a tough job, being a father

The news this week had two sad topics about fathers.

In the first case a - probably, not all the data is in yet - overworked and overstressed father drives by the daycare-center, parks his car at work, locks it, goes in ... all the time forgetting he has a toddler in his car. With outside temperatures reaching 25 Celcius one does not have to draw a picture about what happens in the car. The toddler dies.

In the second case a father takes his child to a daycare-center. He comes running in, bloodied, claiming that a man dressed in black, driving on a bike, attacked him with a knife right at the entrance. He hands over his (unhurt) child to a caretaker and is then taken to the hospital. Panic ensues. With a similar case (where a young man dressed in black entered a daycare center and started a slaughter) still fresh in the collective memory nobody takes any chances. All daycare centers are given police protection. Parents leave work to pick up their child and take it home. A manhunt is started, but nobody knows where the cyclist went of to after the attack.

Yesterday, a week after the second case started, the father himself is taken into custody. He confesses he made up the entire story of being attacked. Nobody knows why.

Being a father seems to be a tough job ...