A PRAYER FOR MY DAUGHTER

"May she be granted beauty and yet not
Beauty to make a stranger's eye distraught..."

April 6, 2007

I look down at my daughter and search for signs of what will be.

Right now to Julia the whole world is contained in a feeding or in trying to digest food or conciliate sleep. She is only 23 days old. People say Julia already resembles me, that she has my mouth, etc, but she just looks like a baby to me. Her traits and demeanor seem like those of any other baby, as far as I can see: eat, sleep, cry - repeat over and over again. But surely some marks of her character and future life are within her from birth. People ask me if she is fussy or tranquil. She likes to feed at my wife's breast and sleep, and beyond that I lack evidence. Only time will reveal more about Julia and her story.

But I am intensely curious as to the deeper nature of my daughter. What will she be like? Before Maria and I know it our parenting roles will be less about attending to hunger cries, changing soiled diapers, and feeding every two and a half hours. We will begin to talk with, and then to teach, our daughter about our family and the larger world. Julia will turn two, then five, and then seven years of age. Will Julia be contumacious? Docile? Rebellious? Obedient? Nervous and conscientious, like her mother? Or more laid back, like her father? Will she be blustery and good at sports (as I wish)? Or will she be quiet and into music (as my wife wishes)? I am most curious, to put it mildly. I sit impatiently with the unalterable fact that I need wait for time to unveil its tale.

I worry about how much Julia will have inherited from her parents - the sins of the past handed down to the next generation. I look at my wife and myself, and I think I can see what Julia will be as she grows up. I worry about Julia becoming overly-sensitive and too afraid of making mistakes - the kind of child that parents don't have the heart to punish because she is already so hard on herself. She would come too close to resembling her parents, and I would not wish that on Julia. Julia has half my genes, half from her mother; but Julia will also make choices and comes of age as her own person, separate from her parents. One part of her DNA is the combination of the genes combined from mother and father, but these genes result in a unique combination which has never before been seen on earth and is dissimilar to mother or father. In the end, she will be her own person.

How much of our adult character's is merely the result of our parent's influences and genetic inheritance? How much of our mature makeup is our choice as free individuals? How much are we the products of our upbringing, family, and culture? How much can we choose to be our own unique selves? Unanswerable questions perhaps.

Never for one moment do I lose sight of the fact that Julia will be her own person and that I will need to give space and respect to her own wishes, that she might find her own way in life. I think a great abuse by many parents is to overwhelm their children with their own egos and to foist their unfulfilled life dreams onto their progeny. Recently I read with horror as one father claimed, "When I was holding her in the delivery room, she was so beautiful. It was just amazing. The first thing I remember saying to her was, 'Nooooo, sweetheart, no boy is ever gonna take you away from Daddy.'" We are given children so that one day we can release them! I take my newborn daughter home from the hospital in the hopes of one day giving her away at the altar. I hope to give her and her groom my full blessing. As a father it is not about "me" but about "her." If a person doesn't feel this way, why did they became a parent?

But where is the line between overwhelming one's daughter with too much support and control, and stranding her in the shoals of a dangerous world with insufficient guidance and supervision. I have personally seen a number of young women out in the world without a firm father figure somewhere looking out for them, and they are badly at risk for victimization. Even if he is a thousand miles away at the time, a young woman is given confidence, protection, and ballast by a loving father's providence. She is safer. She carries his blessing and the knowledge that he is looking out for her, that his daughter deserves the best and is of value. I suspect other men sense that confidence in his daughter, and victimizers choose someone else to victimize. It is almost as if a rapist can sense there is a father somewhere who is going to come gut him with a long knife, should he assault his precious daughter.

But a relationship evolves over time, and trust and understanding accrete in good times and dissipate in bad times. I will hope that Julia always feels free to come tell me anything from her life, that nothing is absolutely forbidden and that a million times over I would prefer to be upset and to know than to remain ignorant and have her be at risk. I see Julia spending her childhood years bicycling around her suburban California neighborhood with friends for hour after hour. Soccer games, piano lessons -- a Christmas ballet performance of "The Nutcracker." Innumerable trips to the book store. Her first day of school and her first computer. Daddy reading stories to his daughter before she goes to sleep. Special evenings out for daddy and daughter only. Daddy teaches daughter how to ride a bicycle. This I hope for Julia as a little girl.

