Mean Dads for a Better America

by Tom Shillue

  On the drive back from the boat show, my brother and I, famished from a long day of staring at fiberglass hulls, were doing our usual routine of sitting in silence and praying to the Lord above that my dad would pull into the world’s finest eatery, when suddenly my sister Ann yelled out, “I want McDonald’s! Let’s go to McDonald’s!”

  My brother and I looked at each other, stunned. She had broken the rule! What was she thinking! We knew there would be grave consequences in the next few moments: not only would we not be eating hamburgers that day, we may never go to McDonald’s again. She had ruined it for all of us. How could she be so foolish? We prepared ourselves for the worst.

  Then my father did something quite shocking.

  “OK,” he said, pulling into the McDonald’s parking lot.

  Both my sisters cheered. Billy and I remained silent. That was all it took? We could have just asked? This revelation shook us to the core. It seemed too easy. However, after some thought we determined that it was a fluke; it would never work out that easily for us. Ann had obviously taken advantage of some daughter loophole, but we would surely end up paying for her hubris. Although her unorthodox “ask” method had gotten us to McDonald’s that day, surely that method would not apply to sons, whose motto, as you know, is “Be brave, be silent, be hungry.”

  We were never bold enough to even test my sister’s approach. The following Saturday, Billy and I got in the car as usual and resumed with our usual “silent prayer” method. This was the way it was meant to be. The rule, even if it was based on nothing, would hold. Why tinker with an occasionally successful method when the alternative required doing the thing we most wanted to avoid when it came to our father: speaking up?

  Some might wonder why my brother and I were so afraid to ask our father for anything. The reason is simple: dads were meaner in the 1970s. Back then, fearing your dad was what you did. That’s why so many guys of my generation had such an attachment to Star Wars. We all remember that dramatic scene in The Empire Strikes Back, and the deep, chilling voice of Darth Vader as he confronts young Luke Skywalker: “Luke, I am your father!”

  Boys like me everywhere were sitting in the movie theater clutching their popcorn bucket thinking, Yeah that makes perfect sense . . . I can’t believe I didn’t see that one coming!

  As much as the world was changing in the 1970s, the world inside our home was much like the America of decades past, or centuries, even. Think about it: our country was about to have its two-hundredth birthday, and I’ll bet my dad wasn’t much different from George Washington’s dad: stoic, stern, and authoritarian. But George Washington turned out okay, and we would, too.

  I understand that I had a great and fortunate childhood. I was not the victim of strict parenting, but a beneficiary of it. When someone hears me say “Mean Dads,” they might think, But my dad was mean and he ruined my life! But that’s a different story. Of course, real abuse is a tragedy, but what passes as “mean” today used to just be called “parenting.”

  I spent much of my childhood in fear. Fear of God, fear of my parents, fear of the other adults in the neighborhood, fear of bullying kids. But fear is not always a bad thing—it keeps you alive. Fearing actual danger is very important. As you grow up you learn which fears are real and which are not, and it’s always liberating to discover when one of your fears is unfounded. You think, My dad is going to kill me when he finds out! But then he doesn’t kill you. You live to see another day. Your dad is not a murderer—that’s great news to a kid!

  Then you realize, Perhaps he wants me to think that he is going to kill me, so next time I’ll think twice before starting a fire in the garage. Dad worked in mysterious ways, like someone else I know. Fearing God is obviously important, but how are you going to fear God if you don’t fear your dad? He’s not God, but for a while he’s a pretty good stand-in.

  I think my dad belonged to what was truly the last era for scary dads, and even he caught the tail end of it. You can bet his dad was even scarier than him, and his dad before that. The further back you go, the scarier they were. If you doubt that, just look at any family photograph from the turn of the last century, and ask yourself if the wife and children look anything but terrified of the man in the mustache and derby hat standing beside them. When I look at one of those pictures, I always think, Is that his family, or is he holding them hostage?

  I don’t need to be like that guy, but I wouldn’t mind if my kids were a little bit afraid of me. I mean, throw a dad a bone, modern world—and not for my sake, for theirs. Because if I could be a Darth Vader dad, I’d use the dark side for good. At least that’s what I tell myself, as I look up at the stars, and noisily breathe in and out.

  WHEN I WAS VERY YOUNG, MY MOTHER USED TO tie me to a tree in the backyard. That way, I could play outside and she didn’t have to worry about where I’d wander off to. She could get her housework done and I could experience the great outdoors—a win-win, as it were. Today, of course, if you search the Internet for the phrase “child tied to tree,” you’ll see all sorts of news stories that end with some version of the phrase “mother arrested for child abuse.” But that was not my story—the way my mother tells it, I loved that rope and harness. The rope allowed me to run around in a fifteen-foot circumference like a dog. I usually stayed taut at the end of the line, but sometimes I would run around and around, eventually coiling myself tightly against the trunk of the tree. I’m lucky there were no large birds of prey in Massachusetts; with the rope strung tightly around my plump flesh I probably looked delicious. After some time, a kind passerby would happen upon me stuck to the tree and help me unwind. Basically, if all my older siblings were off at school, I was on my own. Babysitters were only for emergencies, and “Nanny” was what we called my grandmother, who came just once a week so my mother could go grocery shopping (which was an all-day affair because my mom was a founding member of what I call the “militant couponing community”).

