Fathers and daughters

Image via WikipediaGirl Fourteen called me from Rome on Skype (the peeps they're staying with have had their phone lines disconnected because they're coming home) and I think I was short with her. Not short as in curt, but short as in I was already going, I'd better let you go before she'd given me any sign I was boring her.

I thought I was being helpful. Like, I appreciate you calling me but look, feel free to go back to whatever it was you'd rather do. I think I just misjudged. But I'm worried now in case she feels snubbed. Imagine if she thinks I had something else I had to get back to.

Being a parent is like walking a tightrope that has no end, and no end at the other end, either, just all middle, and a fiery pit under you. And you set off to walk it wearing clown-shoes made of carpet-slipper material. And there's never any going back, or changing shoes, or turning around.


I wish there were some way I could tell my mother: I get it now. I get it. I see. But she'd be like, what do you know, you're only a boy. I'm still only a boy for her. That's the entire parenthood paradox right there.