Dad Makes ‘Promise’ to His Little Girl, 15 Years Later He Keeps His Word

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Jack Beresford is a Newsweek Senior Internet Culture & Trends Reporter, based in London, UK. His focus is reporting on trending topics on the Internet, he covers viral stories from around the world on social media. Jack joined Newsweek in 2021 and previously worked at The Irish Post, Loaded, Den of Geek and FourFourTwo. He is a graduate of Manchester University. Languages: English. You can get in touch with Jack by emailing j.beresford@newsweek.com

Jack Beresford

Senior Life and Trends Reporter

🎙️ Voice is AI-generated. Inconsistencies may occur.

A dad has revealed how a recent accident allowed him to keep a promise he had made to his daughter 15 years earlier.

Peter Morrell, from Kent in the U.K., is the first to admit he is a “big kid at heart” and never misses an opportunity to get involved in whatever shenanigans his children get up to. “I like to join in on the trampoline, bike rides and water fights,” Morrell told Newsweek.

Unfortunately, that eagerness to get involved landed him in big trouble recently. “I bought a scooter to ride around with the kids on theirs, and I lost control and fell at an awkward angle,” Morrell said. “Snapped my tibia clean in half and required surgery.”

While the care he received from the National Health Service in the U.K. was “amazing,” Morrell was informed he would have to wear a cast on his leg for a minimum of six weeks while the broken bone healed.

It was then that Morrell recalled a promise he made to his daughter Hollie, a decade and a half earlier.

Children pay attention to the promises parents make and the excuses they come up with when they don’t deliver. That was highlighted in a 2022 study from the journal Cognitive Development in which 64 children aged between 3 and 5 were shown videos where puppets promised to show them a toy then left only to return empty-handed.

The puppets then provided the children with either a valid excuse for not producing the toy, a bad excuse or no excuse at all. The children were then quizzed on whether they felt the puppets’ actions were wrong and why. Researchers discovered that, regardless of the excuse, there was consensus among the children that breaking a promise was wrong. However, they did show greater understanding if the puppet provided a valid excuse over a bad one or none at all.

Thinking back to sometime around 2010, Morrell was reminded by Hollie of the promise he had made to her after she broke her leg. “She was coming up to 3 years old and was very unhappy about breaking her leg,” he said. “She asked me why I couldn’t have a pink cast like her, so I jokingly said if I ever break my leg, I’ll get a pink sparkly cast just like her.”

All these years later, it turned out Hollie still remembered: “So I thought, ‘Why not?’ I did promise,” Morrell said.

But, while she had recalled the promise her dad made, Hollie was surprised to discover her dad had actually gone through with it. “When I showed her the cast on FaceTime, she burst out laughing and couldn’t believe I actually did it,” Morrell said. “She showed it to all her friends and teachers at school.”

Morrell has only a couple more weeks until the cast comes off. In the meantime, the story of how he came through for Hollie, all these years later, has captivated social media; a clip posted to TikTok under the handle @pete_m84 has gone viral with nearly 200,000 views. “I think it resonates with people as it’s something that they can relate to. A promise is a promise,” Morrell said. “I could have said no, but it’s a bit of fun and a nice memory for us both to laugh at in a few years.”

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