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Too Fast, Too Soon |
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| November 19, 2008
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I was thirty-two when my wife gave birth to our first child. In the months before our daughter's arrival, I performed numerous calculations and scenarios in my head: I will be forty-eight when she receives her driver's license, fifty when she graduates high school, ninety-eight when she has sex for the first time, and so on. I started to wonder how many of her adult milestones I would still be alive for. But if this past month is any indication, I'll be forty by the time she's all grown up. I have watched as the artwork made at preschool, Vacation Bible Schools, and kindergarten that once adorned her bedroom walls has been replaced by pinups of her favorite Radio Disney crooners. The little girl that used to love Dora The Explorer has turned her affections to High School Musical. An afternoon spent listening to a band playing kids' music in the park has been swapped for tickets to a Cheetah Girls concert. I have noticed the girl that once joined in with me for a chorus of "Mommy, clothes don't have to match!" has started meticulously picking out her outfits for school. My goofy jokes, songs, and dance numbers that once elicited laughter are now met with eye rolling. At least my son still appreciates me. Advertisement Did I mention she's only six?This past weekend, my wife and I were foolish enough to invite two of her classmates over for a slumber party. During the course of the evening and the next day, I learned two valuable lessons: it's going to be a long time before I host another slumber party and my daughter is not that much different from other girls her age. I pray for us all. Once the guests arrived, I was informed of the strict "No Boys Allowed" policy and was told that my son and I would be spending the rest of the evening upstairs. Of course, this ban was lifted an hour later when they couldn't figure out how to switch from the DVD player to the TV. Later on, I thought it was cute listening to them giggle and share secrets while lying in their sleeping bags. The cuteness wore off somewhere around midnight. But there were times when the girls forgot I was the enemy and let me join in on their fun. They made up songs while I played the keyboard. They pretended they were teachers and I was an unruly student (which is kind of like a game my wife and I play, but that might be more fitting for Kristen's Mominatrix column). We played a few card games and I even beat the girls at a Hannah Montana trivia game. Which is sadder: the fact that a thirty-eight-year-old man knows more about Hannah Montana than three six-year-old girls or that three six-year-old girls know less about Hannah Montana than a thirty-eight-year-old man? Lie to me, please. But the weekend wasn't all fun and games. I watched three little girls primp and pose in front of a mirror like they were sorority girls heading out to a kegger. I saw one of the little girls explain to my daughter how to properly apply the lip gloss she's not allowed to wear outside of the house. I was privy to several fashion shows, watching the girls bounce down an imaginary catwalk. Do they show these at school? Because unless my wife has been sharing episodes of America's Next Top Model with my daughter, I have no idea who has been feeding her this information. I saw my daughter pretend she was Hannah Montana. One girl was her tour manager while the other girl was in charge of poster sales. I'll admit that when I was my daughter's age, I liked to pretend I was a member of Kiss. But my friends and I were content strumming tennis rackets while singing along to LPs; we weren't aware of the whole marketing force behind our shows. But by far the worst thing I saw this weekend was the girls taking turns paring up and attacking the third child. While I would like to attribute most of this behavior to a lack of sleep, deep down inside I know that's just what happens when you get a group of girls together. My wife, on the other hand, blames this and all of society's ills on Hannah Montana. I wasn't expecting to tackle these problems until she was in middle school at the earliest. I'm dreading the high school years. |
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"We all suffer from the preoccupation that there exists... in the loved one, perfection." -- Sidney Poitier
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