Parenting is full of hilarious misunderstandings, but few have the lasting impact of our Titanic incident. When our toddler Max saw the DVD we’d gotten for my wife’s birthday, he assumed it was some sort of adult toy. His nursery school announcement that “Mommy and Daddy watch Titanic alone at night” had his teacher discreetly checking if we owned some… special edition. We still laugh about it at parties.
But what began as comedy took a profound turn when Max developed a Titanic obsession. While too young for the movie, he built ships from blocks, reenacted disasters in the bathtub, and asked endless questions. Then one night, he connected the dots in a way that shook us: “The captain didn’t see the iceberg because he was going too fast… like you and Mommy when I was in her tummy.”
His words hung in the air like the ship’s final distress flares. Max had been our unexpected joy, arriving just a year into our relationship. We’d done all the right things on paper – marriage, mortgage, steady jobs – but somewhere we’d stopped really seeing each other. That night, we talked honestly for the first time in years, realizing we’d become like co-captains navigating separate courses.
As Max grew, so did his quiet wisdom. At nine, in a Titanic exhibit, he studied artifacts with unsettling familiarity. At thirteen, comforting a friend about divorce, he observed, “Sometimes staying is harder than leaving.” By college, studying psychology, he saw people as vessels each sailing their own difficult journeys.
On his graduation day, he returned our Titanic DVD with a note that brought tears: “Thank you for navigating life’s icebergs together.” Rewatching it that night, we saw our family’s journey reflected in the film – from the comedy of misunderstandings to the profound lessons hidden in a child’s innocent questions about a historic tragedy.
