There we were, sitting at the dinner table last week. I wasn’t lecturing our two kids, per se. I was merely pointing out something I’d like them to do better. That unleashed a measured and rather spot-on response from my 10-year old daughter:
“Dad, did you ever notice that, when you’re lecturing both of us, you’re always looking at me when you’re actually talking to both of us?”
“Ummm. . .” I stammered for a second. That opening allowed her to go in for the kill:
“You’re like, ‘Blah blah blah, both of you need to do this’ but you’re always looking at me and barely looking at him,” she said, motioning to her 12-year old brother and partner in crime.
“Ummm, you might have a point,” I mumbled again, silently noting to myself that I must make more eye contact with her brother when I’m talking to both of them.
Later that night, I was pondering the exchange and thinking there are worse things than being schooled by your young daughter. She saw an opening for rebuttal. She made a logical argument in a respectful manner and she won her case with a relevant point.
As her parent, I’m responsible for fostering her strength and self-esteem in a world that too often trivializes, pigeon-holes and stereotypes girls and women into roles in which they do not belong.
Getting checked and mated by a 10-year old is a reason for celebrating that girl power. And, it’s also a time to be thankful that her mother, her teachers and her coaches have imparted in her the self-confidence to take her dad out for a rhetorical beat-down.
That’s girl power. And that makes this dad especially happy.
I’m Wester Wuori, and that’s my perspective.
