Dad's View: On birthday parties

By Jay Hardy

Posted: October 19, 2010

I roller skated this past spring for the first time in a long time.

I mean it had been a really long time since I laced up a pair of skates. George Michael and a guy named Howard Jones were a big deal when I last skated.

My wife and I began this round robin of taking our daughter to her friends’ birthday parties. So far, I’ ve pulled the long straw twice and gotten a roller skating party and a bowling party. Not bad.

There was even pizza at the bowling party. One party had a vegetable tray at the skating rink. A vegetable tray? What?

I forgot the party that was at one of those inflatable slide places. The kids climb up the inflatable ship, for example, and then slide down. That wasn’ t so bad. With two herniated discs in my back, I wasn’t about to try that thing.

I noticed at my daughter’s fifth birthday party that there were more dads there than moms. I wasn’ t expecting that, or quite used to that. I always got dropped off at a party growing up and if there was a parent there, it was a mom. Times have changed, for sure.

We have gone from women gaining the right to vote, to women joining the workforce, to now men wearing spider rings and playing smash the mole after eating a piece of roller rink cake. What has happened?

I’m all for equality ladies. I never remember discussing birthday parties before my wife and I created child No. 1.

And don’t get me wrong. I’m all for it. I don’t mind learning to roller skate all over again.

Jay Hardy is the father of a six-year-old and a baby in Holly Springs. He's a former sports photographer and reporter for WRAL-TV. Find him here once a month on Wednesdays.

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I think it is great that daddy's are involved more with the kids.. Remember anyone can be a father but "IT TAKES SOMEONE SPECIAL TO BE A DADDY"...