Dad's demands

Sitting at the pool watching the mothers and fathers with their youngsters, I watched as one of the men became progressively more and more angry at his son.
The son wanted to play, the father wanted to teach his son swimming, the son wasn’t listening and wandered off to the toddlers pools to play on the crocodile slide. The father’s threats became more intense to the point of ultimatum; you either come here and learn to swim or I am getting out and going home! I guess from the child’s reaction this was a common threat so he took no notice and left the father to get on with it knowing it would all blow over soon.
What I hadn’t twigged was the woman sitting on the next table was the mother. She tried to get dad to realise swimming was fun but by this time dad was so blinkered he could only see his way forward. Mother could still see the whole picture and tried in vain to convince dad to go and have some fun.
Reluctantly the father went over to where the boy was happily playing; the boy got down on his belly and showed his father an excellent combination of arms and legs action which would propel him through the water if he chose. I get the impression this was one step too far for the father who took the boy to one side and ‘told him to get in the other pool and learn to swim’. Yet hadn’t he just demonstrated the skill to his father already?
Amazing how entrenched we can become when we have a bee in our bonnet. After watching this I understand the phrase make so much more now. Irritated by the situation the thoughts became like stinging bees and the father was pushed to the point of exploding just by the internal rows he was having with his own expectations. The son was aware of how far things could go and had already chosen to ignore the protestations of his father which, I suspect would escalate as he grew. Mother was able to see the whole picture and could appreciate value on both sides but knew this was a recurring theme she had learned to ignore.
The question is who won?