<p>Hahahahaha . . . great thread.</p>
<p>In Girl Scouts we call them DoDads. </p>
<p>The GS council which is now all of Alaska has/had a “DoDad” patch which I got for my DH years ago because it looked like him—showed a guy in a wool watch cap with a plaid shirt & big black beard. And icebergs in the background!</p>
<p>And in Girl Scouts we call the Donkey Moms…Leaders </p>
<p>(and Cookie Moms, and Troop Treasurers, etc)</p>
<p>Funny, JRZMom…the other moms called the cookie mom a sucker! LOL…no offense meant, of course. I was a leader and couldn’t have done without my cookie mom. She was a saint :-)</p>
<p>The Donkey parents in Boy Scouting are also called “leaders,” but the best of them don’t do much leading–the boys do that. That’s another difference, I think, in the attitude of the Donkey parent as compared to the Tiger parent. It’s something that some new parents of Scouts have to learn.</p>
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<p>Aw geez, is that what they were thinking behind my back??? No cookies for you! :)</p>
<p>Garland…aw, man. Really? Those Lemonades are to die for! Maybe sucker was too strong a word? How about Cookie Martyr? Better? :-)</p>
<p>Hunt…I also lead Cub Scouts for over 5 years and even though they were little, I made them do much of the planning and leading. It was a FAR cry from the girl scout experience. My daughter used to get so steamed that her little brother got to do so many cool adventure-y things while her troop wanted to do sleepovers in the BACKYARD! Or spend their cookie money on an overnight at the Queen Mary. (This was after I washed my hands of the whole thing…the training they require for volunteers was over the top, IMHO), so she was soon to follow. Tagging along with older brother’s Boy Scout Troops rock climbing, hiking and rocket-shooting outings were much more to her liking!</p>
<p>Donkey Father and Cookie Martyr sounds like a typical couple of the type we’re discussing.</p>
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Totally LOVE that! :)</p>
<p>Cookie Martyr–that works for me.</p>
<p>We didn’t have Lemonades when i was doing this. They sound scrumptious. My downfall was Samoas.</p>
<p>OH God. I was a cookie martyr. I’d blocked that out, like childbirth. ;)</p>
<p>Maybe this thread should be retitled: Rewards and Odes to Donkey Parents–The Backbones of Our Communities. Though it was challenging and sometimes pretty thankless, I wouldn’t trade what we did for anything–we got the rewards of helping shape lives–our kids and others, hopefully helping make this world a better place.</p>
I thought I’d bump up this old thread, since we’ve been talking about parenting styles (especially helicopter parenting) on some other threads. I think this one captures the real kind of parenting many of us do.
Love being a donkey parent!!..but it does make the transition to empty-nester a little bit harder.
@hunt: Yep, it does, and it is a perfect description. With my wife, who was SAHM, it was the daily drive to his school, which was located down a variety of cowpath kind of roads, probably a good 60 miles a day (2 round trips), then driving him to music lessons, to orchestra, into NYC for events…then later on, when he homeschooled, keeping on top of that, schlepping him to lessons in NYC, programs, the Sunday orchestra program, the Saturday for pre college…
For me it was the financial aspects (still there, paying for music school), the instruments (and the schlep for both of us to find the right one), then the driving as well, or sitting through recitals, which can be, to say the least, difficult at times…or there was the birthday I spent helping set up 300 chairs for a rehearsal of a youth symphony (wasn’t supposed to be doing any heavy lifting, week after getting my nose fixed), or the many times waiting in the car for him with various things.
It very much is the donkey thing, but I think it is much better than the tiger/helicopter parent, it is a support role, encouraging and supporting their dreams, rather than controlling them. I will add that helicopte/tiger parents also can and are donkey parents, but to me there is a very different emphasis, quite honestly a lot of the helicopter/tiger parents I have known seem to be doing what they do for themselves, their pushing and prodding seems to be a lot about their own wishes and desires, rather than what the kid may want.
How nice to read this thread. I do hope Hunt is doing something about an article or book.
As a single mom, working by necessity, I really can relate to being a Donkey Mom. I was the one to pick kids up from games, watching the last parts of games. We had sleepovers every weekend until 11th grade, when someone else got a BIG TV. I think I was baking 3x a week. Every weekend had some activity. I was the mom taking kids to movies, bowling, …
I was known as the creative mom, which meant projects took place at our house. So what do we call the parents who didn’t pick up their kid until 7 pm?
There were parents who were too busy to bring their kids to b/d parties, who never pulled their weight in driving. Is there a name for them?
I give the ultimate prize of DF and DM to my cousin and his wife. They homeschooled their kids in HS because we’re traveling the world for their sport. Other parents would let their kid go far away, knowing my cousin would always be there. And yes, they made it to Olympics and are still involved. Where there is snow, you can bet this family is on the slopes.
Kudos to the families of these ultimate athletes.
I used the term Llama Mama, but the idea was the same.
We had a parent poster named Tutu Taxi. 
Depending on the destination, my car was called Swim Cab, Bandmobile, etc.
Boarding school parents outsource the donkey hauling