My mother discovered stolen contraband the night she pretended to hang up my coat. The ‘hang the coat up’ frisk was a classic move.
I’ve used it with my own kids.
The item she found was a seventy nine cent writing tablet that opened like a book. She asked where it came from, I gave her the name of a sixth grader. I had to steal something to hang out with his group.
Even then I had writing aspirations.
She called his parents, talked a moment, then handed me the phone and waved my dad over to hear a man’s voice screaming at a kid and a kid crying after each slapping sound. We stared at each other.
From the phone: Yell, yell, yell, “Why did you give another kid a notebook? Why?” A slap, then, “I didn’t,” followed by, “are you lying?” another slapping sound, more crying and howling.
It repeated a few times before I saw my only way out.
I had to confess my thievery, and hope my dad had a different plan. Before they were all the rage, this was a perfect time for a helicopter parent.
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I wish a helicopter parent had swooped in and made one of my grade school classmates stop hanging his dog and crucifying frogs.
I was in his backyard on an unsupervised open ended playtime in the neighborhood visit that went sideways.
As a parent of two children I monitored their friends for clues to such behavior.
“Do any of your friends hang dogs? Nail frogs to trees?” I asked.
“What?”
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Where was the helicopter parent during all of the rock fights across the old county road?
About David Gillaspie
