Backseat Parenting

Backseat driving rubs me the wrong way. As much as I despise it, I must confess that I committed an instance of back seat driving recently, only I wasn't in the car, nor was I driving.

Let me explain.

A few days ago, our one year old unleashed the full measure of her wrath upon my wife Keely. She sat in the middle of the floor, rejected any human touch, and screamed like a wild Cajun banshee for a solid 30 minutes. I'm talking people in the next time zone probably heard the noise and feared for their lives. I was in the middle a project I couldn't pull away from so my wife was left to fight and lose that battle on her own.

By the time I arrived on the scene, the wailing and gnashing of teeth had subsided. After having surveyed both parties involved (upset wife, and CBK "Cajun Banshee Kid") I said this: "You know, she's just worked up. Kids get like that from time to time". When I uttered those words to said wife I was drawing on my extensive experience as a father which consists of about a year. As soon as I said it, my wife stopped in her tracks, looked at me glaringly, and then without saying a word, gathered the now calm CBK, walked out the door and drove off. Just to be clear, she was already on her way out to Target - she didn't leave me. She did come back.

After she left I wondered, did I say something wrong? Nah, I thought, she just needed some space.

As it turns out, it was a pretty stupid thing I said. In making that comment to my wife, I had become a backseat parenter. You see, I didn't have any idea why Lucy was screaming, nor did I know that my wife had already used every trick at her disposal to try and calm her down. On top of this, when I made the comment what I was really saying was "Keely, don't get so frustrated. She's just a kid, and it's your job to be a good Mom and fix the problem". My wife knows me well enough to see through my words and hear what I'm really saying. I was not behind the wheel. In fact, I couldn't even see the road, but I was telling my wife how to drive. And maybe even worse, I had sided with my daughter, rather than comforting and helping my distraught wife.

It took me some time, and a good deal of "communicating" between my wife and I before I realized I was way wrong on this one. Yes, I did ask for forgiveness, and yes Keely was quick to forgive me. She always is.

The more I do this Husband/Father business, the more it becomes clear to me that I really have no idea what I'm doing... but I am learning. I know now that it's an annoying thing to be a back seat driver, but it can be a downright hurtful thing to be a backseat parenter.