Parenting is Like: “Crimson Tide”

As Gene Hackman says, “You don’t just fight battles when everything is hunky-dory.”

In my opinion, “Crimson Tide” is one of Denzel Washington’s three best films. I was 10 years old when Crimson Tide came out — my dad liked it so much that we ended up recording it onto a video cassette…err, I mean buying it from the Video Warehouse. We didn’t have cable growing up, so my brother and I must’ve watched that movie at least 20 times over holidays and summer vacations. In fact, I still annoy my wife by randomly reciting useless quotes from the movie and assuming she knows!cares about my references. High-five if your wife ever asked you to get some milk on the way home and you responded with: “We gotta get Weps. He’s the key.” (Fun fact: Weps was played by a young Viggo Mortensen, who as you may know, eventually achieved legendary status in Hidalgo…just kidding, he grew up to play Legolas in the LOTR trilogy.)

One scene in particular serves as the perfect analogy for parenting. I couldn’t find the full scene, but here’s a snippet:

Quick premise: Captain Ramsey (Gene Hackman) orders a strategic missile readiness drill while a fire is blazing in the kitchen of the nuclear-armed USS Alabama submarine. During the tense ordeal, a chef in the galley goes into cardiac arrest and dies. Afterwards, Ramsey and his 2nd in command, Lt. Captain Hunter (Denzel Washington), are debating whether it was the right decision to run the drill at that time:

Hackman: So, Mr. Hunter, do you think I was wrong to run that drill?
Denzel: Not necessarily, sir.

Hackman: Do you think I got that man killed?
Denzel: No, sir. One thing had nothing to do with the other. It was an accident.

Hackman: Would you have run the drill?
Denzel: No, sir, I wouldn’t have.

Hackman: Why not?
Denzel: The fire in the galley could have flared back up. I would have seen to it first, sir.

Hackman: I’m sure you would have. Me, on the other hand, I tend to think
that’s the best time to run a drill. Confusion on the ship is nothing to fear. It should be taken advantage of. Lest you forget, Mr. Hunter, we are a ship of war, designed for battle. You don’t just fight battles when everything is hunky-dory. What’d you think, son? I was just some crazy old coot putting everyone in harm’s way as I yell “yee-haw”?

“You don’t just fight battles when everything is hunky-dory” perfectly sums up what it is like to be a parent. As any parent will tell you, babies almost never run according to your schedule. It often feels like they are the offspring of Murphy’s Law and Opposite Day: they will do exactly what you don’t want them to at the worst time possible.

For example, consider the following (typical) situation — it’s been almost 2 years and I still remember one particular time when Maya did this: baby has a dirty diaper, so you take it off and clean her butt. While lying there, she proceeds to vomit some milk. Annoying, but still manageable, so you handle it. Turning your attention back to the diaper, you’re overjoyed to find baby sitting in a puddle of fresh urine made just for you. That onesie you just spent some time dabbing off spit up now needs to be taken off and changed completely. So, you need to do the diaper cleaning protocol again, go find another outfit, and hope she doesn’t ruin that in the next 30 minutes somehow. Already bleary-eyed, a strong feeling of FML grips you…you want to rage a little bit, but you can’t do anything about it! You just persevere because you’re essentially the captain of your very own fighter class submarine.

Now, imagine this is happening to your newborn while your toddler has found your wallet and has decided that throwing all your credit cards down the toilet is fun. For me, this is about to transform from an image to reality (…but more in that later.)

Maybe because of my coaching/leadership passion, I bandy the phrase “mental toughness” around our house so much so that my wife is probably sick of hearing it. Jack Clark, Cal’s legendary rugby coach, described it perfectly (and I would suggest all parents keep this in mind, especially when you are at your wit’s end):

“Mental toughness is the ability to focus on the next most important thing.”

In the grand scheme of things, moments like the above are nothing more than harmless, minor annoyances that you just work through and move on — hey, there are 6B+ people on the planet so it can’t be that hard, right? No matter what, there is no doubt that parenting requires a very high level of mental toughness.

Just like Denzel Washington on that submarine, we parents always have to be on alert for that next explosion (diaper), meltdown (tantrum), or mutiny (epic tantrum).