I am still getting used to the fact that my daughters are now teens. It has been hard for me to accept the fact that they are growing into young women, even though it has been going on for quite some time now, right before my very eyes. I suppose this is just another adjustment I need to make. Hopefully, one that I will make soon, before they are out of the house and living on their own in New York City, working for an ad agency and sending a text message for me to meet them at Union Square Café to introduce me to their latest investment-banker boyfriends.

Being a father was so much, well…easier I guess is the word, when they were little. When my daughters were young I had a much greater confidence in my fathering capabilities. I knew I was a good dad, plain and simple. Not to sound arrogant or presumptuous, but it somehow seemed like being a father back then was more defined, more of a sure thing. I knew what to do.

There is a certain rhythm to parenting little children, even though you are mostly sleep-deprived, the house is always a mess, and you barely have a minute to remember that you once had a vast expansive life all on your own. But I knew better what was expected of me - especially how to talk to those little girls. They had their basic needs, of course: food, bathing, sleep, a few toys and a TV. And then you had the daily routines of bedtime and meal time and bath time and school time. The rest was filled in with playing and goofiness and adoration as we are tossing them into the air, holding their little hands as we walk through the park, carrying them on our strong shoulders and tucking them into bed at night with a story, placing their beloved stuffed animal just so.

And then there was the discipline – Oh, how easy the discipline was when they were little! I was so powerful, with a full deck of disciplinary cards in my back pocket to keep them on good behavior. There was the time-out, the stern voice, the ability to physically swoop them up and re-direct them. And sure, they could scream and tantrum and embarrass you in the supermarket, but the bottom line was that I was a lot bigger, and possessed a much greater command of the English vocabulary. Therefore I was pretty much in control of the situation. Plus they needed me.

I have so many fond memories from when my girls were smaller – before they had periods - when they adored me and snuggled with me and laughed at all my stupid jokes. They obediently did almost everything I told them to do. There’s nothing like a precious, naughty little girly daughter for a dad to love. The memories of those days are etched forever in my mind. In fact, whenever I speak on the phone to one of my girls, I still picture them at the peak of their childhood innocence: one is frozen at six years old, and the other at nine. Even though they are something more like fourteen and seventeen by now. But in my head, in my imagination, they are forever captured in the golden years of childhood. Lilly with her soft-as-a-pillow skin, her silky long black hair, and her cute little speech impediment (she couldn’t make the sounds of s, f, j, or r until she was in second grade. I recorded her speaking at age three, making her repeat after me: “See the fox run. “Hee da ha wung.” It was very sweet), and Sophie with her porcelain face, golden curls, and that innocent enthusiasm for exploring everything around her.

I used to make up stories and games, because the girls were such a great, adoring audience to my bizarre sense of humor. Sometimes I ended up laughing harder than they did. But, alas, these silly little games can only go on for so long before the girls start to think it is completely ridiculous, and embarrassing, even.

Soon enough, the inevitable happens. They get older, smarter, opinionated, independent, and quite adept at text-messaging at lighting speeds. The parent is no longer the center of the universe, as the orbiting child is now pulled away by the enormous gravitational forces pressing upon them from the massive cluster of peer-group friendships. These friends are now seemingly omnipresent, thanks to the accessibility of Facebook, Instant Messaging, texting and cell phones. In this new universe, the parent is no more significant than a passing meteor that circles every eighty years or so. A quaint point of interest, but not quite relevant. Or so they’d like to pretend. The problem is that the parent hasn’t participated in this shift, and generally doesn’t see it coming. Our world hasn’t changed much at all. We are still the parent and they are still the child – they are just a lot bigger now.

The thing I worry about most as a parent during the teenage years is this: I am no longer sure if we still have a relationship anymore. Sure, I’m still their dad, but it’s so much harder to just simply talk with them. The other day I noticed that the bulk of our conversations are more like one-sided commands: “Clean your room.” “Get your homework done.” “Finish the laundry!” “Feed the dog!” Or, when you are in a gentler and patient frame of mind, they are posed as questions: “Did you feed the dog yet?” “Have you finished your homework?” “How many times have I told you no computer until you’ve finished your homework!” “How in God’s name can you leave a wet towel on the floor every single morning no matter how many times I tell you to hang them up?!” Things can get out of hand quickly. These commands must be repeated several times daily, or else the tiny shred of order and discipline we think we have will implode like a black hole. We just want our children to learn to take on a few responsibilities, right?

