Can I be a fun mom?

I have always unabashedly owned my identity as not a fun mom. If you need someone to create routines and schedules, I’m your girl. I am the mom who sets bedtimes, makes sure that we have the ingredients for the lunch boxes for the week and do not have to dash out to the grocery store at 9 pm, and assigns every person in the family a special color on our shared digital calendar. I am not, however, the mom who is spontaneous or who easily abandons the known structures that work for our household. I do not ever just “wing it.”

For the most part, this works for my family. My kids like our routines. They know that on the weekends we have family movie nights, that dinner happens at 5:30 pm, and that we read a Bible story all together before splitting off into our own rooms for the night. Sometimes I worry that I may be inculcating too much rigidity in my children (my husband Dan and I notice how much they react to disruptions to our usual schedules happen), but they thrive on routine.…