My parents were super involved and fun (I was born in 1979). My mom was an elementary school teacher, which definitely helped with our early years. We were always doing some sort of fun craft or exploratory thing (my childhood friends still talk about how they loved coming to our house). My dad coached every team we were on, and one of my parents was always a room helper in school. We went to lots of museums and the zoo, and generally played outside a ton. They were also pretty strict, though - virtually no tv, lots of chores/helping around the house, but on the whole it was an awesome childhood.

As a parent, I try to walk the same line. One thing my husband and I love doing is instilling some traditions - we all watch a movie together on Friday nights, have pizza on Thursdays, etc. We also do a lot of outdoor stuff together - running, biking, playing soccer in the park. And now that they're a bit older (7, 5, and 2), we've started playing a lot more card/board games.

When I think of "fun" parents I think of parents who try to be friends, not parents, to their children (the kind of parents who allow teens to drink and have parties). But I gather this isn't what OP is talking about.

I was born in 1980. My parents were great parents. They, especially my mother, did do a lot of fun activities with their kids when we were young (under age 10). Home crafts, impromptu baseball games, running around the yard, hide and go seek, board games and family trips. Every night was family dinner where we all ate together. After age 10 there was a gradual transition to being much more independent and less reliant on the parents for entertainment although we still had the daily family dinner together and movie nights and weekend activities. However, throughout the entire time the parents were firmly the parents, not buddies. They gave me a lot of independence as a teen but also kept a close eye on me in their own way, and as an adult I now realize how well-balanced it was.

I also agree with other posters that there has been a generational change in childrearing attitudes. Despite that my parents were naturally closely involved in my childhood and provided many activities and entertainment, there were also plenty of times when I was left to my devices and would spend hours just reading or playing with toys or with other kids, even as young as age 6/7. There were a lot of kids in our neighborhood and I do remember spending ours running around outside in the backyards without close parental oversight. By contrast, it seems that today's parents are afraid to allow kids to do that at such a young age and the helicoptering and constant expectation to provide 24/7 stimulation is very real. My parents have commented on this as well. The ironic thing is that my parents were much more closely involved with their children than their own parents' generation. I had wonderful grandparents but there's no question that the relationship was much more formal as well, whereas my parents' relationship with their grandchildren is more laid back. My dad will pitch baseballs to his grandkids, my mother is happy to have the little kids come wake her up in the morning and play games with them, things that would have been unfathomable with my own grandparents.

Anonymous wrote:Were you an only child? I find that with siblings, things usually become more kid-friendly.

Yeah...it generally sucks being an only / the experience is a lot like OP's

My parents are pretty fun I think they did a great job of trying to expose me to things that they really liked, such as their favorite movies or music or art. They both learned how to ski in college and used to take us.skiing every year. My mom used to bake with me and would paint my nails red/white and blue for 4th of July. I remember one time I told her I wanted to take ice skating lessons and she said she always wanted to be an ice skater as well so we did mother-daughter lessons.

Now that they are grandparents is fun to see how they're developing different rituals with my daughter like making her pancakes and taking her to the playground or playing resteraunt with her toy food.

My parents were pretty fun. They seemed to genuinely enjoy having kids. My mom especially would do things like make pancakes shaped like animals and plan elaborate themed birthday and holiday parties before that was a thing. There was a lot of joking and laughter in my house, and lots of good-natured teasing. We had family snowball fights, my dad had funny nicknames for all of us (mom included), etc.

That's not to say they weren't strict. We had sit down dinners (with much laughter, but also table manners!), no disrespect was tolerated, and I wasn't allowed certain clothes, toys, movies. They also did not focus exclusively on their kids - there were plenty of adult dinner parties and trips (they liked having fun on their terms too, not just ours!). In general though, there was a sense of enjoying life, and each other, and not taking anything or anybody too seriously.

It was a great household to grow up in and all 4 of my siblings are raising our kids similarly.

My mom was a kindergarten teacher before she had me so yes, it was fun/ creative. She would make us homemade Play-Doh and take us to puppet shows at wolf trap. She also had her own life too, though. My dad was silly and fun too. Now they're very devoted grandparents.

