10 Jul Locked Out in Flannelette: One Dad’s Hilarious Brush with Parenting Panic
When minding the baby, Tom Whelan finds his day turns into chasing his wife’s bus—with no shoes, no keys, and a ticking time bomb in your arms.
A Cold Morning, a Locked Door, and a Baby on Board
I still feel tense as I picture the scene, even though it happened more than 12 years ago. It was a cold morning, and I was standing in an upmarket department store. People were staring and smirking at me. I was barefoot, wearing flannelette pyjamas, and cradling a one-month-old baby. Let me explain.
Earlier that morning, my wife had been looking forward to a shopping trip with a friend. With me tied up at work in the lead-up, she’d had little respite from caring for our newborn and four-year-old daughter. So excited was she about her day out that by 8 am, she was dressed, had sent our eldest off with a family friend, and had even expressed some breast milk into a bottle for the baby.
I was nervous. I hadn’t yet spent much time alone with our youngest. I remembered the first time I’d looked after our eldest: my wife had stayed out longer than expected, the baby got hungry, and she screamed like a demon. It was torture.
The Door That Changed Everything
That morning, dressed in my oldest pyjamas, I picked up the baby, grabbed the car keys from the table, and stepped outside to wave goodbye to my wife as she boarded a bus. “Don’t worry,” I called. “The baby will be fine. Just have a great day.”
Then it happened. A breeze. A slam. I turned to realise the front door had locked behind me.
We were house-sitting at the time while our own home was being renovated—and the house key? On my wife’s key ring. I was locked out, holding a baby, with the bottle of milk inside the house and no phone to call her.
A High-Stakes City Chase
I had about two hours before the baby would need to be fed. Thinking fast, I jumped into the car (thankfully, I’d grabbed the keys) and drove off to chase the bus.
I couldn’t find it. But I knew roughly where my wife was going and headed for the store she’d planned to visit first. I parked outside, realising too late I had no change for the meter. A sympathetic parking inspector listened to my frantic story and let me park free of charge.
Inside, the store was packed with well-dressed shoppers. I searched every floor. I wished for a lost-child-style announcement: “Father desperately seeking wife. He has a ticking baby, no keys, and questionable fashion choices.” No such luck. I returned to the car, my panic rising.
The Universal Stresses of Parenthood
Back at the house, I debated what to do. Parenting is full of these moments—stress, uncertainty, and feeling completely alone. My colleague once told me that having adult children doesn’t make you worry less—it just changes what you worry about.
We expect perfection of ourselves and others, but that’s a fast track to stress and disappointment. Home life, like traffic, involves mistakes. It’s how we respond that counts.
A Key, At Last
Out of time, I started knocking on neighbours’ doors. Most were kind but couldn’t help. Then, an elderly woman stopped me. A stranger had told her about the barefoot dad with the baby. She explained that she walked the owners’ dogs, and suddenly remembered they’d once given her a spare key.
Finally, I was in. I fed the baby. She drank slowly, then deeply. She must’ve been just as exhausted as I was because soon after, she drifted off to sleep.
I sat down, let the tension melt away, and finally breathed.
The Calm After the Chaos
Later that afternoon, my wife returned home, glowing from her day out. “It’s so quiet in here,” she said cheerfully. Then she looked at me and frowned: “I can’t believe you’re still in those horrible pyjamas.”
What I Learned
From that day, I learned some basics:
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Always have two sets of keys.
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Never rely on doors to stay open.
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Keep milk accessible.
But I also learned the importance of hope—and that even ridiculous days can make for meaningful stories.
Illustrations by Katherine Chadwick
