Note:  Except for a few edits made before posting, I wrote most of the following on October 1, 2006, a day after the described incident. I am a live-away, every-other-weekend father, we usually visit my parents on those weekends.

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"I don't think I'm tough."

Words spoken somberly in a trough following a long peak of tears from my 5-year-old girl.  She had scraped her knees.  It didn't seem just the continuing pain in the knees was making her cry.  She was in the tub, and the bathroom had been echoing with her deep sobs, the kind so deep that there are moments of convulsive inhaling. 

I felt like I was witnessing yet another of those small developmental milestones that aren't specifically discussed, though vaguely alluded-to when people discuss "watching them grow up": an identity crisis, kindergartner-style.

Somehow, unsurprisingly, even though she's a girl, it's been implanted in Lauren's mind that it's good to be tough.  And she either considers herself tough, or considers being tough important enough that she strives to be.

Lauren didn't just scrape her knees.  She did so while running away from something.  She did it while running home.  She and I had been on a walk with my parents' dogs for hardly one minute.  I was walking the two husky golden-retrievers.  She was walking the runty old mutt.  Being five years-old, she had a really hard time keeping her grip on the leash, especially when a neighbor's rambunctious and leashless black lab came out to cavort with the dogs.  I think the black dog, and the chaotic mess of canine excitement and tangled leashes, gave Lauren a fright, though none of the four dogs even hinted at doing anything but sniffing, jumping, scrambling, and otherwise joyously celebrating canine existence.  There wasn't a bite, bark, or even semi-defensive glance exchanged. 

Nonetheless, as soon as the tangled webs were unweaved and the stroll seemed ready to commence, with me holding the leash for all three dogs now, Lauren immediately declared she was going home, and turned back running for my folks' house in scared-kindergartner fashion.  It wasn't long before she tripped and scraped her knees on the road.  She sat in the middle of it crying (this is not a busy street so, though many unpleasant emotions were involved, the fear of oncoming cars was not really among them). 

By this time a boatload of frustrations had built-up inside me, many not really related to her.  I'd been slowly but surely falling behind at work all week.  It was Saturday, I had an exam for school on Monday night.  I didn't feel I'd adequately studied and having Lauren all weekend and work all-day Monday meant no foreseeable opportunity for adequate study. 

I decided to take Lauren and the dogs for this walk as a way of doing something with her.  I often fail to come up with constructive things to do with her, and she'd been expressing the boredom of a kid that's maybe a little too spoiled.  But, she had also wanted to play some baseball and it was thanks to my failure to keep accurate track of her baseball bat and glove that we weren't able to do that.  Going out for the walk was supposed to be the little constructive and fun thing that we'd go out and do during the late-September day of good weather we were lucky to have.  Within 2 minutes that good idea had been shot to hell. 

I was angry, completely irrationally, at Lauren for not being able to hold onto the stupid mutt's leash.  Or I was angry for her even thinking she could.  What a stupid stupid thing for me to feel.  I knew it even as I felt it, I think. Or maybe it wasn't Lauren I was angry at, it was the stupid fucking mutt.  I also knew that if it were my mom taking Lauren and the dogs for a walk, Mom would find some way to alleviate Lauren's bad feelings, and continue the walk.  Or... something like that.  But as soon as Lauren turned back to the house, I knew what she was feeling, and I knew I was way too angry that she couldn't just let it go and continue the fucking walk with me.  She had to turn around like a baby, or a 5-year-old, and dart back home.  Because... what?  I think I actually said something angry to Lauren when Chloe, the stupid fucking mutt, got loose.  Maybe what I said hurt her, she felt like she'd failed, screwed up, or something.  Like it was her fault Chloe's a fucking stupid mutt that won't behave like a normal person.

All I know is I was a ball of anger as I walked towards my crying daughter.  And at the moment when she needed warm fatherly reassurance, I tossed the dog leashes from my hands, picked her up from the road way too aggressively, causing her to accent her tears with a mortified shriek.  Angrily I said something to her like "it's just a dog!"  I marched back to the house, angrily, bellowing at the three dogs with loose leashes, thankfully they followed us back to the house fairly obediently.  If they hadn't I may have really lost it. 

