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Daddy’s Little Girl Is Growing Up
by Tim Paynter
If ever I lose sight and forget, I’m reminded almost daily of how temporary my role is as a father. I drop my daughter off to school two days a week, and it is there that the vague remembrances of what it is to be cool creep back into my 47-year-old memory.
I never had the luxury of being driven to school as my daughter is, thanks to her only-child status and, of course, to the eight-mile distance from my house to her middle school. Nevertheless, there seems to be a morning metamorphosis as soon as she gets into my car. Gone almost instantly is the sweet, inquisitive little girl, replaced suddenly by the hipper, more know-it-all girl. Controlling (or at least trying to) my CD player, and doing her best to avoid any question regarding either school, boys, or homework, my daughter does her best to sing to Taylor Swift, Lady GaGa, and others as I wonder when my baby turned into an almost-teenager.
I’ve often commented that the surest trick to becoming, and hopefully staying, a fun parent is for you, the parent, to remember what it is to be a child. And when I say this, I really mean to remember, for if we do, then we remember all the insecurities, fads, jealousies, crushes, and fears that you take to school every day as a middle school student. Never one to shy away from the more sensitive or uncomfortable subjects, I constantly remind my burgeoning “young lady” that there isn’t anything that she can’t talk to her papi about. I tell her I love her, and that I want to know if she has worries, fears, or troubles.
Of course this isn’t something I just started when I saw the changes in her, in both her physical being and her emotional state. No, this is something I’ve consciously worked at for the past 11 years of her life, and I like to think it’s working. My daughter confides in me things I wouldn’t have, as a boy, confided in my own dad. Recognizing that there will be things she won’t share with me is no reason to not reassure her that she always can do so. Of course, this tack couldn’t have served me better now that she’s in the peer-pressured world of other teenagers in middle school. Cool is king on campus; luckily I see in my daughter an individual, sure of self, and unfazed by trends, cliques, or peers, something I’m not sure I could say about myself at 11 years old.
Being a father seems to get harder as you watch a daughter turn from innocent little girl to almost-knowing young lady, all the while knowing what she doesn’t about boys, heartaches, and life’s other little surprises waiting just around the corner. Still, I wouldn’t change anything, and I’m confident that she’ll come through it all just fine. She’s a good kid with a smart head on her shoulders, and a dynamic and multi-faceted personality. I love being her dad, and she makes my job as a parent easy—it’s the father side of the equation that seems to get harder, but I, like her, am learning every day.
That’s the wonderful thing about being a single dad: Since you don’t get to bounce much of your fears, worries, or thoughts off a mate, you’ve got to kind of feel out your child, find out where she’s coming from, where she’s headed, and whether this is one of those times when you need to just mind your own business. I think we’re getting it just fine, despite what my friends warn me about “…when she’s a teenager….”
Funny how, when we’re riding in the car, just before being dropped off she’s still my little girl, up until the moment she opens the car door. From that point on, we’re mere acquaintances, which mean no “I love you”s. But I get that, too. I remember what it was to be a kid. I really do.
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