And as opposed to my wife, I am actually looking forward to Julia entering adolescence. I have years and years of experience with adolescents and know well that strange and complex brew which is the teenaged girl. Peer pressure, academic stress, and romantic confusion. Trying on a new personality every other month. Searching and confusion and elation and despair. That is when a daughter needs her daddy more than ever, in my experience. I will be there. The daddy who taught his daughter how to ride a bike will teach her how to drive a car.

But who knows? What do I really know? I could hardly be a more rookie father at this time!

But I do know this: I am pretty much done with reading books on how to become a parent. Here and there I will sample any author that has something of value to say, but my wife and I need to raise our daughter in the solid milieu which is our life together and shared value system. As a father -- perhaps even more so as a father -- I need to be honest to myself. I need to find my own way and obey my own instincts. I need to be honest to a very few core values and principles, and let everything else fall as it might. I will need to make haste slowly. I will have to hold Julia tight but give her her own space. (How will I know what is the right balance?)

Maybe Julia will grow up smoothly and peacefully as a product of the structure and values of her family and parents. Maybe she will grow up rebelling against her family and parents, trying to find her own way. Maybe we will live together without much conflict or strife. Maybe there will be yelling and discord. Maybe it will be a bit of both.

The dialectic makes me anxious. I would much prefer peace and harmony. I cannot hear myself think when people shout.

But I suspect when it comes to family, I might have a whole lot less control than I think. Or will I have much more?

 

"A PRAYER FOR MY DAUGHTER" by William Butler Yeats ONCE more the storm is howling, and half hid Under this cradle-hood and coverlid My child sleeps on. There is no obstacle But Gregory's wood and one bare hill Whereby the haystack- and roof-levelling wind, Bred on the Atlantic, can be stayed; And for an hour I have walked and prayed Because of the great gloom that is in my mind. I have walked and prayed for this young child an hour And heard the sea-wind scream upon the tower, And under the arches of the bridge, and scream In the elms above the flooded stream; Imagining in excited reverie That the future years had come, Dancing to a frenzied drum, Out of the murderous innocence of the sea. May she be granted beauty and yet not Beauty to make a stranger's eye distraught, Or hers before a looking-glass, for such, Being made beautiful overmuch, Consider beauty a sufficient end, Lose natural kindness and maybe The heart-revealing intimacy That chooses right, and never find a friend. Helen being chosen found life flat and dull And later had much trouble from a fool, While that great Queen, that rose out of the spray, Being fatherless could have her way Yet chose a bandy-leggèd smith for man. It's certain that fine women eat A crazy salad with their meat Whereby the Horn of Plenty is undone. In courtesy I'd have her chiefly learned; Hearts are not had as a gift but hearts are earned By those that are not entirely beautiful; Yet many, that have played the fool For beauty's very self, has charm made wise, And many a poor man that has roved, Loved and thought himself beloved, From a glad kindness cannot take his eyes. May she become a flourishing hidden tree That all her thoughts may like the linnet be, And have no business but dispensing round Their magnanimities of sound, Nor but in merriment begin a chase, Nor but in merriment a quarrel. O may she live like some green laurel Rooted in one dear perpetual place. My mind, because the minds that I have loved, The sort of beauty that I have approved, Prosper but little, has dried up of late, Yet knows that to be choked with hate May well be of all evil chances chief. If there's no hatred in a mind Assault and battery of the wind Can never tear the linnet from the leaf. An intellectual hatred is the worst, So let her think opinions are accursed. Have I not seen the loveliest woman born Out of the mouth of Plenty's horn, Because of her opinionated mind Barter that horn and every good By quiet natures understood For an old bellows full of angry wind? Considering that, all hatred driven hence, The soul recovers radical innocence And learns at last that it is self-delighting, Self-appeasing, self-affrighting, And that its own sweet will is Heaven's will; She can, though every face should scowl And every windy quarter howl Or every bellows burst, be happy still. And may her bridegroom bring her to a house Where all's accustomed, ceremonious; For arrogance and hatred are the wares Peddled in the thoroughfares. How but in custom and in ceremony Are innocence and beauty born? Ceremony's a name for the rich horn, And custom for the spreading laurel tree.

"...THE SPREADING LAUREL TREE."