Daddy, Seriously

            I was vacuuming. She was in the shower. I propped open the bathroom door for a moment to quickly sweep the tiled floor with the vacuum.

            At this point, the 7-year-old poked her head out from behind the shower curtain.

            “Daddy, seriously,” she said. “I’m taking a shower in here and I want some peace!”

            I stared ahead, looking into the eyes of this child I helped bring into the world, and I wasn’t sure what I was seeing. She ducked back behind the curtain, merrily applying conditioner to her hair. I closed the door, shaking my head with wonder.

            My girls are changing before my eyes. There was a time when they wanted me around them all the time – to read to them, to play make-believe school with them, to dance with them. Now my girls, who are 10 and 7, are more content watching TV, fiddling with their iTouches, or playing around with makeup. A few days ago, they took the tissues out of every Kleenex box in the house and turned the boxes into two pairs of make-believe ice skates. We have a giant stack of tissues in the living room, and torn pieces of cardboard all over the floor.

            “For the past 10 years,” I told my older one the other day, “I believe I’ve been a great father. But I am honestly not sure how to parent you right now.”

            Katie, the 10-year-old, is leading this change. She, after all, is the one who’s genuinely entering a new life stage. Her pre-pubescent hormones are leading her to all kinds of emotions and moods, and I am quickly learning that I need to pick my battles. I also need to understand that privacy is becoming more important to her, and that’s not necessarily a problem. Chelsea, the younger one, is more or less tagging along. She’s still just a little one, but she’s not going to let Katie enter this sassy phase alone.

            I have thoroughly enjoyed raising two daughters, and have embraced everything from the princess movies to the baby dolls to the boy bands. But right now, I could really use a little guy who wants to have a catch in the backyard. I could use a LEGO Star Wars video game, or a burping contest.

            Alas.

All summer long, their infatuation was with an Australian show about teenage mermaids. They watched and taped the show every day, then reenacted scenes from it with each other. They used their Flip video cameras to create mermaid stories. They stared up at the moon to see if it would turn them into mermaids. They made plans for mermaid Halloween costumes.

After letting them watch back-to-back episodes of the show, I’d ask them to stop. They’d whine and ask for more. I’d put my foot down. The battle was on, and eventually they’d give up. Then, a few minutes later, I’d hear something upstairs. Yes, they’d turned on Katie’s computer, logged onto YouTube, and found another episode of the show.

Mom and Dad have their work cut out for them. And remember, Katie is only 10. There are many more adventures ahead. But I think this is a lot more than my kids copping an attitude; they are, after all, always wonderfully behaved in public. They do care deeply about their family members and friends. They do, eventually, clean their rooms. And they still love to tell and listen to stories.

I think this new life stage that Katie is entering (with Chelsea in tow) requires some adjustments from Dad. I’ve got to come at things from a different perspective now, and parent my 10-year-old with an eye toward making sure that I’m the kind of dad she wants to come to with problems when she’s 16 or 17. If it means I sit down and watch some mermaid TV, or pop upstairs to watch them dance for a while, then so be it. If it means we negotiate over the iTouch play time, or they clean their rooms once a month instead of once a week, then so be it. If it means I bend a little on some rules, only to clarify which ones are non-negotiable, then so be it.

A few days ago, we were walking through a wooded path toward a gorgeous, rocky beach in Plymouth, Mass. We were with our dear friends, and had spent a lovely weekend with them. As we walked and chatted, Katie took one of my hands, and Chelsea took the other. It was only for a couple of minutes that they both held on, but it was enough.

Enough to remind this father that he’s still relevant. Still needed. Still loved. Daddy, seriously – that stuff doesn’t change.