  One day, when I was three, my mother decided to let me off the leash. Her only instruction: “Do not go in the street.” For a while, I stayed in the half-moon-shaped trench I had worn out in front of the tree when tied on my tether, where I felt most at home. Then at some point I got courageous and broke out on my own, completely forgetting my mother’s orders.

  My mother emerged from the house when she heard a car horn honking, and saw me sitting in the middle of the street, a big Chrysler stopped in front of me, the driver leaning out the window making a “Shoo!” gesture with his hands. It may seem callous now, but back then the driver’s behavior was entirely unremarkable. It was 1969 after all, and at that time children were mostly seen as pests, not America’s most precious resource. As my mother tells it, I got up from the pavement upon seeing her, walked up to the porch where she was standing arms akimbo in the doorway, and passed by her and into the house without a sound. I returned moments later with my head hanging low and the rope and harness in my outstretched hand.

  My mother loves to tell this story, ending with the image: the chastened boy who knew he was fated to be returned to his place at the tree. But as a parent now, I think the more illuminating part of the story comes a bit earlier. In taking me off the leash, my mother was willing to roll the dice and see if I lived to tell the tale. I did live, and in giving me that leeway, she allowed me to learn a valuable lesson: I would never again wander into the street. I ask you, what modern parent would take a risk like that today? Let’s just make an educated guess and round it out at “none.”

  But what if the experiment had not ended well? What if my mother had stepped outside to find me laid out on the road with a Michelin tire tread across my forehead? Well, she had five kids, and the other four would have certainly learned from my mistake. You can bet that at my funeral, as my little casket was being lowered into the earth, my mother would have turned to my brothers and sisters and said, “See what happens when you go out in the street?”

  We needed tough lessons like this as children of that time beca
use we had to be tough. An occasional playground fight was expected as the norm, and if we complained to our mother that we were being teased, we were treated to this glorious aphorism: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.” My mom used to say that all the time, one of the seemingly endless adages she had at her disposal to deal with any of life’s problems. To this day I think long and hard about the practical application that dogma had on my life.

  The idea that you could actually choose whether or not to be hurt by words: that was huge for me. Even though it has been repeated ad nauseam for generations, “sticks and stones” really is a powerful bit of philosophy to a kid. That’s one of the great things about being a parent: you can spout nothing but clichés, and yet, to your child, you come off as one of the great thinkers in Western culture.

  That’s true, I thought. If someone punches you in the chest, it hurts no matter what. But with words, it all depends on how you think about it. Mom’s a genius!

  I look at the rough and tumble world of childhood and the process of learning to deal with bullying and being insulted as a form of inoculation. After each instance of being offended and repeating my mother’s “sticks and stones” philosophy in my head, I eventually created a vaccine that built up my immune system.

  A few years later, when I was off the leash and was able to venture out into the neighborhood, there was a period when I was afraid to go outside. Chrissy Sullivan across the street, who was a little younger than me but unfortunately a little bigger, would push me around whenever he saw me. So, I would stand by the window in our living room and make sure he wasn’t out and about before I ventured outside. My mother took notice and gave me that advice that mothers have relied on for generations.

  “What are you worried about?” she asked.

  “That big kid always beats me up,” I said.

  “So what? He’s not so big—just hit him back! Give him a good punch, and he won’t bother you anymore.”

  Although I didn’t exactly welcome her advice, she’d been right about the “names will never hurt me” part, so I figured she knew what she was talking about. I went outside, and sure enough, the minute Chrissy spotted me he crossed the street and started shoving me. So I wound up and punched him right in the stomach. I must have really knocked the wind out of him because he looked completely shocked and began to back away. Then he sucked in a deep breath, turned, and ran. I probably should have left it at that and just yelled something like “And there’s more where that came from!” Instead I ran after him and chased him back to his house. He darted up on the porch and tried to open his screen door to run inside, but I was right on his heels. Cornered, he turned around and held up his fists, so I backed down off the stairs. He seized the momentum and charged after me. I decided to keep at him, and wound up for another shot. But his fists were already flying. He pummeled me with punch after punch, and I was never able to land another hit. My mother’s method clearly had its limits. I ran away, and he followed, but only pursued me to the edge of his yard, as I should have done. I ran home and nursed my wounds, basically a bunch of bruises and red spots. But I felt pretty good. Sure, there was a little pain, but it felt a lot better than living in fear of going outside. And I had gotten a good shot in on Chrissy, so he’d think twice about pushing me around again.

  Once again, my mother had been wise and practical. And she taught me a lesson not by indulging my feelings, but by rejecting them. She essentially said, “Get over it.” But that was just what I needed to hear. Like the win-win of tethering me when she needed to clean house, or letting me go free in order to teach me to avoid the street, my mother had the wisdom to know that kids needed to experience the hard and painful parts of life so that they could learn. And it also saved her a lot of time in the process. That’s the practical part.

