Loveday Writing

TRYING TO LOOK INNOCENT (AND OTHER WAYS OF KNOWING YOU’RE IN TROUBLE)

I can’t recall a particular moment or incident where I was “caught out”. Sure there would have been a number of times during my lifetime when I would have been caught out or in trouble, especially during my childhood and in particular during my toddler years. But what I think is the worst part of being caught out as a child is not actually getting caught, it’s what happens afterwards—it’s the parents’ reaction.

I knew as a child I was in trouble when my mother scolded me like only a mother can—referring or more yelling at me by my full name: “Rachel Louise Loveday! You come back here!” Does that scold sound familiar to any of you?

My father didn’t yell at me or my older brother, but we could tell we were in trouble by his tone of voice. The more obvious the frustration and anger, and also the quicker he would approach my brother and I when we would have spats, the more in trouble we were. Dad’s way of handling us, as well as myself, individually was to have long talks which tended to go on and on, but of course this is better than corporal punishment, which my parents were against.

I learnt very early in life that looking innocent, or at least trying to, like I’m trying to in the picture above, won’t get me out of trouble. Trust me, your parents, at least mine, know me better than anyone and of course they would, they created me, so of course they’re going to see through the trying-to-look-innocent facade. We’ve all tried it and we all would have learnt that it never works.

I’m constantly saying to people around me that I do my uni work/writing work/exercise in an effort to “keep out of trouble”. But the truth is when I was a child, and now as an adult I hate getting into trouble. I hate that awful feeling of doing something wrong, but what I hate more about getting in trouble, is the feeling of knowing that I have disappointed those around me, my parents included. That being said, being the “mature” adult that I am, I don’t get into trouble these days.

But if I do, I’ll try to look as innocent as I do in the picture above.