Confessions of a dad of a teenage daughter

She’s heading off to high school tomorrow. My little girl, the one I walked to her first day of kindergarten with just yesterday (it seems), will jump on the subway tomorrow morning and head off to her new school. She won’t need us to help get her there. She’s old enough to figure that stuff out on her own now. Time has just flown by. I can’t quite believe it.
day 1

Of course every parent further along than us told us to expect this. But honestly, it just doesn’t make sense until it happens to you. The little girl that needed us for every single thing in her life, is now entering a new era of independence. She has her own friends. She’s forming her own ideas. She has her own interests and hobbies. She’s becoming her own person.
And that is precisely what’s bugging me.

She’s excited about tomorrow. And somewhat anxious. The usual stuff.
I’m just plain freaked out!

There are so many unknowns. So many questions. Will she like it there? Who will her friends be? What kinds of decisions will she make? And that big one that any self-respecting dad would ask, who will she date (and does pain need to be threatened if she gets hurt:)?

She’s a really good person. She’s a great friend. She’s extremely talented. I’m proud of her.
And I really like her as a human being.
She’s picked up my dry and somewhat sarcastic sense of humour, which has led to a lot of laughs (we especially like to watch and laugh at really bad and cringe-worthy Christian television). We like some of the same music and tv shows. She’s inherited her mother’s kind and gentle spirit. As a family, we love to play board games together. And we all love to share in very spicy foods from all over the world. She’s privileged enough to be well travelled and has also been around our friends on the street, making her very inclusive and non-judgmental of people who appear different than her.
She’s good people.

So even though she doesn’t need us in the same way she used to, and even though I’ve been caught off guard with how much of a struggle this is for me, I know she still needs us. Just in different ways.
I just hope and pray that we can be there for her in the ways she needs us in this new chapter of her life.

And that through the coming ups and downs we can all have a ton of fun along the way.

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