My Daughter

 

Friends have asked why I haven’t written about my four-year-old daughter. Some know me as a dotting dad and conjectured that I was too deeply in love to make fun of her. Incorrect. I only make fun of people I love. And golfers and pickleballers. Okay, I make fun of a lot of people. But that very much includes the ones I love. It’s how I show love. I admit it’s immature and there are better ways to show love. And yet… here we are.

Thus, I will take down my four-year-old. I will take her down because I love her. Once someone asked if I was raising a princess. I recoiled; I laughed. Have you seen how this world treats girls? In America they don’t have autonomy over their own bodies and earn 84 cents on the dollar relative to their male counterparts. In other countries they can’t vote or drive or choose what to wear. No, I am not raising a princess. I’m doing my best to raise someone tough enough for this world – with tough love. Now for the tough love part.

My daughter is bad at the letter L. When she’s not in the joke she asks, “Why did you yaf?”. When she wants to know where someone resides, she asks, “Where do you yiv?” And she really likes to go to the “yibary”.

My daughter is bad at jokes. A grownup will tell a joke and grownups will laugh and, after a moment, she will laugh, too. “What’s so funny?” I ask. She says, “The joke”.

My daughter is bad at height. I’ll put it another way: she’s short. And I don’t mean by percentile or anything. I just mean relative to me. She’s three foot four?! I’ve never even heard of a height like that.

My daughter is bad at crime. Breaking and entering is very serious but try telling that to my four-year old. She goes to our neighbor’s house, lets herself in, and then, instead of quietly stealing something valuable and returning with the loot, she finds our neighbor eating, pulls up a chair, sits, and orders breakfast?!

My daughter is bad at reading. Well, technically she’s four and reading at a first-grade level but have you ever seen a first grader read? Boy, do they have a lot to learn. You should have seen her wrestle with the word “wrestle”! Ha. And man does she struggle with hyphenated words! Come on! Don’t you know what a hyphen is? Hahaha.

My daughter is bad at music. Do you know what Mozart was doing at her age? Well, my daughter has a dog guitar. All she has to do is strum or push one of the many buttons and the guitar does the rest. Instead, my daughter strums and pushes all the buttons at once. You know who would not be impressed? Mozart.

My daughter is bad at numbers. She counts to twenty and is okay right up until thirteen, fourteen, sixteen, seventeen–. I stop her. Wo-wo-wo! What happened to fifteen? She has no explanation. In Spanish she skips seventeen?! ¿Por que, mujer? And no, little woman, that is not chapter “one v”. Don’t you know what a Roman numeral is? Sigh.

My daughter is bad at hummus. She double dips. Some say, hey, so what if a four-year-old double dips a chip? But she doesn’t double dip a chip. She double dips her whole hand.

My daughter is bad at pronouns. “May I please carry you?” she asks. “That’d be nice.” I reply. But then she runs up and expects me to carry her!?

My daughter is bad at fine motor skills. You should see her struggle with a piece of scotch tape. Trust me. She is the last person you want operating on you.

My daughter is bad at time. “What time is it?” I ask, casually. “Ninety-four,” she answers, confidently. “That’s not a time!” I protest. “Yes, it is,” she insists. And no matter how much evidence I offer to the contrary, she’s unmoved.

My daughter is bad at earth. “What planet is this?” she asks. “Jeez. Don’t you know anything?” I reply. “This is earth.” she says. “What are you a lawyer now–” “What’s a lawyer?” “–asking rhetorical questions?” “What’s ‘rhetorical’?” she asks. “Woman, do I have to explain everything to you?”

I’ve heard that the shortcomings of the kids are really the shortcomings of the parents. But I’m not three foot four. I’m very good at fifteen. And I do not call a large, semi-aquatic mammal a “hippo-mo-potamus”. No, this is all on her. Maybe she’ll get it one day. Maybe. But I’m starting to think this whole raising someone tough enough for this planet is going to take years.