WHATCHA THINK, DAD?
Teenage Girls Haven’t Figured it Out Yet
Women who remember being teenage girls try to explain
I was at a swim meet this weekend, surrounded by dads in the bleachers. Dads are easy company. They’ve got like eighteen different expressions for shrugging. I hate to stereotype but we moms overthink. Not all of us, but many of us.
One dad, who I was talking to, was waiting for his teenage daughter to show up. That morning, she wouldn’t come out of her hotel room to swim in her state events. It reminded me of the girl in the itsy bitsy teenie weenie yellow polka dot bikini.
The man’s wife was hanging out with the daughter while he came to the meet. He’d volunteered to be a timer whether his daughter swam or not.
Most of the moms, myself included, were analyzing his daughter for him. We were discussing teenage daughters and our own experiences being teenage daughters. It was like a psychology conference where we were a panel weighing in, all experts.
The dad listened and made several of his eighteen expressions for, “I don’t know, maybe.” Because he kept listening, we kept analyzing.
We talked about secrecy, promiscuity, neurosis, alcohol, drugs, body shame, bullying, internet influences, changes in friendships, dating, and developing bodies. The dad nodded at all of our analyses.
None of our speeches got a bigger nod from him than any of the others. He looked like one of those bobblehead dogs, politicians, or hula girls you stick to your dashboard.
Occasionally, the dad would look at his phone and read us a text from his wife. He’d inform us his daughter was still not coming. He’d sigh and tell us when his daughter missed another event. We nodded. We understood. We were women who had been teenage daughters.
At some point, one of us asked the dad what he thought. I’d like to say it was me, but who knows? He lifted his brows, pursed his lips. He said, “I just wish she would decide whether she wanted to swim or whether she didn’t want to swim. I don’t care what she decides. I just want an answer.”
I laughed. I wanted to hug him. It made me miss my own father. He wanted her decisions to be black and white, yeses or nos. He wanted his daughter to know her own mind. It was adorable.
My dad has been dead for over two decades. I remember sitting across from him as a teenage girl as he watched me like I was an alien. He didn’t live with us, so when we went out for a meal, it was a father-daughter date. We were supposed to catch up, get to know each other, connect, and make up for lost time.
I remember his expression when I rattled on about something that mattered to me. I am not a mild woman, nor was I a mild teenage girl. I’m shocked I can walk by an electrical socket without it sparking. I’m intense and as a teenager, I had no interest or ability in being calm for other people's sake.
As a teenage daughter, I remember passionately bloviating about something to my dad and his perplexed expression as he sat across from me. Now and then, I would say, “What do you think, dad?” I desperately wanted to know.
That always caught him off guard, as if he were at a concert and the lead singer jumped into the audience and handed him a microphone and said “Sing it, man!”
Sometimes, dad would lift his enormous Russian eyebrows and say, “huh.” Other times, he’d say, “You’re a strange person, Amy.” But mostly, he’d hit the ball back into my court by saying, “I don’t know, kid. What do you think?”
Looking at this dad waiting for his daughter to make sense made me feel compassion for all parties involved. Men with daughters. Daughters with fathers. Totally different languages, but greatest love story ever.
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