It wasn't a laugh riot at our house but we always had fun. My parents really seemed to enjoy playing and being with us and they always planned fun vacations that had a lot of kid appeal. I now have little children and my Dad loves playing with them and taking them places. Not many 67 year old guys keep a car seat permanently in his car. My parents home has big toy boxes in the family room which is another sign. My parents have a great marriage and I think that was a huge part of why we had fun.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My husband did, I didn't. I've learned a lot from him.

He bought a drop cloth after our first daughter turned 1, and come Halloween time, I arrived home from work to find he and the baby shirtless on the drop cloth carving pumpkins. It had NEVER OCCURRED to me to carve pumpkins.

He hung a clothesline in our home office and puts up art projects the girls do, changing them out monthly. We do go to fancy restaurants, but always make sure there's something the girls will enjoy. I think we took them to IHoP once.

I grew up always being told to be quiet, but now when our kids want to talk during a conversation with other adults we'll wait for a break and then turn to them with "What did you want to add?"

When our oldest DD was 3, on New Years, we went in to her room, woke her up and sprayed whipped cream into her mouth. She thought it was the highlight of her little life.

I wanted to tell you that I really LOVE your post, and how open and flexible you were to your husband's style differences. A lot of people would have freaked about the shirtless pumpkin-carving thing but you went with it and now here you are posting about it. Good for you! It sounds like you and your husband made a great match and you're doing a wonderful job raising a happy family!

I freaked out quietly, inside my head. They were having so much fun. I still hate crafts. I slap my kids hands when they pick up random stuff on the ground, to make them drop it. Totally grosses me out. But they're not worried about getting dirty all the time, or ruining their clothes, and I was. So, progress.

Anonymous wrote:My husband did, I didn't. I've learned a lot from him.

He bought a drop cloth after our first daughter turned 1, and come Halloween time, I arrived home from work to find he and the baby shirtless on the drop cloth carving pumpkins. It had NEVER OCCURRED to me to carve pumpkins.

He hung a clothesline in our home office and puts up art projects the girls do, changing them out monthly. We do go to fancy restaurants, but always make sure there's something the girls will enjoy. I think we took them to IHoP once.

I grew up always being told to be quiet, but now when our kids want to talk during a conversation with other adults we'll wait for a break and then turn to them with "What did you want to add?"

When our oldest DD was 3, on New Years, we went in to her room, woke her up and sprayed whipped cream into her mouth. She thought it was the highlight of her little life.

I wanted to tell you that I really LOVE your post, and how open and flexible you were to your husband's style differences. A lot of people would have freaked about the shirtless pumpkin-carving thing but you went with it and now here you are posting about it. Good for you! It sounds like you and your husband made a great match and you're doing a wonderful job raising a happy family!

OP here. Growing up we rarely had family time. It was always me and my mom. My father was pretty much an absentee father. He was a provider but didn't spend any time with me.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My parents would swing back and forth between fun and abusive. They’d get in a fight and threaten to divorce each other and argue in front of us about who would get the kids, then they’d make up and take us to a hotel with a pool for the weekend so we could have family time. Or they’d start off joking or teasing with something cute and funny, then taking it way too far to the point of bullying and torment, then teasing horrifically because we kids were too sensitive and couldn’t take a joke. Their fun always came with a high price.

In contrast, I’m not fun because I don’t allow much teasing or practical jokes, especially if I detect even a hint of meanness or bullying. We do fun things like outings (without threatening divorce or custody battles), fun classes, fun activities at home, and watching funny movies and telling jokes that aren’t hurtful.

That is interesting PP. My family did a ton of teasing and practical jokes and sarcastic mocking but it was all done in love and I have nothing but good memories of those times.

That’s nice. My parents would do things like block the door so I couldn’t exit a room (sometimes for more than half an hour), pretend to leave me home alone without telling me where they went, tickle me until I peed on myself even after I begged them to stop so I could go to the bathroom, or dress up like a clown and wake me in the middle of the night to scare me. Then if I cried I’d be mocked for being too sensitive. What kind of fun pranks did your parents pull?

