Great story. But I didn’t see the ending as uplifting. But I saw him begrudgingly going into one of the three dark passages as accepting a wave of depression brought on by being a parent out of control of his child.
Because of his child's energy which he cant control, he is now ostracised from society. To me this is evident by always being asked to go to the room behind, until finally where he goes there are no other sympathising parents. He is also carries the stigma of being a "bad parent". I love it how one of the rooms had a parent give him advice on "maybe the kid has ADHD”, and a explaining of the child’s behaviour as, "its all in the temperament", as if to say its in a luck of the draw and therefore not accepting any responsibility as a parent. I dont know if listeners without energetic children can appreciate how much these lines can hit to home, and are very true to how I have heard parents talk.
In the end room, its evident his child doesn’t see the dangers that he can see, and does not hesitate to run into the dark passages. Therefore this made me question, is the room really filled with passages of hidden horror or is that his view of the world he will have now from being labelled a bad parent. I know when my son wants to to sit down and play with him, sometimes I have an inability to do so because I just see colourful plastic and not see the objects of stimuli he must see. Sometimes when he drags me to the playground, I don’t see the fun slides and swings, but instead I am looking out for risks and other perils which my son may unknowing blunder into by being naïve.
To me this story was great and I thank the author for allowing escape artists to podcast it.