What I Learned Using Literary Allusions To Parent My Son

A blond-hair girl was talking to my son and me at the edge of a bluff. Except for rambling about kittens, she was an ordinary-looking girl of six.

She was telling us it was kitten season as we looked down a hill with trails.

From the bluff, you could see downtown Los Angeles and the Pacific Ocean, and the trails descended about 100 yards to the bottom on the hill.

“I didn’t know there was a kitten season,” I said.

“What’s at the bottom of the hill?” she asked.

“Nothing really.”

“Don’t run down the trail,” I said to my son.

You see, I was testing my son. I wanted to see if he’d obey me.

We’ve run down the trails a few times, and they’re generally safe except for the occasional shard of broken glass from the latest drinking spree of local teenagers, and one of the trails has a white plastic irrigation pipe crossing it.

I looked at the girl and then my son.

He was gone.

Teachable moment

He zigzagged down the trail with the pipe. I said goodbye to the girl and ran after my five-year-old son. He stopped a few feet away from the pipe, and I realized I had no choice but to make this a teachable moment.

So I kneeled at eye-level and put one hand on his shoulder. Endorphins in his brain buzzed. Not the best state of mind for a teachable moment, I thought.

I let him catch his breath, and I thought about what I planned to say. It wasn’t a big deal since I was testing him, but I felt like I had to say something to him.

A literary conversation

“Did I tell you not to run down the hill?”

He nodded.

“What did God tell Adam and Eve?”

“Not to eat the fruit from the tree.”

“Did they obey Him?”

“No, but it was the serpent’s fault.”

I ignored his interpretation of the story.

“What did the sign say in the Pokey Little Puppy story?”

“DON’T EVER DIG HOLES UNDER THE FENCE.”

“Did the four puppies obey the sign?”

“No.”

“What did the sign say in Adam Raccoon at Forever Falls?”

“Don’t go swimming in Forever Falls.”

“Did Adam Raccoon obey the sign?”

“No.”

That was it. And I think the literary allusions made my point just find.

We continued going down the trail, and I imagined as we did he connected the dots in his mind between the characters in his favorite stores and his life.

Extended teachable moment

We made it to an asphalt path. My son ran ahead of me on the path, and I was lost in my thoughts. I forgot all about the broken glass on the concrete slab.

My son picked a beer bottle and pulled it back behind his ear and flung it onto the concrete, laughing as it shattered and merged with thousands of pieces.

“Hey,” I said in a too calm of a voice. “Don’t throw broken bottles. You can cut your hand on the glass, and we will have to go to the Emergency Room.”

He didn’t say anything. But I thought he got the point.

I thought I was communicating more effectively as a parent, but if I was paying more attention to him I would’ve seen his eyes scoured the ground.

He bent and picked up a half-broken bottle. I noticed when his arm was in motion. The glass popped like a firework, scattering all over. He smiled.

“Didn’t I just tell you not to throw bottles?”

“I didn’t throw a bottle. It was a piece of glass.”

“Throwing glass is the same thing as a bottle.”

Stephen King said, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, shame on both of us.”

So this time, I watched my son. He was still looking for beer bottles or broken glass to throw on the ground like he was a drug addict looking to get high.

I watched as he picked up a piece of glass and held it in his hand. Then I said something to him in a much firmer voice than I’ve ever said before.

“Dominic, when I tell you not to do something, I expect you to obey me.”

He dropped the glass. It was like the moment when the Pokey Little Puppy gets caught by his mom coming back in the hole he dug under the fence.

I found my parent voice.

We explored the area at the bottom of the hill. I tossed a bottle I saw in the weeds. I tried to remember the woman’s face who diagnosed my son with autism about six months ago, but I couldn’t picture what she looked like.

Did I not remember or not attend the meeting?

Whatever the case, I remember thinking after my son received a diagnosis — that I thought our relationship would be a model for him to learn to interact with his peers — so I decided to be his friend more than act as his parent.

But I realize he needs a dad. And a friend.

I think sometimes he disobeys me just to see if I will hold him accountable for his behavior. He knows my line for inappropriate behavior is less strict than his mom’s — there is no line, really, unless he does something egregious — and I think he was just testing me to see how far he could go with his behavior.

A final test

We came back to the asphalt area. I found myself looking in the weeds for bottles. I think I was feeling bored. My son was doing the same.

I saw a green bottle. It looked pristine in the afternoon sun.

I looked around, my son and I were alone, and it was then I saw them, two boys. They were running down the hill together. Maybe, seven or eight.

No parent following them. The kitten girl was long gone at the top of the hill.

I suddenly had an urge to throw this bottle on the ground. Shatter it into hundreds of tiny pieces and create a lasting fun memory with my son.

I pulled the bottle back behind my ear and hurled that son of a bitch down hard on the ground. It made a popping sound, and we both smiled.

Then we both hunted for another bottle.

Thank you for reading my story.

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Previously Published on medium

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