My daughter aka Dependent No. 1 is 13.
And like most women on my side of the family, she has developed healthily at an early age – on her chest. As such, boys ranging in ages from 10 to 16 like to stop by and visit her. Normally, this takes place in the shade of the tree in our front yard. Sometimes these “visits” take place in the form of boys trying to watch her while she is in the pool in back.
Being a former young man, I know what is important to teenage boys. (That would be getting’ a look.) But now, I am in a transitional phase in my life: I am going from being “A Guy” to “A Dad, so I had the fence around the back yard replaced.
I have explained to my daughter the boys who come around like her for more than just her personality. She, being wise for her age, knows this. But her wisdom has not extended to her wardrobe as shown by her choice to wear a shirt one day that read “100% Natural” across the chest. After a friend (“A Young Guy”) walked around pointing at her chest saying, “Hey, they’re real!” she stopped wearing the shirt.
I was taking a nap when my wife screamed, “Get your *ss out here now!”
Knowing my wife, my angel, would never speak to me in such a way, I closed my eyes.
“Get your *ss out here now, Troy!”
So she does talk like a sailor.
She threw open the door and pulled up in front of our house were two local police cars. And sitting on the curb behind the one across the street was my sweet Dependent No. 1, who had her arms behind her back in a way that meant she had new jewelry.
In the front of the car, sat Justin, a soft-faced, spectacled teen who reminded me of a child star from the 70s. (Yes, I’m that old.)
I recognized him from a few times when he had come by the house to talk to my daughter and had to be told to leave when he got creepy. He had tried peeking through our fence when she was out back a few times as well.
I was standing in my jeans with no shoes or shirt and a police officer walks up to me. (Man, I’m always underdressed when I talk to police.)
“You live here?”
I slowly looked back at the open door I just walked out of and replied, “Yes.”
Nodding in the direction of my daughter, he asked if she were mine.
“She’s my wife and mine,” I said, hoping to spread the blame in the eyes of the law.
He grinned knowingly. He must be “A Dad,” too.
“It seems she was attacked, and she defended herself,” Officer Dad said. “Apparently, the boy came up to her and said something and then poured his soda on her. She yelled at him and he tried to hit her. Then she asserted herself.”
“By asserted, you mean she hit him?” I asked.
“Repeatedly, and with accuracy. She seems to have come out on top in the matter,” Officer Dad said. “She’s not in trouble since it started out as self-defense.”
“OK. But to clarify – she whooped up on him?” I asked.
The cops asked if I wanted to press charges and I told them “not this time,” but I wanted his parents to understand he needed to stay away so there would be no trouble.
My daughter would later cry and say she was worried the other guys – one was her “boyfriend” Kevin – would think she was a freak or be scared of her. I explained that all boys were scared of girls and she was not a freak. Moreover, Kevin probably felt impotent that he did not do anything to defend her, I said. I also told her not to take the connotation of impotent the wrong way.
When she calmed down, we visited some of the boys’ parents and explained what happened. An hour or so of MySpace conversations alleviated her concerns about what the boys thought – she was now cool for beating up a high school freshman creep.
I don’t think violence is a proper answer for normal problems. But as A Dad, I smile a lot when I think of my daughter.
Kevin, don’t make her mad. She hits like A Girl.