There is construction on the road I take home from my office
at 5 o’ clock. I keep forgetting that there is construction on the road that I
take home from my office at 5 o’ clock. Once you are on the road that has
construction, getting off it will only delay you more. I mention this because,
during the winter, my kids go to bed at 7:30. That means, if my commute takes
an extra 25 minutes on the way home, because I forgot that there is
construction on the road I take home from work at 5 o’ clock, then I have about 45
minutes with my kids before it is time to start their bed time routine. Yesterday,
as I sat with the other poor saps who forgot about the construction, I decided
to call Stevie and have her put Duchess on the phone. At least then I could have a
little more time, even if it was as a disembodied voice on the other side of
her Angry Birds machine. When Stevie picked up the phone I heard this:

“Duchess is in trouble. You’re going to have to take
away her clock.”

I’ll explain the clock. Remember Duchess’s bed time routine with the sticker board? Every night she was good and didn’t wake up Captain, she
got to put a sticker on her board. When she filled the board she got to pick a
toy at the store. Duchess didn’t want a toy. Duchess wanted a clock. She’s been
kind of obsessed with time lately. She was always asking us what time it was.
So when she picked out a cool little digital clock for her reward, I was not surprised
at all. It quickly became her prized possession. We’d be playing in the living
room, and she’d stop me and say “Daddy, can I go look at my clock?” Then she’d run to her room and run back out to tell us all what time it was.

Well, another thing that has been happening lately is that
Duchess has been getting in scuffles at Daycare. I’m sure there are multiple
factors to this including: a little, and newly mobile, brother getting in her
stuff all the time, a sleep schedule that is not as consistent as we would like
it, and Duchess is just tough and doesn’t take crap from anyone. But hitting is
bad, and we’ve told her this. Nothing worked until I finally told her that if
the daycare told me she hit again I would take away her clock. We told her
teacher about the threat, and it has been part of the messaging at daycare ever since.
That put a stop to the hitting – until yesterday. So… back to me in traffic.
Sigh…

“Tell her I am mad at her for hitting. Explain I am
coming home to have a talk with her, and that I will be taking away her
clock.”

“OK. I’m sorry honey.”

“Don’t be sorry. It was my threat. It’s my job to follow
through. I’m going to be awhile.”

“Did you forget about the construction on 7^th
again?”

“Yes.”

Well shit. I can see the tears spilling out of her
abnormally large eyes as her mom sends her to her room. I can hear the tiny
little air gasps that are far worse than the tantrum that will precede them. I
can predict the loss of breath as the air is sucked from the room while I
unplug her clock, her favorite clock, the clock she takes pride in, the clock
that makes her happy. I slam my fists on the steering wheel and accidentally
honk my horn. The guy in front of me looks back and lifts his hands in the air as
if to say “You should have known this construction was here. It is always
here.” I wave back. “I know. I know.”

I remember being a kid, waiting in my room for my dad to come
home and punish me a few times. Strangely, I don’t remember any of the reasons. I
just remember the dread. I remember formulating my story. What would I say? How
would I explain what happened in a way that would assuage his anger? How could
I make things right?

Now I am on the other side of it, and nothing much had
changed. All I can think is, “What am I going to say? How will I explain
what was happening? Do I pretend to be angry, or do I let her see how sad I am?
How can I make things right?” The car in front of me moves six feet. I
follow suit.

This has been one of my biggest challenges as a parent.
Hell, this has been one of my biggest challenges as a person. I have this
horrible obsession with fixing things, and with being right. When it comes to
math, when it comes to facts, when it comes to the Green Bay Packers being the
greatest football team in the history of the world, being right is easy. When
it comes to being a parent, almost everything lives in this grey area of “maybe.”

Should we let Duchess try out the big slide on the
playground by herself? Maybe. Give it a shot and see what happens. Oh look, she
fell on her face. Is that bad? Maybe. Should we give Captain peanut butter?
Maybe. Give it a shot and see what happens. Oh look, no hives. Does that mean
he’s not allergic? Maybe. Should we spank our kids? Probably not. Oh look, they
still don’t listen to us. Is that because we don’t spank them? Maybe. What if I
take away her most prized possession in the world? Will that work better?
Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. The problem with
traffic is it gives you too much time to think.

