and I’m home, it’s me they want to rub their backs to sleep. When somebody was mean, and their world feels like it’s caving in, they’ll look up at their daddy, cheeks stained with tears and walk by, “I want my MOOOOMMMM!.”
And then his heart breaks.

He’s a wonderful husband and an excellent father. He’s more hands on than many dads; he’s compassionate and knows how to play Barbies. He’s patient when I’m, well, not, he’d get them a piece of the moon if he thought it would truly make them happy and he loves them with his every being. He also loves that to them, he’s a hero. That they want to play with him, that they want to climb on the counter and “help” with the flour and sugar for pancakes that they wait each day for him. Who wouldn’t?

So, it’s little wonder, when all he wants to do is kiss the owie better or make the bad dream vanish and they wail louder for me, that he’s sad. The heart that he loves them with is wounded, and his feelings are hurt. I can understand that. I watch them sometimes, in what seems like a slow motion dance as he dashes to the scene of the crime only to be met with attitude (little girls come out sportin’ that ‘tude) and pleads for “Mommy.” I see the hurt in his eyes as he steps out of the way or hands a sobbing little girl over, and I’m sad for him. He only wants to help them; I understand that, the thing is I understand their cries too.

I wasn’t any different. Looking back on my own childhood, it was MY mom I ran to when I was sad. It was my mom who sat by my bed at night as I battled a fever or wiped my tears as I cried over a boy. My dad would have done it, he might have felt a little awkward at times, but he’d have been there, if I asked him. It’s just, I didn’t. I wanted my mom, I needed my mom, and there wasn’t anybody who could “fix” things like my mom.

I think we are all in general hardwired that way. Think about your own childhood, whether you’re a mom or a dad, think about who YOU ran to when the tears began to fall….it was your mom, right? For the most part (I know there are exceptions to every rule) I think most kids choose mom over dad when life is hard, when comfort is what they need.

Our mothers carried us in their bodies, they gave birth to us, nursed us, held us and bonded in a way a dad just can’t. Likewise, our fathers held us moments after we took our first breath. They wiped away tears of joy at the smell of our sweet skin and beamed with pride as we took our first step. They have an important job, those dads do. It’s up to them to teach us to ride a bike, and work on a truck. It’s because of them that we know how to make that tower get “REALLY high!” and how to get the perfect syrup to butter ratio at breakfast. They are our heroes, the ones who’ll teach us what a “man” really is, whether it’s the man we’re looking to marry or the man we’re going to become.

In the heart of a child there isn’t anyone who can fill the space earmarked for Daddy, not even 100 mommies. He knows that, I know he does. I just have to remind him of his celebrity status from time to time, when the hurt makes him a little too sad.

So, I hug our girl and wipe away her tears. I put on a bandage, make things better, and then I look up at my husband’s eyes. I give her a kiss and she’s off, laughing as she goes, looking over her shoulder shouting, “Come On Daddy! LET’S PLAY!”

Ashley Stone is the voice of Our Family Stone. She’s also the wife to a husband who is her perfect match and the momma to two incredibly busy little girls. Her days are filled with work, laundry, and Barbie dolls. She hasn’t peed alone since 2006.