'Daddy doesn't do my socks right.'

Fathers and daughters forge special relationships.

Aug 27, 2022

Ed. Note: This column is intended for fathers of daughters. The rest of you will simply not understand. So, if you’re not the father of a daughter, feel free to check-out right now, and go do something else - that movie directed by the guy who played the intern on The Office is pretty good, for a first-time director, although it takes kind of a dark turn at the end. Or, maybe take a nice long bike ride, or take a French lesson - Duolingo’s online offering is probably an effective tool - I mean, I’ve been completing at least one lesson a day for almost two years now, and the only French word I’ve learned is, “pasteque,” which means “watermelon,” but, you know, don’t go by me, because I’m a slow learner.

I entered the brotherhood of fathers in 1986, upon the birth of my first son, Tim. A couple of years later, Patrick joined our brood. But, it wasn’t until 1994, when my daughter, Emily was born, that I earned the honorific, “Father of a daughter.”

Perhaps the most effective way to describe the unique experience afforded by being the father of a daughter is to share with you a series of vignettes drawn from my own personal journey in that role. A word of caution: Actual results may vary, although I believe I might detect a couple of knowing nods and smiles from several of you, as you read on.

Firstly, on the day of Emily’s birth (Really? You’re taking us all the way back to day one? Geez, how long is this piece gonna’ be?), my wife I were headed to the hospital, and stopped at a Walgreen’s on the way there, to buy a baby-name book - I suppose we had developed a process for determining baby-names for boys, but, this girl-thing was new to us. I think we did okay with Emily though, right?

Alright, I’ll jump ahead a few years, to a point at which Emily was two-years-old, and enjoyed tagging along with me on a Saturday morning, as I ran errands (as opposed to her eldest brother, who created a ruckus if I introduced unplanned stops into an errand journey: “Why are we stopping at the grocery store? This is an unauthorized stop, and we will not be stopping there - take me home now!'“), although, in retrospect, I may not have offered her a choice. We stopped off at the dry cleaners, and as we were reentering the car to leave, I secured her in her car-seat, and closed the car door, not realizing that Emily had placed her hand in the door jamb as I did so.

Her fingers took the hit, and she immediately poured forth with a torrent of tears and screaming. Being quick on my feet, I realized that she required immediate attention. . .from her mother. So, we raced home, where my wife and I were able to calm Emily, and examine the damage, believing that she was not irreparably harmed. That afternoon, I was scheduled to attend a Northwestern football game with some friends, but having “broken” my daughter, I didn’t feel I could leave her, albeit in the capable hands of my wife. After a period of time, however, we believed that Emily was fine, and simply needed to rest. And so, off I went to the football game, returning home several hours later. And, discovered that my wife had spent the entire afternoon in the Emergency Room at the hospital, as Emily received necessary medical attention. For many months afterward, Emily volunteered, at times to complete strangers, “My Daddy slammed the car door on my hand, VERRRRY HARD!”

Needless to say, I was not in the running for “Father of the Year” for 1996.

A year or two later, my wife needed to travel out of town for a couple of days, which required that I manage all aspects of childcare in our household, including the two boys, and Emily. Children focus on the most curious elements of life. In Emily’s case, at this point in her life, a critical component for her was the proper placement of her socks, a task which my wife had mastered, and one to which I had not yet even been introduced. But, I studied the game-film, and believed that I was equipped to successfully execute this very important step in Emily’s day. To this day, I cannot recall the key steps involved in properly placing the socks on my daughter’s feet - only that it involved pulling upward on the socks until they almost reached her knees, and then folding them back downward, in a perfectly-symmetrical style. I was unable to perform this seemingly-simple task, and, upon welcoming my wife home after an absence of a couple of days, Emily informed her that, “Daddy doesn’t do my socks right,” and further shared that, because of that moral failing on my part, she had not worn socks at all since her mother had departed a few days earlier.