  AS A KID, I SPENT A LOT OF TIME LOOKING OUT OF the window next to my bed. I don’t think I have a more vivid picture burned into my brain than the view from that upstairs window. I love that picture. It means home to me.

  From my perch I could see all the houses across Lincoln Street: the house that belonged to the Sullivans, the other Sullivans, the still more Sullivans, the Nichols, Mr. Cohane, and then some more Sullivans for good measure. Bordering our yard were the O’Briens, the Bugeaus, the Bucks, the Reicharts and the Johnsons. My neighborhood was a place where everyone knew everyone else, and looked out for one another. Every adult had a job to do and the kids were outside looking for adventure. It is what small-town America is supposed to be.

  When the weather was nice, I could sit at my window and watch eleven different family tableaus of moms weeding flower beds, teens sunbathing, kids playing, and always men working on cars. People today rarely fix their own cars; back then everybody had used cars, and engine maintenance was a constant. Guys knew all the parts of the engine, and they weren’t about to pay somebody to do the simple stuff like change their oil or replace a hose. If the sun was out, hoods were up, there was a beer on top of the air filter, and some father or older brother had themselves a nice greasy afternoon.

  In our day-to-day life, parents may not have hovered, but authority was always around us, in the form of unseen adults. You could avoid them for the most part, as the out-of-doors world belonged almost solely to kids, but often without warning, a scolding from a phantom grown-up came from behind a nearby window. I would be engaged in some type of purposeless misbehavior—perhaps breaking a littered beer bottle and kicking the shards of glass down a sewer grate—and I would hear a voice come from a mysterious silhouette behind a screen door:

  “Tommy Shillue! I know yaw fathuh!”

  Who was that? I would think, as I ran away. Probably LeBlanc again!

  “I know yaw fathuh, Tommy Shillue!”

  Mr. LeBlanc had been upbraiding me for years, and I didn’t even know what he looked like. It didn’t matter if I was cutting through his yard, carving my initials in the tar on the street, or minding my own business, he always made it his business to let me know that he knew who my dad was. I guess it was supposed to scare me, and it worked—I’d always run. Fleeing from the scene of my crime was obviously pointless; Mr. LeBlanc clearly knew who I was. Running away was a statement in its own right; it acknowledged that you had heard what the grown-up said but were not about to actually speak to them or do the unthinkable: apologize. The act of running away was both a guilty plea and a suspended sentence, leaving both parties satisfied that some justice was served.

  Occasionally, however, we were thankful for the adults who kept watch on us from behind their blinds. One day I was in the crawl space under our front porch, which my dad used to store old lumber and other odds and ends. For me, it wasn’t really a crawl space as I could stand up straight when inside. I was in there one afternoon, walking along the planks of wood like a man on a high wire when I came upon a big, thick nail sticking straight up from one of the boards, pointy side up. I put my foot on it and felt the nail push on the rubber bottom of my sneaker. The tip of the nail didn’t go through, so I put a little pressure on it, surprised that the bottom of the sneaker still held. I put a little more weight on it, and carefully stepped up. I was on top of the nail, balancing right at the arch of my foot, the sole of my sneaker bending around it, but it still didn’t pierce through. I remember the feeling of lightly balancing, nearly floating. In my memory it went on for a long time, but it probably lasted all of two seconds.

  Then all of a sudden, I sank. The nail plunged through my sneaker and into my foot. As it happened, I thought to myself, Of course that was going to happen, which is probably the thought that follows so many of life’s bad decisions.

  The pain rushed in. I pulled my foot up with a good jerk and it slid right off the nail. I limped out into the sunlight. There was a little spot of blood on the bottom of my shoe. I started to limp through my backyard, trailing blood across the grass, and out of nowhere the ever-present Mrs. Bugeau came to my aid. A tiny, energetic mother of two, Mrs. Bugeau was
also a mother to the whole neighborhood. When I was three, she had yanked me out of the Reicharts’ aboveground pool by my collar when I was splashing helplessly after falling in.* She must have previously worked as a nurse or an insurance claims adjuster, because she seemed to have a sixth sense for medical emergencies.

  “Don’t move, I’m getting some bandages,” she told me.

  I don’t know how Mrs. Bugeau knew I needed help because I don’t remember screaming or crying, but perhaps I did. In my memory the entire scene plays out in complete silence, the only noise being the squeak of the nail going through my rubber sneaker.

  When she returned, Mrs. Bugeau had me take off my sneaker and sock, and she soaked up the blood with a rag, then painted my wounds with Mercurochrome, a topical antiseptic that mothers everywhere loved to slather on anything that bled. It was a bright red color so just looked like more blood, making your wounds look more serious than they were, which was good, because every kid loves to have his injuries noticed.*

  “This will stop infection,” she assured me. “Those old nails are rusty!” She admonished me for playing in dark, hazardous spaces, and I let her think the whole thing was an unfortunate accident. Since I didn’t understand why I had chosen to stand up on one foot and balance on the tip of a nail, I was sure she wouldn’t, either.