The sad truth is that our teenage children generally don’t want to talk to us anyway. When I make an attempt to take an interest in my daughters’ lives by asking a few innocent questions about what’s going on in their world, at school, with friends, what I mostly get back is a rolling of eyes, a deep sigh, and a snap back with a one-word answer. It is like they are too bothered with the energy it takes to respond. That’s probably the biggest disappointment in raising teenagers. They don’t want to talk to us anymore. We are no longer relevant to their lives. We are not cool. They don’t need us anymore.

It hurts sometimes.

But despite those dark moments of doubt that have overshadowed my fathering abilities, thank God, at least my wife is there to reassure me. I hope she is right. And to my girls’ credit, they will at least write some very thoughtful notes in their Fathers Day cards once a year telling me how much they love me and how wonderful they think I am. One year they even got me a T-shirt that said “Dadtastic!” That meant a lot. Well, it is true that I do spend a fair amount of time carting them around, if that means anything. And Lilly will still let me scratch her head when she goes to bed sometimes. We all enjoy watching an episode of Reno 911 together occasionally. And we can still get laughing real hard from time to time when I do those stupid tricks with the dog.

To further reassure my worried self about those deteriorating fatherhood skills, I have created a new file in my brain called “Reasons Why I am A Good Father.” I fill it up with all the wonderful memories, images, and conversations I have had with my daughters. These will become evidence of my competent fatherhood qualities, as if I am preparing for the day when the Dr. Dobson police will break into my house and interrogate me.

As I was compiling the imaginary Dad-dossier, I recalled an event that, upon reflection, stood out far and above all the others as the pinnacle of sacrificial love of a father for his daughter. "How could I have missed this!" I thought to myself. Yes, I reasoned with newfound confidence, this is the stuff that myths, legends and Dreamworks movies are born from - and it’s been going on in my household all the while! This surely sets me apart from the rest, symbolizing that I have indeed passed the ultimate test of fatherhood -at least for those of us with daughters.

It is called the “Period Purchase” test.

This is the one where the dad has to be willing to run out to the store upon emergency request and purchase the daughter’s maxi-pads, tampons and other feminine gadgetry, without complaint. The reason that I know I am a good Dad is because last year I went to the grocery store with my twelve-year old daughter for the sole purpose of helping her select the right pads. I don’t remember where my wife was at the time, or why I was chosen for that moment, but there we were at the Safeway at 7 pm on a Tuesday evening staring at a huge wall of feminine hygiene products. There was a surprising amount of shelving space within the supermarket dedicated exclusively to feminine products, whiche offered a cheerful array of colorful selections. It was overwhelming. We slowly began to make sense of the vastness, narrowing down by category, attempting to decipher the correct choice. She reaches for a box.

“No honey, not those – they’re not the right colored box. Remember? It’s blue and green?” She puts the box back and reconsiders the wall.

“These, dad?” I examine the package closely.

“Oh—no, not those. Those are overnights. You don’t need all that padding. Hey - look at these. Here it is.”

We hold up the package and study the color, the cartoon depictions of its contents, trying to decipher the secret-code product description.

"All right, honey. I think we've got the right one here."

“Okay”

“Oh – and don’t forget to get the tampons, too. You need both.”

“Okay.”

I honestly don’t know why they need both, but for some reason they do. We pick up a couple of other items, since we are already at the grocery store, before making our way to the register. Now, only a truly experienced man of the world such as I could boldly approach the cash register with feminine hygiene products in hand and not feel the least bit of self-consciousness or humiliation. I did not flinch.

I get in line and glare at the shoppers around me. “What the hell are you looking at?” I am focused, determined. I am a proud father of a beautiful young teenage girl!

I imagine the women standing in the lines nearby, watching me as I confidently pull out the Always package from my shopping basket and casually toss it on to the moving belt.

“Awww, look at that, Sheila!” the woman whispers to her friend. “He’s buying pads for his daughter! I have never seen anything like this before!”

“What a fantastic father!” the other replies, as the virility of her own husband diminishes.

“Not just fantastic,” I reply to my imaginary admirers. “I am Dadtastic!”

The cashier rings us up. Batteries (bleep!). Light bulbs (bleep!). Snickers (bleep!). Maxipads (bleep!). Tampons (bleep!). Sixteen thirty two? Here ya go. It’s just another trip to the grocery store for me, ladies. I take my little girl’s hand in mine as we carry our bags out to the car.