There’s a saying that runs in our family, coming from fishing stock as I do, and it goes something along the lines of “Worse things happen at sea.” It’s pretty patronising and somewhat dismissive and gets trotted out most often when you bemoan a situation that the other person couldn’t give a monkey’s chuff about.
“Mom I’ve banged my knee…”
“Oh it’s just a scratch, worse things happen at sea son.”
with me?
Thing is there comes a point though when through indifference and old age I am finding it becoming my standard response to even more serious situations and it has me thinking that perhaps things really were quite terrible at sea and granddad was a quiet man not because of all the time he spent out on the water but because of all the awful things that must have befallen him.
Should my kids want sympathy then you know, I want to see a leg dangling limp with bone sticking through the skin because I am pretty sure something worse happened to granddad Tom at sea and it probably involved biting down hard on something and crying for his dead mother.
Should they be feeling a little blue then I find myself resisting a fatherly hug but instead insisting that it is considerably more taxing out on the waves and that they should pull themselves together, pack their bags and stop crying over being put up for adoption because it is just a waste of good tears and they should keep them for the orphanage because they’re going to need them.
I know it may seem harsh but I tell you, they just don’t make them like those salty sea dogs do they.
Afterwards 
I do think it’s a good thing we’ve moved on from placing ship’s boys under the charge of old salts — or have we exchanged the sea for some other ocean?
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Very true. Time for the return of spanking.
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I like to think the world is a better place than it once was but I still think there’s a place for small boys cleaning chimneys foray threepence
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“Don’t cry Dad, you’ll need those tears for the old age home.” That’s what they’ll say when you are being an old curmudgeon and they want to keep you in line. There is always a price to be paid!
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Oh touche! I’d like to say you’re wrong but you know what you aren’t
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