A mere two days after Father’s Day my 13 year old daughter informed me that, although I’m a really good Dad, I’m not the coolest. She was having a sleepover last night and, again, the issue of when “lights out” shall occur came up.
She begged me “please Daddy, don’t come in and make us go to sleep at midnight. That’s so embarrassing! Nobody else’s parents make us do that”. She wants to be allowed to stay up as long as they want, which on occasion I’m told has extended at other parent’s houses till 5AM when the last kid falls asleep.
“Really?’, I said incredulously. “They just let you stay up all night”. “Yes”, she said. “I don’t believe you”, I said. “I think the other parents just fall asleep and you stay up later than they want”.
Then she told me the tale of the “coolest” Dad ever. While sleeping over at another friends house, the girls were still up at 1AM playing cards and were hungry. Her friend’s Dad then drove to a Wendy’s at, 1AM, and returned with cheeseburgers and frys, which the girls consumed with delight sitting around the breakfast table.
“Wow”, I said. I needed a moment to digest that. I thought to myself “that’s rediculous ridiculous … and pretty cool”. How can I compete with that?