Anonymous wrote:Define fun I guess. I had several siblings so by default life was more centered around kid activities. When I was young my mom took us to museums, the zoo, concerts, plays, playgrounds, amusement parks.........but I don't actually remember her enjoying it. Maybe bc she was tracking multiple kids? She also never played board games or cards with us, which at the time I thought was what a fun mom did. My dad traveled a lot for work, but when he was home he usually stepped in and did stuff with us, but more of the out in the yard running around or willingly taking us on errands (ie the hardware store and letting us ask a million questions vs. mom who errands were about in/out/done.) We also rarely ate out. McDonalds was a huge treat. I also remember lots of decorations for holidays and "themed food." Thinking about this, I suspect he had more to do with her upbringing (raised mostly by "maiden" aunts) vs my dads upbringing on a farm.

All that said, they did have a pretty active social life with lots of friends, and often went on what would now be called date nights but back then were just what parents did. Plenty of parties at the house as well.

This sounds like my family. I only have one sibling, but a 5 year gap meant my parents had a kid under 5 for 10 years. We were largely expected to entertain ourselves at home, but we did go on family trips that blended kid and adult interests. My dad also traveled, so weekends were for family stuff and they refused to be overbooked with kid stuff. Travel soccer? Oh, HELL no.

But I was born in 72 and we were pretty solidly middle-middle class in a neighborhood where dads still did yard work and washed cars on weekends. That lawn wasn’t going to mow itself.

We outsource way more than my parents ever did in order to have more time doing fun stuff with our kid. We are probably still not considered fun parents, because we tend to do educational stuff rather than pure fun — but we have fun together.

Anonymous wrote:My parents would swing back and forth between fun and abusive. They’d get in a fight and threaten to divorce each other and argue in front of us about who would get the kids, then they’d make up and take us to a hotel with a pool for the weekend so we could have family time. Or they’d start off joking or teasing with something cute and funny, then taking it way too far to the point of bullying and torment, then teasing horrifically because we kids were too sensitive and couldn’t take a joke. Their fun always came with a high price.

In contrast, I’m not fun because I don’t allow much teasing or practical jokes, especially if I detect even a hint of meanness or bullying. We do fun things like outings (without threatening divorce or custody battles), fun classes, fun activities at home, and watching funny movies and telling jokes that aren’t hurtful.

That is interesting PP. My family did a ton of teasing and practical jokes and sarcastic mocking but it was all done in love and I have nothing but good memories of those times.

My parents were engaged but not 'fun' in the sense that they believed they needed to keep us entertained.

Sometimes they would play our kid games and I remember those times as they were special.

My dad would do things like roll us up in a rug or a mattress and "sit" on us. Or he would wrestle with us or be a horse and buck us off. Again these things were special and didn't happen often.

My parents did play board games with us and we would do puzzles together. We would go skating and build snow forts and go for explorations in the woods. Most of the time it was more about being together than about being fun.we would bake with my mom and she would give us 'jobs' to do. She took us to museums and the library and to lots of activities.

We didn't have a TV growing up so probably 80% of the time we played independently or with each other (siblings) and 20% of the time we were doing things with my parents.

During the day my mom would read us all the kids books but one thing my dad did was that every night we all got together and he read to us from a classic 'adult' book. He would stop and explain things to us as most of it went over our heads but I remember I loved those nightly readings as it was like they saw us as adults or grown ups. I felt so important to be discussing Uncle Tom's Cabin and slavery or something similar as a child. It was always a very serious thing, not something you would associate with 'fun' but a really good memory

My parents would swing back and forth between fun and abusive. They’d get in a fight and threaten to divorce each other and argue in front of us about who would get the kids, then they’d make up and take us to a hotel with a pool for the weekend so we could have family time. Or they’d start off joking or teasing with something cute and funny, then taking it way too far to the point of bullying and torment, then teasing horrifically because we kids were too sensitive and couldn’t take a joke. Their fun always came with a high price.

In contrast, I’m not fun because I don’t allow much teasing or practical jokes, especially if I detect even a hint of meanness or bullying. We do fun things like outings (without threatening divorce or custody battles), fun classes, fun activities at home, and watching funny movies and telling jokes that aren’t hurtful.