Lousy parents (like me) can scare their kids to death

Just when I thought I couldn’t feel any more guilty about the lousy job I did raising my kids, along comes the news that children can actually be startled to death. I don’t know whether this is really true; I read it in someone else’s column and columnists are notorious liars.

But even if it might be true, this news is going to put a big crimp in millions of games of peek-a-boo.

If it is true, well, all I can say is it’s a miracle my son lived into adulthood.

I didn’t really do a “lousy job” of raising my kids, but I was for the most part a young, single parent and I made my share of mistakes. The worst of these was teasing Jordan—the most “believing” kid who ever lived—whenever the opportunity presented itself.

By the time he was seven years old, Jordan believed the following things: 1) round bales of hay lying in fields are actually giant rabbit pellets, left there for the benefit of giant rabbits residing in nearby woods; 2) a fierce gorilla lived in a locked garage near the restaurant where we dined every Friday evening; 3) fried chicken was made in a factory and definitely not in any way related to the cute, little birds; 4) Care Bears were real and watched over us daily from their vantage points on fluffy, cumulous clouds.

He believed all these things because his father (me) told him so. For all I know, he believes them still. Jordan was a smart kid, but he definitely put the “bull” in gullible.

Anyway, as a natural born prankster, I delighted in playing little tricks on my trusting son.

The best (or worst) of these took place one night at my dad’s restaurant, an older building requiring a lot of after-hours cleanup. Jordan often accompanied me to do the floors; he liked racing donuts with his remote-controlled car on the just-washed tiles.

The old furnace there made creepy ticking sounds for a couple minutes prior to firing up. During the day these were barely noticeable, but at night, echoing around the big, empty dining room, they were scary-sounding, even to me.

While Jordan happily raced his RC hotrod between table legs, I set a loud kitchen timer for three minutes.

“I’ll be back in the office for a sec,” I told Jordan. “If you hear an alarm, come get me right away, because that means the furnace is about to blow. The whole place could go!”

Jordan responded as he always did: “Really?”

“Yeah,” I said. “It should be OK, though, so long as you tell me as soon as you hear the alarm go off.”

I retreated to the office and watched through the one-way glass looking out over the dining room. Jordan continued to pilot his car, but now kept glancing nervously at the heating vent, from which the ticking sound ominously emanated. This went on for a few minutes, with Jordan becoming increasingly uneasy.

The timer went off with a loud beep. Jordan jumped and began edging backward toward the office door, his eyes never leaving the heating vent.

Four feet, three feet, two…just as he reached the door I leapt out, yelling KAPOW! at full volume.

My seven-year-old son burst into tears.

We stopped at the ice cream shop on the way home and Jordan was allowed to order whatever he wanted, up to and including the entire store and the vehicles of each and every employee. This did nothing to assuage my much-deserved guilt, but it did help slow Jordan’s quivering lower lip.

OK, maybe I was a lousy parent after all. I’m just glad I didn’t kill the kid.

More Reality Check online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.mlive.com. Email Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.