My Father

A little vignette I wanted to share with y'all, which may shed some light on my relationship with my father.

 

My sister and I were quite young when this happened - we were friends with a brother and sister, Kevin and Caroline, who lived in the row of houses below us in our street. By some coincidence, it happened that the brother and I were the same age, as were our sisters. We'd been friends for a few years, and I remember one day my sister and Caroline had been playing, something happened and Kevin ended up knocking Gillian over, or hitting her, I can't be too sure. I wasn't there,being ensconced in my bedroom with my head in a book or camped out on my computer.

 

Regardless, Gillian came home in tears. My father, doing the only thing any reasonable father would, stormed upstairs to my bedroom, and ordered me to go out and beat Kevin up. Now, it may come as no surprise to you that I was never the kind of child who got in fights. Any arguments I was involved in which turned physical invariably ended up with me losing blood in a variety of painful and embarassing ways.

 

Perhaps this was my father's idea of 'toughening me up' or 'making me a man'. More likely he was just to much of a blouse or too lazy to go down and speak with Kevin and Caroline's parents. Being young and spineless, I went and did it. I tried to beat up my friend for probably doing less to Gillian than I did on a regular basis. I think it was fairly inconclusive, with the pair of us flailing around on the ground in a ridiculous scrum.

 

I don't blame my father for many of the mistakes I've made in my life - almost all of the screw-ups I've made have been off my own back, and I'm man enough to admit them