Miss Lilly went upstairs by herself! Upstairs, anywhere, is always enticing but Miss Lilly wasn't supposed to be up there and especially not by herself.
We women were busy in the other room. We knew she was entertaining herself in the same room as the men and, mistakenly, trusted them. But never did we dream she'd venture into the great unknown, the upstairs, on her own. AND...that she would carry a big pink box down! Down 13 steps!
"Didn't you see her?" I asked the men in the room.
"Yah, we saw her. She did a fine job. She did it okay", said the father.
"Do you know how heavy this box is? Here hold it." and I plopped it into his hands.
"Yah, okay, she handled it." He said with a proud assured voice.
"Look inside. It's full of papers!" I was exasperated.
"So?"
"SO???? If she'd fallen, or missed a step, not only would papers go everywhere, she'd be hurt!"
"She didn't. She's fine. See." And the father and the grandfather point to her playing quietly with a pegged puzzle of little bugs.
"And that's why men have a bad reputation for babysitting!" I said making a declaration and shaking my head.
They look at each other with half twinkles in their eyes because partly they're serious in their answers, and partly because they like razzing me. They shared a glance and shrugged their shoulders in nonchalance.
I felt a "grrrrrr" rising in my chest! "Bad, babysitters, bad!"
"She shouldn't be upstairs alone in the first place."
"We didn't know."
Ah-ha! Truth! That's the core of it all!
kids need watched by men more so they don't need 'safe spaces' when they grow up.
ReplyDelete