Another incident that stands out in my mind, from around that period of time was an outing that included me, and the three children, driving to a bakery, in our conversion van, to purchase a set of cupcakes, for a celebration of my wife’s birthday (why not a cake, you ask? I don’t know, it was cupcakes, for Chrissake!). At a certain point in time (no, we were not traveling on a road at the time, I’m quite sure), Emily was walking up front from the seating area in the back to tell me something, and inadvertently stepped squarely on top of the cupcakes, which were gently laid on the floor, beside me. And I, believing that this was a true-to-life, amusing turn of events, resolved to serve these self-same cupcakes, with candles that evening, as we sang Happy Birthday! to my wife, rather than seeking a more-respectable replacement. Those of you who have “seen this picture before” will recognize how this story turned out. There was a best-selling book published many years ago entitled, “Men are from Mars, women are from Venus,” but it could just as easily have been christened, “Men believe that children stepping on Mom’s birthday cupcakes are true-to-life, amusing turns-of-events, women do not.”

A few years after the “cupcake incident,” Emily and I were on a biking adventure, and stopped at a delightful bed and breakfast, named the Joseph Ambler Inn, located a mile or so from our home. They had recently remodeled their guest rooms, including moving an old building a few miles down the road (which in itself was an interesting spectator event, of which we had availed ourselves), and we were invited to tour the rooms, for what reason it’s not immediately clear to me, this many years later. So, we traveled throughout the guest rooms in several different buildings, and expressed our appreciation for the tour afterwards. As Emily and I were preparing to mount our bicycles for the return trip home, she remarked how nice it was that the Inn was kind enough to share chocolates with their tour participants, as she opened her palms and displayed a handful of chocolates, which, until we had embarked upon the tour, had been safely perched atop each pillow, located on each bed, in each guest room, provided as a treat for each guest, not tour participant. I made the critical parenting decision right then to stuff the chocolates in my pants pockets, and to execute a hasty retreat from the scene, with Emily and me each pedaling as fast as we could. In my opinion, the “teachable moment” (you know, explaining the difference between guests and tour participants) could be conducted in the safety of our own home, after making good our escape.

A final interaction I’d like to share with you involved a slightly older Emily, when she was perhaps nine or ten, and, I’ll be honest with you, it doesn’t reflect terribly well on my “Father of a daughter” skills. It was Christmastime, and we were assembling as a family to set out to locate a suitable Christmas tree. As we were getting into the car, I very clearly heard Emily spout, “Alright, let’s go get the f***ing tree!” Hmm, I wonder where she heard that? That gem might have cost me the “Father of the Year” title for 2004.

Now, I don’t want to leave you with the impression that my relationship with my daughter consists only of inflicting medical pain, and committing fashion faux pas, and engaging in baked-goods mishaps, and committing petty larceny, and deploying inappropriate holiday profanity (are you picturing Ralphie from A Christmas Story, with the bar of soap in his mouth right now? Yeah, me too).

No, our relationship has also featured a million additional details, including: reading books together at bedtime (and, sometimes nodding-off while doing so); coaching her baseball teams; walking her down the aisle at her wedding; playing north of 2,000 games of gin, in our lifetime game of gin (Emily holds a slight advantage at this point); dancing together to Steely Dan at her wedding (humoring her dad); the weekly NFL football pools (typically won by Emily); and watching college football, and college basketball together (Rock Chalk, Jayhawk! and Go Blue!).

So you see, fathers and daughters can enjoy a rich, fulfilling relationship, that is very different from the one fathers have with their sons. And, I’m delighted that Emily’s husband, Mac, now has the opportunity to develop his own father-daughter relationship, with my granddaughter, Nora; as I pointed out earlier, actual results may vary, but I’m certain Mac and Nora will craft a solid relationship that will be uniquely theirs.

I believe the final word on the father/daughter dynamic should belong to John Mayer, even though I’m sure that he probably didn’t do his daughter’s socks right, either. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. John Mayer. . .

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