Flashbacks To Child Endangerment

Taking a break from therapy discussion and politics to share a funny story about my Dad. I KNOW. DON’T BE SHOCKED.

My Dad had shoulder issues. His shoulder would dislocate often. The legend goes that one night, when I was a baby, he woke up in the middle of the night and it was dislocated. He supposedly woke up my Mom and when she saw it, she puked. But they took me to my aunt’s and uncle’s and took him to the hospital where he ended up having surgery.

I know the truth is: His should dislocated a lot and he had surgery on it. Beyond that, the rest may be just for entertainment purposes.

SO. He was always very sensitive about his shoulder. He didn’t like to even dive in the pool and there were just random things he would avoid because of the motion of lifting his arm up over his head would either hurt or just concern him, I’m not sure which.

But his own shoulder concerns made him very paranoid about my children’s shoulders. Once I was swinging E around when he was little and Dad was like, “WOAH. DON’T DO THAT. HIS SHOULDER!”

He’s not had surgery on his, Dad. He’s okay.

This picture showed up in my “on this day” feed on Facebook. DAD WOULD NOT HAVE APPROVED.

BUT! One time when I was visiting my Dad’s Dad, he (my Grandfather) picked up E by putting his hands over his ears and lifting. HE LIFTED MY SON UP BY HIS HEAD/NECK. I about had a heart attack but no one in the large group flinched. Turns out? That’s just something Grandpa did to every kid in the family. Everyone just accepted it. I was like, “Really, Dad? I swing my kid around once by his arms and you freak out by you will let your Dad pick up the same kid BY HIS HEAD?”

It still kinda cracks me up thinking about it. He just shrugged and was like, “Eh…you all turned out fine and he did it more than once to you guys.”