July 18, 2006

You are not, a seven-year-old female client pointed out to me, a father of girls. You are a father of boys.

So, I said, you mean you're different. You mean I don't necessarily know about that difference.

She nodded and continued, You don't know about girls.

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She is right, of course, her observation is correct. I am the father of three sons. I don't know what it's like to be the father of a girl. And yet, I am reminded of a song by a German song-writer, Reinhard Mey, who in one of his more recent songs sings (roughly translated): "I am the son of a woman, married to a woman, the father of a daughter . . . how could I not be a feminist? Likewise, I'd like to say: I am the son of a woman, the brother of a woman, the husband of a woman . . . how would I not know about girls? Quite to the contrary, in an odd paradoxical kind of way, I feel like saying, I've always known about girls, but it's only been in the last 10 years that I have come to know about boys. But, frankly, that doesn't help removing the sting of my client's observation. As a father, I know so preciously little about girls. So, I ask myself, what have I observed?

I have observed, often, how a certain tenderness passes between a father and his daughter. Something of indescribable lightness and affection. A glance that one could confuse with romantic love, if noticed sans context.

I have observed, and bashfully looked away, the kiss that's exchanged. Somtimes on the cheek, sometimes even on the mouth.

I have observed the call "Daddy"/"Papa" and its sweetness. A call that, all at once, suggests closeness and intimacy, distance and difference, a sense of place that is separate yet able to find long periods of congruence.

I have observed the response, "honey"/"darling"/"sweetheart"/"Schatz"/"meine Suesse" and in it I have heard a sense of fullness and satisfaction . . . a sense of completion.

I have observed, rare though it has been, the fury and rage that can come to pass between a daughter and a father. Forces of nature released that tranform each into something almost akin to an animal.

I have observed, too, that such anger often comes connected to the desperate struggle for a resolution between the forces of protection and independence.

Even less frequently I have observed distance, an insurmountable chasm of nothingness that stretches out between a father and a daughter.

Never have I observed, though I suspect it exists, loathing between a daughter and a father.


Am I romanticizing? Am I projecting, transfering, hoping? I don't know.
As I'm writing this, it is becoming clear to me that I miss having a daughter. I miss it in the way you miss something you know will never come to be.

I wonder,
how many girls would I have had in me?

I wonder,
what would they have looked like?

I wonder,
who would they have looked like?

I wonder,
how would I have loved them?

I wonder,
what would I have found in me?

I wonder,
what would they have found in me?


Please, don't say/think/suggest/believe I don't love my three boys. I love them!
It is just that, sometimes, I yearn for that otherness of love.