Regardless, I am who I am - at least for the moment. I'm over-protective. My main aim in life, since the moment my daughter was born, was to let go. I have distinct memories of those being the first thoughts in my mind when I held her. "Your Dad is precisely the kind of person to wrap you in air bags and never let you leave the house." It was my fear - and my determination - not to be the guy I'm most prone to be.
I'm pretty proud of how I've done so far, although I do still want to shelter her; it's my natural state, after all. She sometimes revels in this. As a, thus-far, only child, there's a part of my daughter that enjoys having things done for her. As much as we challenge (read: force) her to do things for herself, we're still often in too much of a hurry to make her buckle her own seatbelt (and she's six, I know, it's embarrassing).
While I have always marveled at just how quickly she's grown up, I've still be unprepared for just how quickly she's grown up recently. It's not linear, but exponential. Last year, in Kindergarten, she'd make the occasional pun and her inferences blew me away. Now, as a first-grader, she's her own person entirely - smart, aware, and thinking with depth and breadth way beyond what's fair for a six year old. I've realized that the influences and ideas from which I might naturally want to shield her or be the one to present are already very present in her mind and in her life and she's dealt with them in ways I can only define as impressive.
I've spent a fair bit of time working with young people; the number one thing I've learned in that time (as I'm sure I've said here before) is that they always know, experience, and understand more than their parents would ever believe. What I'm learning as a parent is that my previous work with young people does not exempt me from that axiom. No matter what my expectations for my daughter's engagement with the world might be, they're going to fall short.
This is both terrifying and incredibly comforting.
I've never been a big fan of the emphasis our society places on safety and security. I think it's usually overkill and often exacerbates an atmosphere of fear over any kind of relief. As part of that, I've struggled with the vast array of "drills" they do in schools these days, to prepare for all kids of trauma. Last year, in Kindergarten, I thought I was told the school didn't do lockdowns, so I put off my worry. As first grade approached - and entry to the "big" elementary school - I mused, out loud, about how I might approach my daughter's school to perhaps surreptitiously take her for ice cream, or something, when those drills occurred.
She overheard the conversation and while I don't remember her words exactly, they went something like, "we did those last year, Dad, where we all sat quietly in the corner so people couldn't see us from the door - nothing will ever happen in school, but we have to make the teachers happy."
I don't know if that's how it was presented to them, but I'd like to think my daughter has both learned a thing or two about Christian social critique from her old man and maybe inherited both sound logical reasoning and a compassionate heart.
In the end, the whole experience has helped relieve some pressure. I don't have to work extra hard to make sure my daughter is her own person, because there's nothing else she can become. I'll have an influence on her - for good or ill - but from the moment she was laying there in my arms, screaming her giant, grossly-misshapen head off, whatever control I thought I might have was simply an illusion.
I suspect the sooner we learn that lesson, the better.
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