When I was still just a child, my mother taught me to use a code word if I ever felt uncomfortable around someone or felt like I was in some sort of danger but couldn’t say it outright. When I had daughter on my own, I decided to do the same with her. I explained how that worked and we came up with our secret word together.
However, I had no idea she’d use it that soon.
Namely, my girl, Amy, splits time between me and her dad, my ex-husband Dave. In fact, she’s staying with me but visits him often.
Despite our differences and everything that had happened between us over the years, I know that Dave is a good dad who’d never harm our daughter. That’s is the reason I got extremely scared when Amy used the code word while staying at her dad’s one day.
Dave called me on the phone, saying, “Hey, Amy was eager to talk to you.”
When she got on the phone and I asked her about her day, Amy said, “It’s fun. I was at the park yesterday, and I drew some pictures this morning. I drew a dog, a tree, and… But I wish I could have a blue marker so I could draw blueberries.”
At that moment, my heart sank, “blueberries” was our secret word.
Was Amy in some sort of trouble?
“Don’t worry baby, I’m on my way, and don’t say anything to your dad.”
I got into my car right away and headed to Dave’s place. When he saw me at the door, he was surprised. “Claire, I wasn’t expecting you,” he said.
“Well, I hope you don’t mind picking up Amy a bit early this time,” I said.
It looked like he wanted to protest, but he decided it would be better if he didn’t make a big deal out of it, so he agreed.
I could notice Dave was distant. It was as though something bothered him, but I was quick to leave the house and learn what scared my daughter that much.
She gave her dad a goodbye kiss and entered the car. But the moment she shut the door, she started crying.
“What’s wrong, honey,” I asked her.
“Mom, dad wasn’t acting as usual. He was talking to someone on the phone and he was yelling so much. Then he slammed the door. I got scared, mom.”
“It’s okay, baby” I told her. “Daddy probably had a bad day, that’s it.”
That evening Dave called me on the phone asking about Amy. It was then that I told him why I picked her up. I explained that she had used our code word, that’s how scared she was of his yelling.
“A code word? What’s that?” Dave wanted to know. I explained everything to him and it was obvious he was very sorry for scarring our daughter.
“Things have been hard at work right now,” he said.
I was proud that Amy found our code word handy when she felt uncomfortable and used it.
At that moment, I felt a profound gratitude for that small piece of parenting advice my own mom had given me so many years ago. The code word started as “just in case” thing, but I realized it truly worked well in a real life situation.
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