Taking a Parenting time out

The other morning I ventured into my 8 year olds room, well actually I stood at his door, I had shoes on and he has rules 🤷🏻‍♂️

It was pre breakfast and maybe that in itself should have served as plenty of warning, after all who pokes a hungry bear right? But then what’s the worst an 8 year old can do against his grown man of a father?

Especially considering I was only there to enquire about his plans for responding to the latest letter from his penpal, yep, pen-pal. An actual ink on paper, stamp on envelope, letter in big red box, pen pal. Befriended in that old fashioned way through the art of conversation, during the family summer holiday.

As his Father, owner of the house & payer of all associated bills, I thought I was authorised to interrupt his morning routine of sloth like lethargy, yet it seems I was mistaken

Having only uttered a few words I was met with a firm ‘Get Out, Go Away, Get Out.... charming! it’s difficult to get out when you haven’t even entered, yet I must have been taken by surprise as I found myself briskly moonwalking back to the safety of the landing, in an almost out of body experience, all the while thinking, ‘What am I doing, this is my house, I’m the adult here’

To make matters even more surreal, the next thing I knew, I was in the car and driving to work..... having been spoken to like a complete C*#t in my own home!

Fast forward 12 hours, mostly spent wondering what had actually happened, I returned home carrying a box of coco shreddies, which I had picked up for both kids, on the instruction of my darling Wife, the Marvellous Mummy. The very same woman who bore me the consternation causing child I refer to.

Entering, once again my own house, I proudly displayed my purchase like the victorious family provider returning with his most recent kill, assuming that kill paired best with milk & came in a colourful cardboard box. Yet no sooner had I set this fresh carcass on the unit but Son number 1, still only 8 years old, remarked, dismissively, that he didn’t know why I bought them as he doesn’t even like them

I felt my wee chest tighten....

What followed, thankfully didn’t involve an Ambulance, for me. No, what followed was a quite simply a mastery of self restraint, maturity and parenting prowess. Parenting that no manual, child rearing class or advice column can or probably would ever teach.

It’s something that’s an option to us all,

I lifted the box of cereal, followed by my keys, retraced my recently tread path & returned to the car before driving away. Sometimes you just need to put distance between you and the little soul sucking life destroyers you brought into the World!

It doesn’t make you a bad parent, quite the opposite, removing oneself from such a situation, giving yourself space not to mention peace and quiet can sometimes be the best approach.

Texting your spouse to advise them that you weren’t coming home until said little shit was upstairs, in bed and no longer sharing the same oxygen as you, well that’s an optional extra. Let’s call it tying up loose ends.

So, as I sat, in the car park of a nearby park & ride, alone and admittedly a little hungry for my dinner. I reviewed what had just went down. Every action does indeed have a reaction, but whereas before it would certainly have been the case of his action being met by shouting, stomping around and a bit of bad twist, as in my mood not his neck. On this occasion I didn’t let behaviour breed behaviour and as I sat in my moral high ground I was reminded of why we become parents in the first place,

Because Women, as they have done through the ages, trick us into it


* The images included in this post? Yep, that’s him, the little shit