My Daughter's Wisdom Reigns Supreme

Okay:

My daughter is a lot smarter than I am. This is a frightening actualization. It's sort of like that movie with Sean Penn, Michelle Pfeiffer and Dakota Fanning, I Am Sam. Penn plays a mentally retarded man who gets stuck with a baby. There's this sequence where his daughter ages about 5 years in 2 minutes. She asks probing age appropriate questions like "Why is the sky blue?" etc. As she ages the questions become progressively more complex. He struggles to answer. She benevolently humors him.

My daughter and I are like this. I am retarded. She knows it, but she's too nice to mention it.

Once I was walking her to school in the morning. She had just started the first grade. I was in a peculiar mood. Not feeling too good about myself. I looked down at her. So naturally happy, easy to please. I was jealous.

"Honey," I asked her, "Do you think I'm a good daddy?"

Without hesitation she answered, "I think you're whatever kind of daddy you want to be."

All of a sudden I felt more like a bodyguard than a parent. She was born to give light to the world, like The Golden Child, and I'm like Eddie Murphy. I just have to make sure nothing bad happens to her in the interim.


Just a few hours ago we had finished breakfast and were trying to figure out what movie we wanted to watch. She went digging though the DVDs and found Aqua Teen Hunger Force: Season One.

"Daddy," she asked me, "How come they made it a cartoon but kids can't watch it?"

"I'm not sure, honey, but it's definitely for adults."

"But you let me watch it before."

"I know. I shouldn't have," I said, feeling parentally inadequate.

"You're the crazy one," she said, "not me."


Another time I was tucking her into bed. It had been a rough day, and, again, I wasn't feeling too good about myself. Something had happened at work or something...I don't really remember. I was just feeling shitty for some reason.

"Daddy," she said as I nestled her teddy bear in next to her, "you don't look so hot."

"I'm alright, honey," I said.

"You know," she said, with the utmost sincerity, "you're a really nice guy."

Well. I tried not to let on, but I immediately felt better. Who needs therapy?


As my regular readers know, I broke up with the woman I thought I was going to marry a little less than a year ago. I am still recovering. For some reason, a month or so ago, m daughter asked about her.

"Where's __________?" she asked.

"___________ and daddy don't hang out anymore, honey."

"Why?"

"We stopped getting along."

"I thought you two were going to get married."

"We were."

"So what happened?"

"Well, ____________ wanted to get married right away and daddy didn't want to rush things."

"Daddy," she said, as if it were exhausting her, "It's not when you get married. It's who you marry."


So. I just thought I would share that with you. Now I have to go. I promised her we could play a game of Trouble as soon as I finished. I'd love to hear about your kids if you care to post a comment.

Thanks for reading.

Tip of the day: While the idea of having sex on the beach is proverbially romantic, the logistic reality of having sex on sand is a lot less appealing and potentially dangerous.