Having a 16-year-old daughter is, I’m sure, an adventure for every parent. But when you are, as am I, 51.5 years older than she, it’s really something.
Every parent goes through what Katie and I are going through, but usually with about half the difference in age separating them.
I’ve been aware from the start that at times I’ve been the stern dad, and probably just as often, the kindly grandfatherly dad, to her. I don’t regret that – she’s gotten away with more than most children have, but she’s turned out pretty well nonetheless.
At 16, she is going through the tumult that goes along with that stage of life. She is half child, half woman. She wants to talk about deep things (interestingly, that desire usually surfaces at bedtime!) She wants to have fun. She is overflowing with questions about all aspects of life. She needs rides everywhere. Around me, she wears her heart on her sleeve; with Katie, it’s pretty much “what you see is what you get.”
For me, it’s basically hard to keep up.
But without Katie I would probably never have heard of Rhianna or Katy Perry. Without Katie I wouldn’t realize how much faster life makes teens grow up than it did in the fifties. Without Katie (and I know this is a cliché) I would not know how to set digital clocks, and I wouldn’t know about tabs, You Tube, or which cell phone to buy. I couldn’t get movie reviews and bios of every entertainer from 15 to 25 from her on demand. I wouldn’t know that there are a dozen categories of music (I grew up with one radio station that played pop and one that played western, period.) I wouldn’t know that today’s 9th Grade math is not the cake I got to learn.
What Katie gets cheated out of in this vibrant time in her life is a vibrant dad. I sometimes just don’t have the “oomph” to go to the mall or a movie with her (although I’m very, very lucky that I have a daughter who invites me to accompany her.)
She’s a true gift to me.
And life would certainly be much more boring for this 20th Century geezer if I didn’t have this 21st Century teen making every day both interesting and unpredictable.
