Dropping The "dy"

On the Pain and Joy of Being a Parent

There are moments as a parent, and they seem to be happening more frequently, when I find myself engulfed with sheer joy and pride in my daughter only to be met instantaneously with a hint of grief and pain. My daughter is seven, and she’s just starting to get into sports.

She loves to dribble the basketball around the house and try out new tricks. She works on dribbling fast, dribbles through obstacles in the kitchen, tries dribbling while standing on the ottoman, and even likes doing sit-ups as she dribbles. We were playing around with a ball in the kitchen the other day and I showed her how to dribble behind her back for a new trick for her to work on. She carefully studied the way I did it, started working the configuration out in her own body, and ended up doing it successfully on the first try. She picked up the ball with a huge smile and sheer elation in her voice and screamed, “Dad, I did it!”

As quickly as I was excited about her accomplishment, I was just as quickly crushed by the simple three letter word; DAD. I’m not dad, I’ve always been daddy. The removal of those two little letters nearly brought tears to my eyes and left me in my tracks. It’s a moment where my daughter has started to grow up just a tiny bit more, and I’m not quite ready for it. It reminded me of the first time she took a step. She was 10-months old, and my wife and I could not have been more excited and encouraged for her to take that first step and realized quickly afterwards that nothing would ever be the same. Before that step, she sat next to us on the couch and played quietly with her little toys while we enjoyed a peaceful evening. Before that first step, she would happily crawl up into our lap and cuddle there endlessly without hesitation.

But after that first step, it all changed. The world suddenly opened up to her, and all those places that were previously inaccessible, were now within the reach of her own gate. She stopped sitting next to us peacefully and moments to snuggle suddenly became painfully short as she desperately wiggled out of them to get to her much needed destination.

It’s in these moments of triumph, these moments of genuine joy and happiness at her accomplishments, are moments of despair at what I’ve just lost and may never get back. It reminds me that from the moment she was born, there ignited a painfully slow progression away from each other. This is even more true for my wife, and other moms. Women go from being literally connected by cord to their children, and as soon as that cord is cut, the movement is slowly one of separation.

For every milestone, it is growth away, every problem solved is one less problem that needs me to fix, and every new friend found is future time spent away from me. Now, I must emphasize, this growth is a good thing, it’s a beautiful thing, and is at its core a human thing. But as a parent, it’s also an incredibly painful thing. In truth, it’s all of these things at once. It’s why I felt myself cheer my little girl on, while also mourning that she is now a little less of my little girl. It’s pride, it’s joy, and it’s also grief.

I’ll feel lucky for that moment with my daughter. We both actually caught it at the same time. She wrinkled her little nose afterward at the awkwardness of removing those two letters and then doubled down. “Dad! I just called you dad.” and then proceeded to jokingly torture me with those three letters for the next several minutes. To my relief, I’m still daddy today and she hasn’t uttered those three letters in unison since. But it’s a reminder that her growth is coming, and with it, so is dad from daddy.

For me, the chore is to allow these changes to occur without any major disruption. I might tease her about it, and try to squeeze a few more “dy’s” out of her, but ultimately I know she will eventually drop those two letters permanently, and despite my pain, that will be a good thing. That will be part of her growth and a further sign of her autonomy and independence.

My goal, albeit I’ll undoubtedly be imperfect at, is to welcome this growth with the celebration it deserves but to also honor my grief with the recognition it requires. It’s a grief I won’t share with her because her job is to keep growing, not worry about my sorrow, but I’ll honor that grief in my own way. And hopefully if I help support her through her teen years and into the strong and independent woman that she’ll become, there will always be a small part of her that holds onto the “dy” so that occasionally, when we feel vulnerable, or need an extra snuggle, I can be daddy again for a moment before she returns to the strong woman she became.

-Luke