Guest Post: Being A Better Dad (By Jona)

Dad and I switched bodies last week. It was kind of unexpected, to be honest. At seven years old, I was still having a bedwetting problem. My dad thought that punishment would resolve the problem, so every time I had wetted the bed during the night, he made me clean up the mess I made and gave me chores to do around the house all day. It made me quite mad, because it was not as if deliberately peed in my bed. We had seen a doctor and she also told us that punishing was not a solution. Unfortunately, my dad didn't want to believe it. One morning, when I had once again had a nighttime accident, I feared my dad was going to shout at me again. I wished my dad could experience how humiliating it actually was to discover one's wet bed in the morning and to be forced to clean it up all by oneself. Suddenly, I blacked out for a couple of seconds, and when I came to, I was lying in a bed and I was in my dad's body. I heard footsteps and the door to the bedroom was slowly being opened. There I was, or at least there was my body, cautiously calling out. "Daddy?" I heard my young voice say. "I've had an accident again." I got up and went to his bedroom. I scolded him for wetting the bed and made him clean everything up. The kid was obviously afraid and immediately did as I asked. I was surprised I was so harsh on the former me. It wasn't my intention, but the body just somehow took over. On the other hand, it was good my father experienced how degrading the whole situation was and how terrified he made me feel.

I figured it was dad who was in my body, but he never said a thing. I guessed he also had to be emotionally influenced by my body and somehow it was refraining him from making any commentary about the swap. And I know he must have had memories from before the switch, because I had them too. Although, they became less and less prominent and they were replaced by new memories. I acquired driving skills and suddenly I knew how to do my dad's job. Over the course of the days, I settled more and more into the role of the dad. I still remembered I had been the son, but that memory was more or less all that was left. I guessed there was no way back. The swap must have happened for a reason, and I supposed it happened so I could prove I was better at being a dad than he was. So I started to treat the kid better. I listened to his problems, we talked about the bedwetting situation. I was still a strict dad, but I wasn't going to punish him for something he had no control over. Who knows, if I did punish him unjustly, the mysterious powers that enabled the switch might want to reverse it. And I was definitely not going back to my former life. I loved being a dad for my son.