Lauren darted up to her room to cry.  I went searching for rags to wipe the dogs' muddy paws, and for reconciliation between the intellectual acknowledgement that I'd just been a really bad parent, with the genuine anger at Lauren I still felt. 

I told my mom that I'd just gotten too angry at Lauren, I explained the anger strictly in terms of the confusion over the dogs, leaving out any elaborate explanation for my feelings.  Mom, normally not shy about giving someone a shaming they deserve, pointed out, in an un-accusing tone that suggested she knew that I already understood what she was saying, that it certainly wasn't Lauren's fault she lost control of Chloe or that the dogs got out of hand, nor was that my fault.  "Just go and apologize to her." 

I wasn't really feeling sorry, though.  I was still angry, at Lauren for being such a baby over having lost control of Chloe or being scared of the obviously harmless dogs (though being as big as they are, even playing gleefully could knock Lauren over)... I did know I shouldn't be angry, though.  I did know Lauren deserved an apology.  I just needed to fuse my thoughts with my feelings a little more before I offered the apology, at least because I believe even a 5-year-old, certainly mine, can be astute enough to recognize a phony apology, and only more conflicted by it.

It didn't take that long, though.  I sat with her on her bed.  I don't remember exactly what I said, except something very close to "it was very mean for Daddy to get so mad".  I shouldn't have been so mean, you didn't deserve that, I'm sorry.  I sat right next to her, hugging her and rubbing her head.  She continued wimpering. 

In retrospect, perhaps this little reconciliation is what set off the heavier tears later when she was in the tub.  My initial anger sent the clear, cruel message that it was wrong and bad for her to be sad.  The apology let her know the tears were OK, so later they really came. 

When I came into the bathroom to ask why she was still crying, at first she was saying it was just that her knees really hurt, and no matter what we did, they wouldn't stop hurting.  She couldn't bear it.  Before long it didn't seem true that the knees hurt THAT bad, what was truly tormenting was the fact that they hurt just bad enough for her to continue to be bothered by them.  In other words, she was actually now crying over the fear that, as she would articulate, she wasn't really tough.

She happened to mention how it sometimes hurts when Mommy is brushing her hair.  Thinking back, this fascinates me.  She has the impression that being tough is important.  Consideration of this recent incident, and other incidents of her internal life, have her seriously questioning herself.  All on her own, she's considering the evidence against her toughness and may be finding herself guilty.  The verdict is causing her real pain.

I figured the first thing a child needs to learn is to not think in absolutes.  The tough aren't always tough.  The smart don't always solve the problem.  The strong can lose a fight.  The fast can lose a race.  The best don't always win.

So I told her even the tough get hurt.  I always seem to resort to baseball when I try to teach these lessons.  I told her how (Twins' catcher) Joe Mauer is tough, but even he got hurt.  I spoke with pride after realizing that this story was comparable to our situation- because one time Joe Mauer actually had to miss a lot of baseball games because of how bad he'd hurt his knees.  Certainly someone that does what Joe Mauer does cannot have their toughness called into question.  Joe Mauer is tough.  But even so, his knees were hurt so bad that he had to go a real long time without playing for the Twins.

The story actually seemed to stick with the kid.  She sat in the tub pondering the tale, and inquired further in a nakedly fascinated tone of voice the likes of which only small children are capable.

"Did Joe Mauer have to not play baseball for a long time?"

"Did the Twins miss Joe Mauer?" ("Yes!  They did!  But they also had another catcher who did a really good job for them while Joe Mauer was hurt!")

"What was the other guy's name?" 

"Henry Blanco"... she delighted in that funny-sounding name.  I would go on to ask if she remembered long-time Twins' outfielder Jacque Jones.  Not really.  Still I explained that Jacque Jones and Henry Blanco both play for another team, the same team, the Chicago Cubs.  I asked if she knew what a cub was, she said Yes, like a cub bear.  Indeed... a cub is a baby bear.

In something like 10-12 minutes she went from seemingly-inconsolable sobs to playing contently, then with carefree delight, with her many bathtub-toy dolphins.   Identity crisis resolved, for now.