October 2001 Volume 82 Number 10 "serving the protectors"
Reversing the Roles
By Brett Williams

Behind most police recruits, one usually finds supportive parents bursting with pride. So what happens when parents are the ones who join the police force, while their adult children assume the supporter role?

Michael and Wendy Parry found they had swapped roles with their children soon after joining the police force last year. As they lived the school-like regime of police academy training at Fort Largs, their offspring - Amanda, 21, and Lyndon, 19 - became parents to them.

And, as concerned young adults thrust into parent roles, the children moved to counter the pressure of Michael and Wendy’s new jobs. They tested them on exam material, kept the home quiet for weekend study and played villains on whom their parents could practise arrest holds.

Both expected success of them, but stayed alert to their long work days, excessive study and endless travel. “They used to tell me off if I didn’t get a good enough mark,” says Wendy, with a laugh.

“They made us have a sense of role reversal. They took on the house - to the point of almost driving us crazy - did the shopping, cooked the meals...

“If we were both coming home late from the academy - which is quite a hike from where we live - they’d have dinner cooked.”

Even at the Parrys’ recent graduations, Amanda and Lyndon gathered with the middle-aged parents of other cadets to support their mother and father.

When Wendy, at her graduation, was announced winner of the Police Association’s Walter Wissell award for academic achievement, the children gave her robust applause. Their enthusiasm drew curious looks from some of the middle-aged.

Says student nurse Amanda: “Everyone sort of looks at you as if to say: ‘You’re a bit young. Who’s she to you?’ You feel that (role reversal) when you see mum and dad up with all the young people. And with mum’s award, I felt extra proud that she got there (to graduation).”

Before they joined the force in July and December (2000), Michael had worked as a sales rep with the same company for 15 years. Wendy had spent 20 years in nursing. In their respective fields, both had enjoyed success and higher pay, which they willingly left behind.

For Welsh-born Michael, joining the thin blue line had been a boyhood ambition he never realized. He craved the job’s disciplined lifestyle and opportunities to help people. But, as a 19-year-old, he failed in two attempts to join UK police forces.

A dozen years later in Australia, he resisted the urge to apply in SA. A private education for his children - which he saw as unaffordable on a police wage - had taken priority over a career change.

But, last year, with his children’s schooling over, his mortgage paid and at the age of 43, he finally decided to make his move.

“I wasn’t happy with what I was doing,” he says. “It wasn’t a money issue; I just felt I needed another challenge. I thrive on challenges and don’t like being in the comfort zone.”

But the Parry children knew nothing of their father’s long-held ambition. Lyndon was shocked when Michael announced he was “looking into” joining the police force. The children had known others their own age who had joined, but never knew a recruit as old as their father.

They well understood the dangers he would face as a police officer, but did not oppose his move. And as they learned of his passion for a police career, each gave him strong support.

But Amanda was not sure if her father - whom she never saw as “a school kind” - could cope with six months’ classroom study. She even wondered whether, academically, he was “biting off more than he could chew”.

Michael himself knew he might face a tough time. “I left school at 15,” he says, “so it was a long time in between study. With the kids being in uni, I asked whether I could get some assistance from them.”

And, in parent-like fashion, the Parry children delivered that help. Michael still struggled through his first month’s training, but soon “got into a study pattern” that eased the strain.

To Wendy - who had long felt disillusioned with nursing - the idea of a police career had not yet even occurred.

But she closely watched her husband undertake his new role, read his study material, and saw just how the recruit process played out. Before long, police life seemed an appealing prospect to her as well. She decided to apply to join SAPOL.

“It just sort of came out of the blue,” says Amanda. “It’s like they don’t tell us anything sometimes. It was: ‘I’m going to do this now, too’. But we could see she was really loving it when she was helping dad out. It was inevitable that she (would join). It was time for a change from nursing, too.”

So, at the age of 41, Wendy joined Michael at Fort Largs, where their six-month courses overlapped by two months. And neither of them had ever been concerned about beginning a police career while in the 40-plus age bracket.

But, standing only 162cm tall and weighing just 51kg, Wendy had held at least one concern. “My size was probably one of my biggest issues,” she says. “I used to worry about that a bit, but my age has never prevented me from doing too much at all. I tend to forget how old I am until I see the kids.”

The Parry children, after only moments of shock and surprise at their parents’ career moves, showed a relaxed response. They simply figured that, if life as cops was going to make them happy, they should pursue it. Says Lyndon: “It’s their lives. It’s not for us to have a say in what they do.”

But what if the children had expressed strong opposition, and feared for their parents’ welfare? Would the Parry parents have cancelled their plans in deference to their children’s concerns? Michael does not believe he would have.

He thinks he would just have tried to explain his position but, in the end, still made the decision to join.

Wendy, however, sees the same hypothesis in a different light. “That,” she says, “would have affected me more (than it would Michael). I think I would have backed off and thought: ‘Well, maybe they’ve got a point’.”

She concedes she might even have withdrawn from her pursuit of a police career. Taking on the job with young children, she suspects, would have been easier.

Now, with 12 months’ combined police experience behind them since graduating, the Parrys love their work. Stationed in the city, Michael tries to emulate his colleagues’ best traits. Even in his short time out of Fort Largs, he has, with a workmate, disarmed a substance-affected man wielding a knife.

Based at Norwood, Wendy could not be more aware of her “bottom-rung” status. As well, she realizes she has not “seen most things”, which she thought she had as a nurse.

Outside the confines of Fort Largs, both must - as all cops do - face whatever terror police life brings them. But will that ever-present risk, in time, prove a heavy burden on their children?

One morning recently, Wendy woke to find Amanda in her bedroom asking her if she was all right. Amanda had heard her mother arrive home late the night before and wondered if “everything was okay”.

“So it (concern) is there,” says Wendy, “and it’s surfacing more now that we’re actually out there (policing). And Amanda being female presents it a bit more openly than Lyndon.

“I like to think that, each day we go, they have that little thought in their heads - that there’s a possibility you may not walk back in that door.

“At the end of the day, they have to learn to live with those doubts and worries, and present them front-on to us - if they have them.”

Amanda believes her parents will - through their enthusiasm and willingness to learn - make good cops. She recognizes, however, that she and her brother are “always going to worry”.

“It’s hard knowing they’re out there,” she says. “They know more nightclubs than we do now, and I think dad’s had some close calls and weird encounters. But you definitely wonder. You’re always thinking: ‘What’s going on?’ especially when they’re on night duty on Friday and Saturday nights.

“I think they see our concern. They know we’re worried, because we ask what they’ve done. They always say they’re with somebody; that it’s not like they’re on their own, which is kind of reassuring.”

The Parry children, it seems, will have to learn - as their mother suggests - to live with their concerns. Neither Michael nor Wendy plans any more career changes before retirement.

Later, they might look to work as crime scene examiners, but hope to have long-term stints in front-line policing before then. They would even advise like-minded parents to follow their lead.

Says Michael: “Too many people make excuses. We’ve never been like that. If we want to do something, we’ll give it a go.”

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