The Daddie'sGurl Dilemma #ThisAintMother-FatherDay

Try Seven. #JustThe7OfUs

I am my daddie’s daughter. I am his creation. I am his possession. I am his most precious thing. I am perfected through his imperfection. I am the child of a great man.

I am the daughter of a preacher man from a small town in Texas. He is the first of 9 children. My daddie is kind. Most boys from our neighborhood would dispute that fact with empirical data, but he is kind. Trust me, I’m a blogger. It was just a ruse – a really real, but not all the way real deception. You are automatically kind when you have his capacity for love. I get my generosity from my mother, and love from my daddie. After all, it was his first gift to me. The second? Words. My daddie wrote me. And through that literary experience, I became a writer.

Anyway, a short man, with high yellow chicken legs, charismatic presence and inability to clap on beat. Yup, that one is mine. Right there, behind the pulpit, feeling the Spirit of the Lord and not the beat of the organ. Full of wit, intelligence, down home jokes and tales from a dirt road. Even this day, this very day, as educated as I am, my daddie can get me with one of his twisted tales. I remember when I made the decision to attend UCLA…

What do you see when you fly over Los Angeles?

I’m smart (or a smart ass, depending on who you are) so I obviously knew the answer…hello? You see smog!

Well, there’s smog, but what do you see, when you fly over Los Angeles? Daddie has a way of making you think so critically about things. He knew that I wasn’t really thinking, I was just talking.

#8Clap #BruinDads

And I continued to talk… Well, you don’t see stars, because of the smog…You see houses, downtown, hecka (not hella) cars because everyone is stuck in traffic… Talk, talk, talk… when he wanted me to think, think, think.

Finally, with that smug look on his face, knowing that once again he got me… You See L – A.

He really got me #ImSeriouslyHellaSlowSometimes. An incoming first year student. To the University of California at Los Angeles…otherwise known as U – C – L – A.

         

People like me, who think he is a really awesome guy, are sometimes in the minority. As tough as the streets of East Palo Alto and East Menlo Park were, you couldn’t find one boy, one young man, one ill-informed person brave enough to date me. Back then I thought it was me #ItProbablyWas. I wasn’t pretty enough. I wasn’t cool enough. I was too much of a nerd. Had to have been that. Nobody likes a smart girl in High School, right?

         

I returned home from Bruinville for Christmas after that first epic quarter of college. I walked the streets of East Menlo with my homey – as was our high school custom. During this particular stroll, we came across fellow classmates. In May they were listening to my commencement speech on Menlo-Atherton's Football Field, and that December I was in the streets getting caught up on their lives. Riding to the corner store with a male friend (unbeknownst to my father) we chatted about high school, what was going on in Los Angeles, and everything I missed while I was away. Bold enough in the moment, I asked…

I wonder why nobody wanted to date me in high school? I mean, I couldn’t have possibly been that unattractive. I will never forget his response.

Hell, I would have dated you. But uh, yo Pops is crazy. #missionaccomplished Well played Daddie. Well. Played.

This. Dude. Right. Here. #MyDaddie

I am sure that on this day some woman is going to be wished a Happy Father’s Day, because well, her kids didn’t get to experience everything that I did. A man, consistently being The Man in the life of the child he made. This, in my humble opinion, does nothing to advance "Daddie"hood or recognize the importance of this day. It does the very opposite. It says that a woman could have done the things my Daddie did for me. And that is not the truth. My Mommie knows my Daddie VERY WELL, and she, even with all her insider knowledge could never make me feel as perfect as he does. No way could she have scared an ENTIRE NEIGHBORHOOD of boys by her presence alone! Commanded their fear and respect? Nope. Not Marilou.

That’s a tough job. Daddies have it hard. My Mommie knew this, and as such, Daddie always got the piece of chicken he wanted #wings. Sure men don’t have babies gestating in their bodies for almost a year, but to discount their role in the development of children by saying it can be done by a woman is deception of the worst kind. And I consider myself a womanist. The presence of a good father has the equal-converse impact on the life of a child as his absence. As such, there is no replacement. No stand-in. No substitute.

And if you think otherwise, riddle me this… If iron sharpens iron [and indeed it does #ItsBiblical #Proverbs27 ¹⁷Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend], please share with me (and all of these internets) how a mother becomes a father, and does his job successfully? We’ll wait.

When we do this, when we say mothers can be fathers, we tarnish the works of great men, great fathers, like my friend's dad.   And on this day we celebrate the lives of Father’s past and present (and inspire the fathers to come), we sully their good names, wise words, beautiful hearts, and love. 

On this Father’s Day (and others), I pray you spend it celebrating men doing the work that Fathers around the world do every day. Tell me about those men. Show me those men. It might encourage some man to be them. It just might inspire some man absent from the life of his child to come back home. To reclaim the person he made. And remake them anew.

…and though I LOATHE sharing him (especially with my sisters), I’d even be willing to loan out mine. He’s pretty damn fantastic. I mean, he has to be. He made me.

I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father’s protection. #SigmundFreud