My job, to be her father, the thing no other person on this planet can be. Maybe her mother’s new husband could be too, but one difference, for him it’s optional and renounceable, for me, for incontrovertible reasons of biology, it’s not.
Trouble is, that’s a near impossibility, listen to the knowingness of that laughter, the quickness with which my daughter will be laughed at or excluded if she isn’t knowing herself. Look at the shops we’ll pass on the way home, bras, sex toys, lipstick, teenage magazines with advice on blowjobs.
This however magnifying the father role, what I can be is the one person who doesn’t get involved in all that. Resolutely asexual in fact. A bit staid. Someone who she’ll shrug her shoulders about, say, he doesn’t get it, it’s a generation thing, things have changed so much since he was young.
My job, to be the one male that she can be absolutely certain loves her without reference to sex, loves her just because she is who she is.
Wonder if one day she’ll become like one of those girls I see online, escorts, pornstars, so on, Or do other stuff I’m not really interested in, bondage, lesbianism, suchlike. Well, her free choice, who am I to pass judgment? I’d rather not know. If I ever did, so what, she’s still my daughter, I’d still love her, the two of us in our own unique world, that other stuff belongs in another, and I’d act in such a way to make sure she knows that.
Dragging herself away from her friends, giving me a hug and a kiss. Holding my hand, walking away. Me thinking, well there’s a lot of time before all that becomes an issue, meanwhile I’ll just try to be a reference point of love and dependability as best I can.
