Phoning In The Parenting

(My wife has always been pretty direct, but pregnancy seems to have amplified it. We’re standing outside the local pub one day chatting to some friends when a kid, between seven and nine years old I think, cycles past. We see this kid all the time and he always has one hand on the handlebars and with the other is holding and staring at his phone. He also doesn’t wear a helmet. On this occasion, my wife reaches out as he cycles past and nabs the phone out of his hand.)

Kid: “Hey!”

Wife: “If I see you cycling with this d*** thing in your hand and not looking at the road one more time it is going straight in the river.”

(The kid goes from startled to angry, but my beloved is too quick for him.)

Wife: “Just what the h*** are you thinking? You could hit someone. You could end up under a d*** car. You think your parents want to spend Christmas sat around your hospital bed, you idiot?”

(At this the kid seems to crumple a little. My wife holds out the phone to him.)

Wife: “Now switch it off. Put it in your pocket. Go home and ask Santa for a d*** helmet.”

(The kid takes the phone back and, very sensibly, does as my wife says. We figure that’s the end of it and go back to chatting to our friends. About ten minutes later a woman marches up to us and smacks my wife’s glass of lemonade out of her hand.)

Woman: “How dare you?! My son has just come home in floods of tears saying you yelled at him and scared him! You told him he was going to die! And now I see you drinking, probably trying to harm another precious baby! What kind of woman are you?”

Wife: “Lady, I told your son that if he didn’t stop looking at his d*** phone while cycling then, yes, he might end up dead or seriously injure someone else. Lady, I’m the kind of woman who drinks lemonade while she’s pregnant because, unlike you, I have some concern for my kids!”

Woman: “It’s no business of yours what my son was doing!”

Wife: “Not looking at the road and causing danger to the public? It is absolutely my business. And before you say one more thing, your son seems to be a h*** of a lot smarter than you and he got this pretty quick. How would you like to spend Christmas around your son’s hospital bed? Or in a lawyer’s office after whoever he hits sues for damages?”

(The woman has gone flame red and storms off. My wife turns to me.)

Wife: “Was I a little harsh?”

(I told her that I didn’t think so and that she’d said the right thing. A couple of days later the same kid saw my wife in the village and told her that he’d only been crying because he’d realised how dangerously he had been behaving and apologised for his mother. He even told my wife that she’ll be a great mum, and I agree.)