Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
Last week, I ordered a bucket hat from one of my favorite brands, Bricks & Wood, a Black-owned boutique apparel company out of Los Angeles. I learned about them through a sneaker collaboration the brand did with New Balance, and they’ve remained on my radar ever since. So every so often, I will peruse the site to see what they have cooking. Recently, I was perusing the fine perusables when I saw a bucket hat that I liked. Add to the fact that it was on sale and I couldn’t hit purchase fast enough. It got to my house on a Saturday evening, and when I pulled it out of the box, I was pleased as punch.
Fast forward to the following Monday morning, and I’m walking out the door to take my two older boys to school. My wife opens the door and says, “Hold on! The baby wants you!” I head back to the door, and he literally is standing there with this hat; he doesn’t want me to leave without it, which was the cutest thing ever. Mind you, I’ve had this hat for a little over 24 hours at this point; I have no idea why he’s taken such a liking to this particular hat. I especially have no idea why he’s already associating this hat with “daddy.” Again, I just thought it was adorbs that my baby boy wanted to make sure I had my hat to keep my head warm or something.
On Tuesday, he does it again, except this time he literally wants to put the hat on my head. As soon as he saw that I was about to walk out of the door, he ran right to the hat, grabbed it and placed it on my head. And when I returned home from dropping my boys off, he took it off of my head and then placed it right back in the spot where I keep my hats. It was the oddest, most adorable thing, to the point that he REALLY wants to make sure I have this hat when I leave the house. He kept this up for the entire week. If I try to walk out of the house without my hat, he starts fussing because not only do I need to leave with it, he needs to put it on my head, no matter how badly he actually does it. And let me tell you, he poked me in the eye with it once, and it hurt.
The minds of children can be so curious at times. My son has never done this before with anything. For the most part, he just doesn’t like when I leave the house without him. He’s so used to rolling with me to various places that I think in his mind, when Daddy (that’s me) leaves the house, he’s coming, too. So when he’s seen me walk out without him, he has started to fuss. This hat thing is different. He will let me walk out of the house without him as long as I have on the hat. It’s almost like he’s made the hat a proxy for his ability to roll in these Washington, D.C., streets. I almost wonder if he’s seen some YouTube Kids video or something that shows dads always putting a hat on their head before leaving and he’s internalized that. I can’t find any such video, and believe me, I’ve looked. Who knows where it came from? But for right now, this hat is my travel companion if my son isn’t with me.
Make no mistake, it’s a nice hat so I’m glad he has taste at least. Thus far, it’s matched every single outfit I’ve put on. I don’t know if my son knows this but he hasn’t been off yet.
Emotionally, though, I absolutely love this. It’s so doggone cute and comforting to think that my little boy, in his mind, is looking out for me or has his own little version of how I’m supposed to go out into the world. And the fact that he puts it back where he knows it goes when I come home is *chef’s kiss.* I don’t get it, but you know what, I sure can appreciate it. It stays on my mind all day. Whenever I need a quick pick-me-up, I think about my baby boy and this hat, and my day is automatically better.
I love being a parent.
Panama Jackson is a columnist at theGrio. He writes very Black things and drinks very brown liquors, and is pretty fly for a light guy. His biggest accomplishment to date coincides with his Blackest accomplishment to date in that he received a phone call from Oprah Winfrey after she read one of his pieces (biggest), but he didn’t answer the phone because the caller ID said: “Unknown” (Blackest).
Make sure you check out the Dear Culture podcast every Thursday on theGrio’s Black Podcast Network, where I’ll be hosting some of the Blackest conversations known to humankind. You might not leave the convo with an afro, but you’ll definitely be looking for your Afro Sheen! Listen to Dear Culture on TheGrio’s app; download it here.
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