Parenting

Single Mom Dresses Up For ‘Donuts With Dad’ So Her Son Won’t Miss Out

by Mike Julianelle

This mom didn’t want her son missing out on ‘Donuts With Dad’

Moms will do anything to make their kids happy and apparently, that includes sticking on a fake mustache and playing “dad.”

At least that’s what Yevette Vasquez did the other day, when she noticed a hullabaloo at her son’s North Texas school during morning drop-off. She soon learned that it was a “Donuts with Dads” event. But Yvette is a single mom, and so her son was unable to partake. Which just seems cruel. Why ya gotta dangle donuts, school?

Yevette wasn’t having it, because donuts are for everyone. So she went home, put on her best “Super Mario Bros” outfit, complete with a mustache that wasn’t fooling anyone, and returned to school to escort her son to the cafeteria. They can take our lives, but they can never take OUR DONUTS!

Good for Yevette for doing everything she can to make her son happy, even if that means putting him at risk for obesity and childhood diabetes. (I kid, I kid!) Life isn’t easy for single parents, and if one of my sons was faced with missing out on something merely because I was raising him without a partner, I wouldn’t hesitate to throw on some pantyhose if that’s what it took to make him smile. (He’d probably retch, but this is my hypothetical so back off.)

But here’s a quick question: why can’t free donuts day be for everyone? As some of the comments under Yvette’s post pointed out, there’s no reason for excluding moms from these events, or dads from similar events. Not when one in four kids are raised in single parent homes.

One commenter on KGW-TV’s Facebook story mentioned that her school holds a similar event but calls it “Pastries for Parents,” another commenter referenced her school’s “Donuts for Dudes and Dudettes.” With those simple changes, no one is left out, no one has to get in costume to make sure their kid has a shot at a free Boston Creme. And no one has to include a “please don’t hate, I know I’m a woman and so do my sons” disclaimer at the bottom of her Facebook post in case the internet has a problem with her dressing as a man.

Look, the school probably holds something for moms too, as they should, and Yevette can take her son to that, in her normal clothes. It just seems a little silly to divide events by gender roles. It doesn’t matter if you’re a married mom, a single dad, or a divorced gay couple, a parent is a parent, and kids are kids. Needlessly separating events by gender only calls attention to kids who don’t have that kind of parent in their lives

Is this a big deal in the scheme of things? Maybe not. But it’s also an easy fix. Easier than plastering a fake mustache on your face.