Two Views of Christmas ... or ... The Parent I Want To Be

With 2005 almost said and done, here are a couple of events from the past few days that have stuck in my mind.

1. The Parent I Don't Want To Be

Ok, so it's a couple of days to Christmas, and we're out as a family (mum, dad and two kids) at the local mall getting a few last minute things together. My wife desperately wants to get some prints done of digital photos, so we burn to a CD at home, and are now in front of one of those "self serve" print machines. You stick the CD in, make a few selections on the touch screen, and a take your order to the counter to pay.
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We're in the middle of this process when a lady comes in with a shopping trolley full to the hilt, including a toddler in the front seat. She waves a memory stick up in the air and asks how to use the machine. From next to us a sales assistant tells her where to insert it, and then to follow the prompts. She seems happy enough, and gets on with her order.

By this time, we've finished making our selection and go to the counter to pay for the prints and find out when they'll be ready. We also need to pick up prints from a roll we'd put in earlier in the week.

So, we're standing there, looking at the prints, and the lady pushes her overloaded trolley round to the counter. "Where are the prints?", she asks the assistant. "Well, they'll take about five minutes. Can I have your order slip?" "Oh, no, sorry", she says, "I don't have time to wait five minutes. Just cancel the order. I thought they just came right out."

"Oh, they'll only be a few minutes."

"No, I don't have time to wait. Just cancel the order." And she shoves off.

I don't get it. Five minutes. That's all it would take. By the time she'd finished paying they'd be just about done. She must've spent at least that in making her selection, and arguing with the assistant.

What really gets me though, is this is what she was modeling to her kid. Impatience. Demands. Rudeness. If I don't have it my way, I'm not going to have it at all. That's definitely not the parent I want to be.

2. The Parent I Do Want To Be

Thankfully this view of Christmas is a much happier one. I'm out the front of our house, mowing the lawn. I'm feeling a little self conscious with my Akubra hat on, sunglasses, and loads of sunscreen. Our house is on a slip road, next to a major road with three lanes in each direction, and a median strip. On the other side is the local mall (from above). It is a convenient place to live, if a little noisy sometimes, and definitely exposed if you're working on the front garden

So I'm mowing away, and a car I don't know pulls up onto our curb. It's big four-wheel drive. The kind that never sees any off road work, but the driver feels 'safer" on the city roads, for some reason. A man is driving, and from the passenger side out hops his teenage son, dressed in a uniform, clearly from one of the fast food places at the mall. The son comes around to the drivers side, and they say goodbyes, and he then starts to cross the busy road.

What happens next just about floors me. The dad pulls away and turns around in our street. By this time the son is halfway across the major road, waiting for the traffic to clear. Without his son knowing, the man stops on our street where he can see his son. He waits there just long enough to see his son cross the road safely, and then drives off, happy that he has safely delivered his son to work.

That's the parent I want to be. One that has a great relationship with his son, and cares for him, even when he doesn't know it.

Have a great 2006. See you in the New Year.