There’s something about having a little a boy that has made me look differently at the significant men in my life these past few years.
Our son at three and a half is mostly a rowdy toddler but the blink and you’ll miss them moments where he is sweet, sits in his emotions or is thoughtful, catch me. It’s at these times I see simultaneously the man he will grow to be and that at the core of all the grown men I love is still a child who just wants a bear hug and to be told they’re a good boy.
I only realised the depth of our little one’s empathy while struck down on the couch last month together battling flu number two. He was stacking blocks as the longer ‘The Sign’ Bluey episode played in the background. It was one he hadn’t yet watched that centres around the Heelers preparing to sell their house and leave Brisbane for their dad’s new job.
As the final scenes started playing and an emotional Megan Washington song amplified he turned to me, chin wobbling. I checked around him to see if he had hurt himself or accidentally toppled his creation when I realised he had completely locked into the emotion of the story. I bent down to bear hug my boy as we both watched cartoon dad Bandit defiantly leap from their jeep to tear down the For Sale sign on their house and fall into the embrace of his wife Chilli.
The fact our son could feel the weight of the scene reassured me in an instant of the man and dad he will be – that the boy who frequently resists his sister’s hugs and kisses can still be so sentimental he cries in movies.
So to all the fathers I love; my own, my husband – Happy Father’s Day and keep being the genuinely good boys I know you to be.
