DaddySaidSo.com

This past weekend, my wife was down in Maryland visiting relatives for what promises to be the last time she’ll be allowed on a plane until after baby #2 arrives.  As an aside, we hope that her arrival won’t be delayed nearly as long as my wife’s flight was (thank you Southwest).

Anyway, with my wife away I had a perfect excuse to take some time off from work.  “Sorry, can’t work on those days.  My wife’s out of town and it’s a Daddy/Daughter weekend.”  We took advantage of the time off and went to visit some of my side of the family.  Friday we hung out with my brother, and took “M” bowling for the first time.

Saturday we drove into Boston to meet the grandparents and great uncle et al. for a day of touristy bliss at the New England Aquarium and Faneuil Hall.  We had a great day. McKenna was her typically calm, yet curious self and my ego got a fair amount of stroking from everybody’s comments about how smart and well behaved my little girl was.

Now I pretend not to care about these compliments, and I question to what degree they are even deserved, because after all, who am I to take credit for my daughter being so wonderful, but when all is said and done, I love the positive feedback.  I contemplated this for a while and arrived at the conclusion that all new parents experience this to some extent, probably because when you’re given an important responsibility like being a parent without any sort of instruction manual, the positive feedback from friends and family is the only reassurance you have that you are not screwing things up royally.  

I know I’m not alone in this.  All I have to do is think about the looks I see on my patients’ faces when I’m examining their sick child.  Their eyes always say the same two things.  First, tell me my kid is going to be fine.  Second, tell me that I did everything I was supposed to do for them. 

Even though we’re both healthcare professionals, my wife and I felt it every time we brought McKenna in for her pediatrician check ups.  Did she gain enough weight?  Are we giving her enough “tummy time”?  Tell me how awesome we are because she’s 6 months old and she’s never had even a small diaper rash. 

Wait a minute.  Did I say the ONLY reassurance?  Turns out I was mistaken.  You see, I have been getting feedback from someone whose opinion is even more meaningful.  My daughter.  She’s getting to that age now where she does a much better job of communicating her wishes.  Sometimes she does this with more urgency and volume than I would like, but…

Now, of course she doesn’t tell me “Way to go Dad!” or “You’re doing great with this whole discipline thing.”  But, I see it in other ways.  I commented to my wife the other day how cool I thought it was when I could carry my sleeping daughter from point A to point B without so much as a single muscle fiber in her body tensing up.  There’s just something about that limp body and that dead weight that lets you know that you are trusted.  What could be cooler than that?  All parents want their children to feel this way.

As I drove through the fog yesterday it suddenly dawned on me why I found this so appealing.  Like a flashback from some old Developmental Psychology final exam I thought of Erikson’s stages.  Anyone remember the first stage?  That’s right — Trust vs. Mistrust.  By some objective measure, my daughter appears to be growing up normally and is on her way to becoming a healthy well-adjusted adult.  How much of that has to do with me, I don’t know and I really don’t care.  As long as she gets there.

Maybe I like the feedback so much not because of what it says about me and my parenting, but because of what it says about my daughter.

New England Aquarium