I decide to call the
daycare to get more of the story. Turns out she didn’t just hit one kid. She
hit three kids. Well, it was a combination of hitting and pushing.

“Did they hit back? Or did she just clear the room
Jacky Chan style?” My joke doesn’t get a laugh. She will have to check
with the teacher. Now all I can picture is my tiny Duchess bicycle kicking some
kid in the face while using various pieces of adorably sized furniture to fling
kids around the room like rag dolls.

Or something like this… without the pads.

What am I going to do? What if she gets kicked out of
daycare? Maybe I should put her in karate. Maybe she is destined to fight
crime. Would that help? Maybe. You can go to hell maybe. You can go straight to
hell. I look at the time on my dash board and all I can think about is her
little clock. It changes colors every few minutes from red to green to blue to
yellow. It transitions gradually and becomes each intermediary color in between.
When she watches it with her eyes wide, her face is a smiling rainbow. Shit.
Shit. Shit. I hit the steering wheel again. Honk again. Wave sorry again. This
guy must think I am crazy.

This is driving me crazy. Not this specific situation. The
ifs. The ifs are driving me crazy. The ifs are my life now. Is this how it was
for my parents? Were they just as clueless about how to do this as I am? I
don’t know how to make a good person. Hell, I’m 32 and I just barely learned
how to make a proper over easy egg. What if taking her clock away breaks her?
What if I just sit her down and explain how society works. Violence is not an
acceptable reaction in our society, except in movies, and on television, and
even in the Disney movie you just fell in love with. Yes. Frozen. The geniuses
at Disney spent an entire beautiful movie flipping the fairy tail princess
story on its head, defying gender rolls, making true love an act that is given
instead of received, telling the story of two women trying to connect with, and
love, each other, and then in the last 3 minutes of the movie have the main protagonist
needlessly punch a guy directly in the face. Then everyone laughs, including my
daughter. Thanks Disney for making violence against men a joke. Would you mind
calling our daycare?

Of course it isn’t Disney’s fault. It’s probably no one’s
fault. It is probably an amalgam of circumstances, both in and out of our
control, that have lead to my daughter becoming an unstoppable ninja. And yet,
it falls to my wife and I to fix it. AS SOON AS I GET OUT OF THIS
TRAFFIC! JESUS, IS THERE SOMETHING WRONG UP THERE? I poke my head out of the car.
Nope. Just construction.

Here’s what I decide. No yelling. I will remain calm but
stern. I will walk into Duchess’s room and discuss what happened. I will be persistent
and make her tell me why she is in trouble. I will make her tell me what her punishment
is. I will take away her clock. I will understand that she will react to this
poorly, and I will allow myself to accept her reaction as who she is in that
moment. I will love her AND be mad at her. I will know that this may not be the
right thing to do, but it is the best
way I know how to do it at that moment. I can’t always be right anymore. I’m a
parent now. If I worry about being right all the time, I will be perpetually
stuck in traffic forever, over-analyzing every decision I need to make, and
never making any. I don’t need to always be right, I need to strive to be less
wrong.

I take a deep breath and let that be it. I feel the
tightness in my jaw and my shoulders slowly let go. Tonight is going to be
rough. My 45-60 minutes with my kids before bedtime are going to be tearful and
loud and I can’t fix that. But I can do my best, and that is going to have to be
enough.

The car in front of me starts to move slowly, then a little
quicker. It’s my turn. One more deep breath to calm down. The guy behind me
honks. I wave. I know. I know. The gas pedal descends and I head home to do my
best – to be less wrong. 

Thanks for sitting in traffic with me, 

Dad (John)

P.S. Oh yeah, don’t forget to come hang out on the Ask Your Dad Facebook Page. We have a lot of fun.