u/Hermit-Dad

As a dad of 2 young ones, I'm looking to curb my own swears and also sneakily add a little more fantasy to this plain of existence.

I love coming across an in-universe minced oath that adds color to the world, but also sounds like a legitimate swear. "Storms", "Blood and Ashes", "cauldrons" etc.

I would also love to see any minced oaths inspired by your favourite literature. I've added "the Great turtle swims on" to my lexicon (my 4yo loves "dragons!") and personally think the only improvement to the LOTR films would be if Gandalf said "Manwe's balls" when he hit his head in Bag End.

This is all a bit baffling, but figured this might be a good place to share. Sorry in advance for a long post—there’s more baggage here than an international terminal. I'm sure I'm leaving out a lot of context in exchange for brevity since at the end of the day, these actions speak for themselves with or without context. Things with my parents inevitably went sideways around Thanksgiving 2024. Long story short: they called my (very tired) kid names when he wouldn’t “perform” for them. Before Christmas I set what I thought was a pretty reasonable boundary—don’t insult the kids. As a result, Christmas was…tense. Dad didn’t speak to me, made a point of offering everyone else drinks, mum was frosty, siblings carried the conversation, typical English family affair really. Since then, it’s been ice cold. Last real contact was months later when they briefly met our new baby. It’s now been over a year - I'm not exactly trying hard to see them, but they have been invited over for this past Christmas, I offered to see them before Christmas, and they were invited to our baby's first birthday 3 weeks ago and we got a pretty flimsy excuse from my mum. Fast forward to last Friday, it's our first date night in 14 months. Our whole day planned around it, leaving during the napping window, getting child care from mother in law, etc. I just got in the car to drive a couple hours up to my mother in laws for all of this, our nanny just dropped the baby off, older kid pulled early from school, we’re mid-logistics chaos... Dad calls. First time in over a year. No hello—just asks if I’m around and says he’s going in for surgery and needs someone to sign him out or they’ll reschedule. Tells me I "need to get him or figure something out.” I’m literally in the car juggling kids. I ask if there’s anyone else—he says no. Then suggests my father-in-law (they have zero relationship, but he is at least in the same city as the hospital), then asks if I have friends who could do it (wtf!?). I say realistically no one can drop everything midday Friday for someone they don't know, all my friends have jobs and kids, but I'll see what I can do. Realistically, all my friends know the situation isn't good so why would I ask them for this favour?! We call my father-in-law—he agrees to help. Call dad back, all kids in the car. I give him the news and on speaker, no greeting to anyone he just demands “great, send me his info now.” I ask him to say please (kids are listening—if I expect it from them, same rule applies to him, I'm doing my best to model that family members don't just get to treat you like shit because you share genetics it's the whole reason were low contact in the first place). He mutters thanks. Wife sends the info. Dad replies with a thumbs-up emoji. Meanwhile, my kid is asking if that was a doctor on the phone because he doesn’t recognize his own grandad’s accent and voice. That pretty much says it all. We finish the drive 1.5 hours up to my other in-laws so we can have our date. Later, FIL confirms he picked up my dad, everything’s fine. It's been over a week and I haven’t heard a word from my dad, mum, or anyone since I helped to orchestrate my father's exit from mystery surgery. And yeah, the obvious questions: - Where was the rest of my family? No idea. - Why me, after a year of silence? No idea. - What was the surgery? No idea. I did ask and got no meaningful response. I do know Dad has cancer, and despite asking for updates I don't get any without constantly asking for them and shocker with 2 kids I'm not exactly texting all the time. - Why is he in a hotel alone? My mum not with him, none of my siblings?! Also no idea.