Daddy's little girl

So my two year old baby girl, the apple of my eye, the most beautiful and intelligent girl in the world, asks me "Daddy, can I go out with a boy?"

Now, in a fraction of the second, just after she completed the sentence, I realised that her mother put her up to this just to invoke a reaction from me for her own personal amusement. So I was determined not to give my wife the satisfaction she so desired. Within a few more fractions, I swallowed hard and pondered my response. I had already planned what I was going to say if this question ever arose.

I'd like to think that I'm one of these cool and funky fathers that will have all the correct answers he'd need to ensure that the relationship between his daughter and himself will never deteriorate because of some over-protective, shoot-any-boy-that-comes-asking-for-my-daughter urge that I usually succumb to. And so far, things were good. So with the last most minute fraction of the second, I bolstered my own negative feelings aside and began to answer her question.

"That's okay Angel, when you're older and seriously like a boy, provided that your mother agrees, and that you act accordingly to all our instructions and conditions, I see no problem with you going out with a boy."

Sound good huh? Something to be proud of, for a first time father. I should have won the "Best Daddy Ever" award for that one. Unfortunately, the words that uttered out of my mouth were, "Absolutely Not! The only way you'll go out with a snot nosed little pisser is over my dead body! I absolutely forbid it!"

It was at this time I could hear muffled laughter from the lounge where my wife and little one were co-horting. "Doh!" as "Homer" says, was the only thought that ran through my mind. I had failed, and given my wife the exact reaction she was looking for and I didn't live up to the image I was trying to portray to my little girl. So trying to hide my shame I walk into the lounge with my head lowered waiting for all the heckling to begin however was taken totally by surprise by my daughter's next question.

"Why?"

Good, I realised. Here's my chance to rectify the situation. To be the father I hoped I'd be. To be able to live up to the man some fathers hoped their little girls see. What to say now? How do I spin it my way? I'm good at this, I can do it.

"Why?! Why?! Because I said so! That's why!" WTF? Not too often to you get the chance to rectify many situations in life and when the fates hand me a moment of opportunity, what do I do, dig my already six foot grave even deeper. I give up.

Now with all that's been said and done I realise that she as yet does not understand the questions, answers and associated difficulties with these types of questions, and for that I'm thankful, 'coz if she were a teenager and this was how I'd handled it, it would definitely not been over. Well at least I've got a decade and a bit to better prepare myself.

Just thinking about this whole episode got me thinking about what if my daughter were my son. Would I have acted the same way? I seriously doubt it. If anything I'd probably take him out shopping to buy him his very first condom. Tell him about the birds and the bees, and not in the way some parents do like "When a man and woman love each other very much..." I thinks that pure bullshit and will not let my boy learn about life from some fairy-tale perspective of life. I'd get him some porn and let him know that getting your freaky on is not only about idyllic reproduction but its about fulfilling man's need to hunt, or some shit like that - If I really knew the answer to that question, life as I know it would've been completely different.

Alas, I don't know the answer to that question and my son is really my daughter (not in some soap opera kinda way), so I'lldo what every loving father would. I'd tell her the fairy-tale and pray that she only questions it's truth when she's in her forties.

So, until my next post, take it easy. And if you get it easy, take it again.