Worse than a Bad Day

Published April 3, 1986. Alvin Toffler once said that a home should be like a giant shock absorber. Somewhere we can overcome the cares and woes of the day. As I walked up on our porch the other evening, I could hear someone crying inside. I opened the door and there was Kristin, my 5-year-old-daugher, sitting on the floor. And she was crying. No, Kris wasn’t crying. She was sobbing, really loud.

While setting down my briefcase and taking off my coat. I asked Kris what was the matter. She didn’t reply. She just sat there with her head resting on her folded arms and knees. And Kristin continued to cry.

After a few more inquiries I finally asked. “Kris, have you had a bad day?"

“Oh, daddy,” she finally sobbed, “it’s been worse than a bad day.”

I don’t know how anyone can experience anything worse than a bad day. But Kristin had. I sat down and asked her to tell me all the events that had made it worse than a bad day.

She then repeated all the injustices that life can heap on a little 5-year-old girl in just one day. One of her friends wouldn’t play with her. Her brother interfered during a game she was playing with another friend. Her sister had called her a name. Her cat, Lucky, had not come home that evening, and to top it all off, mother, yes mother, had just told her she couldn’t watch any television until she picked up the toys in her room. Then I understood why Kris had had a worse than bad day. And she continued to cry while I held her in my arms.

Finally, I went to the kitchen to eat my dinner. While I was warming it in the microwave oven I offered to share it with Kris. But food could not ease her bad day. I had some gum in my pocket. She refused it as big tears continued to stream down her face.”

How do you act as a shock absorber to a 5-year-old daughter? I was running out of ideas, but one more came to mind.

“Kris, would you like me to read you a story?” She sat up and stopped crying. I wiped away her left-over tears.

“Any story I want?” she asked.

“Any story,” I said.

“How about ‘Mickey Mouse’s Picnic?’” Kris asked again.

“Run and find ‘Mickey Mouse’s Picnic,’” I replied. So off she ran up to her room. And there was the book. Piled up with the rest of her other toys and cherished items on the floor.

We read “Mickey Mouse’s Picnic,” laughed a little, and finally things eased up a bit. Thank goodness for giant shock absorbers like Mickey Mouse when little girls experience something worse than a bad day.

Hundreds of years ago it was written in the Bible, “Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up” (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10).