When we bought tickets, we had a kid going with us to “Minions: The Rise of Gru.” Technically, my daughter is a young adult, but she would’ve given my wife and me cover.
I’d seen a preview of the movie. One of the minions tries to break a piece of wood with his head. He hits it mercilessly but fails to knock loose a single splinter.
His buddy shakes his head with a “tsk, tsk, tsk.” The new guy steps up, takes a deep breath and grabs his friend. He proceeds to bang his friend’s head into the wood with rapid-fire speed. Both the board and the head-slapping against it survive the incident unscathed.
That’s funny right there. I belly laughed and wanted to see the full movie.
As mentioned, my daughter was going to serve as cover. When people looked our way, they wouldn’t see two older adults watching a kid’s movie.
Instead, they’d see our grown-up little girl and wonder why she was watching a kid’s movie on a Saturday with her parents when she should’ve been out enjoying her young life. “Is there something wrong with her?” they’d say.
In that way, she would pay the social cost that otherwise would’ve been directed at her mother and me. She’d be a shield, absorbing the questions and innuendos before they could cast shadows on us.
Sadly, the plan died days before our planned excursion. The tickets were already bought, so we were financially bound to see the movie at a particular time and date. However, our daughter got a better deal when her friend called wanting “to hang out or whatever.”
To her credit, she’d said, “Do you mind, Dad?” And I’d said, “No,” because I’m not an animal.
We’ve been moving through this empty nest phase in slow motion, like a car wreck. We see it happening and know there’s no way to stop it. It began when she was a teenager and kept finding things to do without her parents. Our boy followed her lead a couple of years later.
Unlike a car wreck, we want this to happen. We want them to be free and independent adults in the not-so-distant future. Our job, as we understand it, is to get them out of the house eventually. We still endorse that goal.
But it’s not our only parenting goal. From the start, we’ve been driven by the idea that they’re our kids and we want to enjoy their company for years to come.
When my daughter left for her freshman year of college, we got used to her absence. It helped that her brother was still home.
In addition, the year before she left was tainted by lockdown and COVID drama. She was ready to go off to school, and quite frankly, we were ready to see her gone as well.
When she came home for her first visit from college, I was not expecting it to be so pleasant. Her visit shot energy into the house that was familiar in some ways and different in others.
The most important thing is we were happy to see her and she was happy to see us. I hope it’s like that almost every time we get together.
But not the next time. That’s when I’m going to drive her crazy by recreating scenes from the movie. I’ll explain the plot in exacting detail, so she’ll think twice before canceling on her parents again.
