Are You a Bad Parent If You Don't Play Pretend?

The highest stakes have once again been applied to a low-stakes decision

I’ve noticed that I find myself continually fighting with people whose opinions I technically agree with, but who I think are being sanctimonious about it and thriving off of punishing moms for no reason. Examples: gentle parenting or not, screen time or no screen time, and now, thanks to the latest insufferable discourse, we can add “playing with your kids” (specifically pretend play or playing with toys, not the entire scope of “spending time with your kids”) to the list. For context, this video sparked the discourse- a mom influencer said she doesn’t play pretend with her kids (although she does do a plethora of other kid activities with them that are ostensibly higher-effort than pretend play) and she set the expectation that adults don’t play with toys in her house. She doesn’t like pretend play, and uses this time to read, drink coffee, or take care of other things while her two kids play together.

I’ll admit, I felt a little sad when she said she “kept saying no to her kids until one day they stopped asking.” But that’s probably because my kids not asking me to play anymore would make me sad, because I like playing pretend with them. I do not, however, believe kids whose parents refuse to play Barbies with them will “develop attachment trauma” or “go no-contact” over it. And yes, people on Twitter suggested these things would happen. They were the usual offenders: childfree people who view every parenting decision as a bitter war between a child and parent and who for some reason always identify with the two-year-old in the scenario instead of their peers, and sanctimonious “trad” moms who tend to only have one or two children, whose entire mom brand revolves around being appalled by what those “other moms” are doing.

Here’s my take: I personally like to play pretend. I think it’s fun for the kids. I don’t think it really matters that much though, provided you are spending time with your kids in other ways.

Why do I believe that playing pretend is extremely low-stakes and kind of doesn’t matter? Because the expectation that parents (always mothers, somehow) say yes to everything their child asks for (except for sugar, iPads, TV, video games, salty snacks, social media, polyester pajamas, red 40 or sleepovers) is a completely modern invention. Working moms today spend as much quality time with their children as stay-at-home moms in the 70s did. And that’s not even drilling down to pretend play, just quality time in general (which the mom in the video was still doing- probably more than a lot of other parents out there!) My parents were pretty engaged and I still remember playing alone most of the time. I would periodically give them updates on my complicated Barbie lesbian throuple drama and then I’d go back to playing. I have a few memories of my parents playing with me, and they were great, but it was never my expectation that they drop whatever they were doing to enter my imaginary world du jour. I only expected that they listen to me when I wanted to tell them about it.

Because modern society has given us so much automation—dishwashers, laundry machines, Roombas, you name it—we have more time to dedicate to our children, our work, our creative pursuits, and frankly—gasp—ourselves. That’s great! And for many moms, myself included, my kids come before any of those other things. But let’s not confuse this with a “bare minimum necessity.” There is no way that something which only recently became possible (playing with your kids every time they ask, for as long as they want) is also such a necessity that children will grow up severely damaged without it. Being a yes-man to a toddler is not, and has never been, a requirement. No well-respected parenting expert, including gentle parenting icons like Janet Lansbury, say that it’s a parent’s job to play with their kids every single time. In fact, Janet Lansbury has a whole spiel on how to say no to playing with your kids to foster their independence, and why parents shouldn’t feel guilty for setting boundaries:

Of course, Janet isn’t saying you should purposefully say no just for the sake of setting a boundary, only that it’s OK to say no and you shouldn’t feel guilty about it. And this is from a gentle parenting expert who is frequently criticized as letting children run the show. So if she’s saying it’s fine to say no from time to time, what is everyone’s source for “Saying no means your child will be traumatized for life?” Easy: there isn’t one, and these people are morons.

I saw one thread insisting that moms should “let the dishes pile up” in favor of playing with your child whenever they ask (look, I hate doing the dishes, but it’s not like they eventually evaporate—regardless of when you do them, you’ll still have to do the exact same amount of dishes) because “you’re a mother and this is what you signed up for.” In fact, I saw that sentiment a lot—basically, that if you choose to be a mom, your kids’ requests must be granted at all times, immediately, and if you ever feel burned out you need to suck it up because what else did you expect. There’s a lot wrong with that, so I’m bulleting my response:

1. While being a parent is unlike anything else (simultaneously a 24/7 job but also something we love to do for free) you wouldn’t say this about something like, for example, a marriage or a job. If someone said they wanted to read on the balcony by themselves without their spouse, nobody would say “you shouldn’t have gotten married then!” If someone took a few days of PTO, nobody would say “Why did you even bother taking this job if you hate it so much?” Obviously neither of these things are a 1:1 comparison with parenthood, but it’s insane to suggest you shouldn’t have had kids if you occasionally want time to yourself (And yes, I saw that said multiple times). Every mom was once a little girl. Would you tell a little girl that she should only become a mom someday if she’s prepared to sacrifice every facet of her life to appease her children’s every request? As the mom of a daughter, I seriously hope not.

2. The people suggesting you “let the dishes pile up” are the same people who would see a video of a mom playing with her kids in a mildly messy house and say “Those poor babies living in squalor! Someone call CPS, this is unsafe! How can you be trusted to take care of your kids if you can’t even keep your kitchen clean? There could be bedbugs! This is literally child abuse!”

3. Saying yes to your kid all the time…probably isn’t good? It’s good for kids to learn that not every request is going to be immediately fulfilled because they’re going to experience that a lot in life. I don’t even know where this expectation came from, because none of the gentle parenting experts recommend this. They recommend redirecting instead of directly saying no if you can, and allowing kids to feel “big feelings” if they’re disappointed without punishing them, but the only people suggesting that asking your child to wait ten minutes for you to finish an email before you play with them is traumatic are random people on social media who have no idea what they’re talking about. I suppose they got confused because of the “you can’t spoil a baby” phrase (which is true- a crying baby usually needs something!) and applied it to six-year-olds who sometimes have requests that do not need to be fulfilled, such as “remember that toy I got a long time ago that I haven’t played with in years? You need to find it for me immediately.”

So, like all parenting discourse, this one started with something fair (“It makes me personally sad to see a mom refuse to play pretend with her kids, because I like playing with mine”) and turned it into something batshit crazy (“If a mom ever needs to do anything for herself, her work, or the house, and does that instead of immediately doing what her three-year-old asks, she shouldn’t have had kids at all”)

I don’t know why these still surprise me. But somehow they do. Until next time.