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My Dad was very old school when it came to parenting young children. He did not enjoy 'babysitting' while Mom went out for the day. He was not a diaper changer. Yes, Dad would occasionally wind up doing these things. However, he was never very happy about it. His strengths in parenting centered more around handling teenagers rather than pipsqueaks.
Shopping and malls were also things that made Dad's 'Do Not Want' list. These were activities that Dad would avoid like Ebola.
So you can imagine Dad's extreme displeasure, one weekend when I was around 6 and Mom was participating in a ceramics show at a large mall about an hour away from home all day both Saturday and Sunday and suggested ~ in a way that only a wife can ~ that Dad feed, dress and pile all 5 of us children into the car and drive us out to this particular mall on Sunday, during the Christmas shopping season.
Dad's mood was bad and on eggshells we walked as we jumped around like Mexican jumping beans balanced the energy and excitement of going to the mall with trying to stay out of the line of fire.
Once at the mall, Dad was to walk us 5 around window shopping through the large crowds. Soon his mood went from bad to foul. He held onto my hand and that of my younger sister and the older kids were to stick close behind. Of course, every few minutes we would wiggle loose of his grip and dart away to stare into a store window. Dad's fuse was getting shorter by the minute and we were pushing our luck far beyond what common sense would mandate.
We darted away from him, once again, and to the window of the Mecca of the mall shopping experience for children, the pet store. Although highly displeased, Dad allowed us to watch the puppies playing there for a few minutes before reaching down and taking two little hands on either side of him and leading us to continue moving along.
The only problem was that in his frustration and haste, Dad managed to grab the hand of my little sister on one side and a small child that did not belong to him on the other. The unintentionally abducted child tried to pull away without making a peep and Dad just grew angrier and more frustrated, but did not not let go and did not even turn his head to give a warning look. I on the other hand, just followed behind him, walking with my older siblings. No one dared to correct him or inform him of his error. It could have been a kill the messenger kind of moment.
After about 50 feet of dragging this uncooperative abductee, Dad finally turned to yell at them and realized in complete shock that he didn't recognize this child and saw the child's mother running at him and screaming with mall security in tow.
The rest of us tried to stifle our chuckles as we watched Dad become fully aware that he had indeed just stepped in a very large pile of... off a nasty cliff. The mother grabbed her child and continued yelling for my father to be arrested as Dad rebutted that he had enough of his own children and certainly didn't want hers too.
Lucky for him, the security guards has understood that this was all an unfortunate mistake and nothing was made out of it, despite the mother's ranting.
Dad immediately took us on a bee-line to Mom, ensuring that he indeed had the correct children this time, with his mood worse than ever, looking for sympathy and understanding that did not come. All Mom could do was laugh and point out that he brought this all on himself. A fact that Dad disputed for years to come.
Parenting lesson of the day, patience is more that a virtue, it can be necessary to keep you from getting thrown in prison.
This ones for you MM.
Happy Fatherhood Friday!
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