Fatherhood is a part of my job description that at times plays a very prominent role in my day to day work or sometimes falls into the “other duties as assigned category”.
Nothing really prepares you for some of the curve balls that a child can toss at you in the innocent form of a question. This week it seemed that my daughter wanted to see if she could add another type of pitch to her repertoire, the screwball.
Sure there are several mommy/daddy blogs out there, but let’s face it, I don’t have a whole lot of spare time to build them into my reading process. Besides, that tends to take out the fun element when you’re dealing with the sheer terror of not having an answer to a question asked.
The scenario started pretty innocuous. How was your day? Did you get an “A” on your behavior chart for the day? What did you learn? But then it moved to the “Daddy, this boy called me stupid” region and I was completely caught off guard.
“Why?” seemed the simplest place to start, so I started to use my years of HR training and asked some more probing questions. “It’s because I’m French” replied my daughter “and this boy says that French people are stupid”. Crap, this isn’t in the manual was the only thought I could muster.
“Maybe he likes you?” I said, knowing full well that it wasn’t the case. “No he doesn’t daddy, he’s just mean” came the reply. “He’s said this to me before” and then the tears started to well up in her bright blue eyes.
My daughter is in a gifted class and most of the kid’s exhibit incredibly competitive behavior when it comes to reading and math, but none of them are just downright mean. “I’m tired of being bullied” she said to me, with the tears flowing.
I wiped the tears away and pulled her close and hugging her I said “You are a smart, amazing, and loving little girl who will change the world someday. Don’t listen to the boys who put you down, their opinion doesn’t matter”.
My mother-in-law saw this exchange and agreed with me. Then she provided the best bit of comic relief that made us all laugh. “Katherine, you have nothing to worry about because you’re not French” she said, “Your Mother hasn’t gotten you your passport”.
Katherine looks at me, wipes her eyes and says “I guess we need to help mommy then” and bounces out of the room looking for my wife to go ask about getting her passport.
I wonder if I’ll have to add passport technician to the job description soon?
