Laughing (and learning) over Spilt Milk

You know that plaintive cry? The one that you hear and you just know things are amiss? The one that you hear and you wonder - "Should I pretend to be asleep?" "Should I ignore that?"

I heard it this weekend.

"Daaaaaad!" It was not loud. It was not a scream. It was more like a question. In fact, it would be better expressed as "Daaaad?!" To make matter slightly more interesting, it was coming from the garage, and we were on our way out.

I mentally scrolled through the Rolodex of answers, "Yes?" "What?" "What have you done?" "Come here!" "Can I help?"

None of them seemed to fit the moment and I was on my way to the garage anyway.

I sneaked my head around the corner. There, valiantly stopping the garage from being carried away in a flood of UHT milk, stood my boy. With feet firmly planted, he braced against the tide of white fury, pressing his hands up against the six pack. A modern day equivalent of the Dutch hero who placed his finger in a dyke. With one minor difference. The Dutch hero was an innocent passer by who had the courage to place himself in between the flood and the rest of Holland. My boy was the instigator.

"Yes?" I asked.

"Uuuh. The milk has broken." The little voice belied his bravery with a small quiver.

"I see. Any idea how it broke?"

"Uuuuh...."

"Perhaps a stick got stuck in the box?" I offered helpfully, seeing the offending weapon lying on the floor, its sharpened point glistening with guilt

"Uuuuh...."

"What should we do?" I asked. (Was it cruel to stand apart from the epicentre of the event, and observe? Even though my direct intervention was called for? Dunno. But it was more fun, this way!) I was clearly mentally gearing up for a "teachable moment".

"Fix it, Dad"

And my resolve melted. Dads can fix anything. Even broken milk.

P.S. Sticks are no longer brought into the house. This was always the rule, but the impact has now been seen. Nothing like a little bit of experience to just tap that lesson into place.

Dads in the Balance...

Dads are not immune from it. Perhaps we are just more reluctant to display it, or to even admit that we suffer from it. Perhaps we ignore it, as men tend to ignore so many sicknesses, seeing it as weakness. So it may not seem as apparent, but Dads (both those with co-pilots, and those who have embarked on a solo flight) are affected. Immunity? No!

What is this omniscient presence, this overarching condition, this malady? A newly evolved virus, a new virulent strain of a laboratory-engineered bacteria? Nothing as dramatic or as evolved. It is the ancient curse of parenting, the pre-condition to sacrifice for genetic continuation (surprisingly, even if the genes are not yours). That's right, ladies, gentlemen and fellow pilots, something that we all succumb to - guilt.

It is something that all parents have hard-wired into them. I have experienced it before, when I had a co-pilot. But I think that Solo Dads have a peculiar sub-set of the genus, which makes it resilient to the more traditional cures.

One traditional antidote to the affliction, is a variation of that well known natural remedy, "The Essence of Balance". However, balance comes in a number of forms and in many cases especially in parenting, it centres on the nature of two. A ying and a yang, an on and an off, a black and a white, an up and a down, a right and a wrong. This is where Dads with co-pilots usually have an advantage. When the nature of two is disturbed, the balance goes awry and the traditional remedies lose their potency.

What hope then for Solo Dad when this ailment makes its presence known? Should we adopt a traditionally male perspective of ignoring the symptoms and hoping that "it will go away"? Should we rush to the healer at the very hint of an infection? Should we begin to self-medicate thinking that we know best? Or should we adopt an apparently very popular treatment of seeking a counter-balance, in the hope that this will be a longer term solution?