What’s A Father to Do?

I stopped by Ex Wife’s today to pick up KatyBeth, and my munchkin met me at the door, grabbed my hand, and proudly marched me back to her bedroom.

“Lookit, Daddy!” she exclaimed proudly, “I cleaned it all up by myself! Aren’t you proud of me?”

And it was clean. Spotless, in fact. Not a toy out of place, all her shoes lined up neatly under her bed, all her clothes placed in their respective drawers or hung in the closet where they belonged, even her bed was made.

“I’m very proud of you,” I said, hugging her fiercely. “Now go get your backpack and let’s get on the road.”

Five minutes later, she walked into the living room wearing that pensive, on-the-edge-of-tears expression she gets when she’s afraid I’m disappointed with her. She climbed onto my lap, interrupting my conversation with Husband In Law, and lay her head on my chest.

“What’s wrong, Katy?” I asked, and she immediately dissolved into tears. It took a few moments before I could understand what she was saying. With the poor breath control resulting from her cerebral palsy, my daughter is not the loudest of children anyway, and when she gets upset, she’s almost inaudible.

“I didn’t really clean my room,” she sobbed. “Shannon did all the work, and I just helped a little bit. They told me to tell you I did it all by myself so you’d be proud of me.”

“I’m proud of you for lots of things, KatyBeth,” I answered. “You don’t have to lie to me to make me proud of you.”

“Are you disappointed in me?” she asked fearfully.

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Now I ask you, how do I answer that? To KatyBeth, disappointing her daddy is a fate worse than death. I’ve always been a believer in the value of judiciously applied corporal punishment, but with KatyBeth it’s mainly a theoretical argument. I can wound her more with a facial expression and tone of voice than I ever could with a swat on the rear.

As much as I make of the physical toughness that allows her to face innumerable physical obstacles and prevail, my daughter is a very tender creature emotionally.

That’s going to be a far bigger handicap than her cerebral palsy when it comes time to teach her to defend herself. I don’t relish teaching my daughter that, when her safety is in question, a hard heart and a lack of remorse will be her most useful weapon.

But for the time being, I am grateful that my daughter has a conscience.

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“I’m disappointed that you lied to me,” I answered gently, “but let me ask you a question. Why did you tell me this?”

“Because I didn’t want you to be proud of me for something I didn’t do,” she sobbed. “Please don’t be mad at me.”

“I’m not mad,” I sighed with relief. “More than anything, I’m proud that you felt guilty enough about it to confess.”

“You’re not mad? Not even a little bit?”

It was all I could do to keep from tearing up myself, much less manage a stern face. “No, I’m not mad,” I answered, “but when we get home, you’ve got another bedroom to clean, and this time, I only help with the parts you can’t handle by yourself.”

I hope I handled this the right way, but being a parent is to become intimate with uncertainty. You never know.