Fatherhood

He was always glad to leave the office, but he never fully relaxed until he saw the house. His house. Their home. It was only then that the long hours at that job made any sort of sense to him. There it was. Small but solid; brick; both secure and attractive. He smiled as he climbed the steps and put his hand on the doorknob.

"I'm home!" The kids didn't tackle him at the door any more, but that didn't bother him. They were here. That's all that mattered. Then a warm aroma made him suddenly very hungry and he moved towards the kitchen, towards his wife. She was stirring something thick and bubbly. He slid his hands around her waist, nestled his chin on her shoulder, and breathed a low "Mmmm."

She put down the spoon. Then took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and turned to him. Her lips were tight. "I don't know what to do with that girl," she said.

He stepped back, with his hands still on her hips. "What happened?" "Well she comes back from school late again and wants a snack. She can see I'm already starting to fix supper. So I tell her no, we're going to eat in an hour. And she gives me this look." Looking into his wife's face, he couldn't tell whether it was anger or pain that she was feeling. "What look?" "Like she was tired. Tired of dealing with me."

He drew her close and she let him hold her. "Then I turned around and she left, but then David tells me he saw her eating. That's when I got angry. I called her back in here, but she insisted she hadn't taken anything. Then she says, even if she had, she wasn't a child any more and I shouldn't be telling her when she could eat." "She is a teenager." "That's not the point! We're still responsible for her. But how can we take care of her if she won't obey us--and lies to us?" He nodded. "I told her to stay in her room until you got home. Oh, then she asks if that's a threat! I just can't deal with her when she's like this; it's nothing but rebelliousness. And it disrupts the whole family. We can't let this go on." His wife's eyes were grave.

He said he would talk to her. Then went to change his clothes and gather his thoughts. This is normal for a child her age, he told himself. But somehow he'd thought his children would be different, less troubled, because he loved them both so much. That's what he couldn't understand. What was there to rebel against? He'd done everything a parent was supposed to do. Made every sacrifice to provide for them and create a secure and stable environment. Every decision he made was for them, for their good. He loosened his tie and tossed it on the bed. His duty as a father came first. Sometimes that was a heavy burden to bear, but he accepted his responsibility--that the security and welfare of his family rested on his shoulders--and he even took pride in that. Difficult as it had been, he had not failed them. They were well cared for; they were safe. So where did the rebellion come from? He wondered if maybe it was hormonal.

He approached his daughter's bedroom, then paused. The sign was still posted slightly askew on the door. Keep Out. How had it come to this? They had had the usual difficult scenes, about grades, or friends, or after-school activities. But these had been handled gently. And she understood, didn't she, that he only said no to protect her? And only pushed her when it was for her good?

The Keep Out sign unnerved him. It had appeared after the unpleasant incident with the youth pastor at their church. The kids had loved him, of course; he was young and enthusiastic and stirred them up. But he went too far. He didn't understand what was necessary to keep a church together and at peace. He challenged the wrong things and the wrong people. And he told the kids too much, gave them too much freedom, expected too much of them. One Sunday night, his daughter had come home and said the youth pastor had told them to "call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven." 

He knew then that this young man had to go. To preach such a thing to teenagers was reckless and irresponsible. Most of the other parents, and the head pastor, quickly agreed. It was a very hard decision, but they all knew it was necessary to protect their children and provide a safe, stable, nurturing religious education. Like many of the kids, his daughter had been angry. That was understandable. She couldn't see what he saw. So he'd given her space and loved her and assumed her turbulent adolescent emotion would work itself out eventually. But the Keep Out sign was still there.

Then he saw it. The faded butterfly sticker, its wing clipped by the sign posted over it, but still the same butterfly that had decorated his daughter's door for years. And suddenly she was four again, high on his shoulders, laughing. Her little fingers played with his hair and tickled his ears, then gripped his forehead tight when he would run with her. Squeals of delight. And complete trust. That was his little girl. He put his hand on the doorknob.

He was smiling as the door swung open. She was sitting on the bed. Calm, not angry. Just looking at him with that slight crease between her eyebrows that she got when she was concentrating. Her arms were relaxed at her sides. She looked like a woman. Suddenly he didn't know what to say to her, how to begin, and so fell back on the question that had begun so many conversations between them. "Penny for your thoughts?" 

That brought a small smile to her lips. "I'm wondering," she said, the crease between her eyebrows deepening, "how you think you're going to handle this."

That's when he knew she wasn't his little girl any more. No, she wasn't his at all.