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The stay-at-home dad: A warning from the future

by TYLER WILSON/Coeur Voice contributor
| September 15, 2021 1:00 AM

Please consider using ear protection when frequenting noisy events, and do whatever you can to shield your babies from loud noises. They risk permanent damage.

I received this message from the future. Really.

Plenty of parents know about the importance of proper ear care from their pediatrician or from reading various reliable books and internet articles on the subject. But I didn’t learn it from a pediatrician. I didn’t learn it from a book. I learned it from a time-traveler.

Nine years ago, when my wife and I only had one kid (she was 11 months old at the time), we traveled to California for my brother’s wedding, and on the first day of our trip, we took her to a rowdy San Francisco Giants game. Curiously, our daughter didn’t seem too interested in baseball, because she slept in my arms half the time, even as I frequently explored the stadium for food and beverage.

It’s noisy at a baseball game, right? And yet, despite the setting, this was not where I received a message from the future about ear protection, perhaps because my daughter wore a thick hoodie over her ears and nestled her head under my armpit for most of the game.

Instead, the warning came two days later, at my brother’s wedding reception. My wife and I were on the dance floor with our daughter in tow… I wouldn’t call it dancing, per se… I don’t do that without a significant amount of alcohol in my system, and even the young, dumber version of myself knew not to do that with a baby in my arms. We were just being silly, bouncing our baby girl as she laughed and giggled to the music… my memory tells me it was “In Da Club,” but knowing my brother it was probably some John Mayer song.

Anyway we’re having fun while standing probably 8-10 feet away from a large speaker on the edge of the dance floor. It didn’t seem too loud to me, but remember at that moment I’m still a dumb guy in my 20s who thinks “In Da Club” must be heard as loud as possible.

Suddenly, an elderly woman in a colorful dress approached us — seemingly out of nowhere. I’d never seen her before, and she definitely wasn’t a member of either of the bride and groom’s family. She leaned in and began to scold us:

“You need to take that baby out of here! It’s too loud for her little ears.”

We laugh awkwardly, not sure if her seeming rage was meant to be serious. She quickly sensed our confusion and promptly replied, “No seriously. She’s going to have permanent ear damage. I KNOW what I’m talking about!”

It was this second response that rocked me to my core. This old lady meant business. The way she spoke those words was borderline chilling, but at that moment I didn’t understand why.

Feeling a little embarrassed, we spent the rest of the reception just outside the venue (it was a beautiful day), and eventually my brother and his new wife approached us about why we weren’t on the dance floor.

We told them about the old lady, then described the colorful dress she was wearing. We looked around for her after the interaction but never spotted her again.

Both the bride and groom only vaguely seemed to know who she was. “Oh, that’s so-and-so’s mom, and she’s from (insert some California town name).”

This wasn’t a large wedding reception, so it seemed odd to me that such a friend/acquaintance would even be at the event.

Then I asked my brother her name.

“Oh yeah, that’s funny,” he said. “She has the same name as your daughter.”

NOT FUNNY. My daughter’s name is not very common. At all. The old lady was wearing this crazy colorful dress, and we always dressed our baby girl in crazy colorful dresses.

Then I remembered seeing a hearing aid in the old woman’s ear. And it seemed odd to me. It seemed almost…futuristic.

It was at that moment I came to an obvious conclusion. That old woman was my daughter from the future. She traveled to the past to stop us from inadvertently giving her permanent ear damage.

Did her hearing aid disappear from her ear as we walked off the dance floor and away from the loud speaker? I honestly don’t know! Maybe?! Does the fate of the entire universe in the future depend on my daughter’s keen sense of hearing? Probably!

Now does this entire story sound too ridiculous to be true? Of course, but over the years, as my daughter has grown, I think about that old woman’s overall vibe — how she dressed, how she walked. And most importantly, I think about the tone of condescension in her voice. I don’t know how to explain it, but it was my daughter. That’s how she’s talked to me since the second she learned how to string words together. Now she’s a time traveler, out there saving the fate of existence with her brazen air of moral superiority and keen hearing. Probably.

• • •

Tyler Wilson is a stay-at-home parent to four kids, ages 4-10. He is tired. He can be reached at twilson@cdapress.com.