I found out I was going to be a father on December 8th, 2010. I spent the rest of that day making a sound that sounded a bit like an inbred professional wrestling fan. I was distraught, excited, terrified, ecstatic, and otherwise crazed. It took about a day before I started to feel better about it and then it hit me:
I’m going to have a son or a daughter.
Holy crap! Big revelation!
Let me back up. I am big believer in God. I love God; He saved me from my sin (of which I had a lot). I also believe that He has a sense of humor. How else do you explain a Bible story that ends “and they ran from the house naked and bleeding.”[1] Seriously, that’s in there. Anyway, what some people consider karma, I consider God having a laugh.
Anyway, I look back at myself from age 14 to 17 and I have two great fears: I am going to have a son just like me. This is bad. I was able to hone in a girl who was say homely or lonely or not the most popular and use that to make them “hangout” with me. The second generation is always stronger than the previous one. Lock up your daughters and load your guns!
However, what could be worse than that is if I have a daughter. This is where God’s sense of humor/karma comes into play. My daughter will have a predilection for guys just like I was. Every guy she brings home will be smooth and cool when he’s talking to me, but as soon as they are out of sight, he’s going to become this smarmy, charmless, lothario. (My friend in San Diego, a former lothario in his own right, worries about this as well. He has a son that is already showing signs of our former ways, and if MaryGrace and I have a daughter, the only possible ending is a great war between our houses.)
So how do I solve these problems?
First the girl.
I turn to sitcoms (like I sometimes do). Specifically, The George Lopez Show and 8 Simple Rules for Dating my Teenage Daughter. First of all, George’s rules for boys being able to date his daughter:
“You bring home a boy with straight a’s, doesn’t drink, no piercings, no tattoos, and we get to interview him for three hours.”
I have already begun writing questions to ask the boy (but those are for a later post.)
Then there are the eight rules:
- Use your hands on my daughter and you'll lose them after.
- You make her cry, I make you cry.
- Safe sex is a myth. Anything you try will be hazardous to your health.
- Bring her home late, there's no next date.
- If you pull into my driveway and honk, you better be dropping off a package because you're sure not picking anything up.
- No complaining while you're waiting for her. If you're bored, change my oil.
- If your pants hang off your hips, I'll gladly secure them with my staple gun.
- Dates must be in crowded public places. You want romance? Read a book.
Good stuff, right there. So that takes care of the daughter.
But what about the boy?
I haven’t figured that out yet. The only thing I know is that I will have the advantage of knowing his tricks. If he’s hanging around school several hours after school or going for a run in the middle of the night, especially if he also has my body type, I will know something is up. I think I’d have to take Mad-Eye Moody’s advice on this one:
“Constant Vigilance!”
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