I Don't Cry Often

Yesterday morning, after the children had gone to school, Stella to work and Edie...

(Our au-pair girl)

... had set off on her daily Roman 'walkabout', I sat down to write, with my dog Lola curled up at my feet, and found a child’s tooth sitting atop my computer. Had to be my son’s; it was too big to be my little daughter’s. ‘Oh, no!’ I immediately said to myself. The Tooth Fairy obviously hadn’t dropped in to swap my son’s tooth for a little surprise under his pillow. How did I know that? Because, like most Dads, I’m the Tooth Fairy, Father Christmas and, on occasion, the Big Bad Wolf.  How the hell had I missed it? Did he tell me? I couldn’t remember.

And not a word of reproach from him at breakfast.

Normally, his mouth stuffed with cereal or bacon and eggs, he proudly holds up the Tooth Fairy’s five or ten euro note for all to see, with a special ‘gloat’ for his little sister, whose baby teeth are still solidly embedded in her jaw, a reality that she sometimes regrets.

 (Usually when her big brother gets a visit from the Tooth Fairy, and he waves the money in her face)
Things have been particularly tough of late...

(Join the club, right?)

... caused mainly by people not paying for work I have done. Money has been scarce, which creates all sorts of dilemmas.

(The bank getting on his case about the overdraft, the credit card company demanding he pay a well overdue debt, the list goes on and on)

But no matter how depressing things might become, my wife and I have always tried our hardest to keep it from the children. Why should they be burdened with their parents’ worries? They have their own.
Yes, the pretense can be exhausting - the fixed smile, the games and jokes, helping with their homework, being Mum, being Dad…
But sometimes we forget, or simply overlook the fact that children are sensitive, that their radar can pick up our moods, that their little ears hear a lot more than we think they do, that they ‘know’ Mum and Dad better than anyone else.

(Love is a powerful detector)
I had to make amends, so last night I slipped into my sleeping son’s bedroom and slid a ten euro note under his pillow, which made me feel much better.
Well, you can imagine how I felt at breakfast this morning when he pulled out the money and gently placed it on the table beside me. “It’s all right, Daddy,” he said simply, a loving smile on his handsome young face. “Right now you need it more than I do.”

I don’t cry often.

☻ ☻ ☻ ☻ ☻