Father to a Headstrong Daughter

Hi, folks! I'm a little late (I meant to post on Wednesday), but at least I'm not missing this week. I promise I won't always just talk about my family, but since I started with my mom, I wanted to also tell you a little bit about my dad.

I'm the baby chewing on Blistex

I already mentioned in last week's post that he was really smart. Even in high school, he would often teach his classmates the more difficult mathematical concepts that they weren't understanding from the teacher's instruction. He grew up to be a nuclear engineer when nuclear engineering was a pretty new field.

My dad shared my mom's kindness. He was a leader in our church, and he showed compassion to everyone in the congregation. I believe he truly tried to see people's hearts and not jump to conclusions about them.

But what I really wanted to tell you about my dad is in response to a post a friend shared on Facebook. It said something about raining wrath down on your head if you threaten her son with a gun when he comes to pick up your daughter for a date. And I agree. That is not an acceptable way to treat a young man. But I also don't think it's an acceptable way to treat your daughter. It sends her the message that she can't be trusted to make her own decisions or look out for herself.

And that's where my dad comes into this discussion. He very firmly taught me to make my own decisions and take responsibility for them. I remember asking him if I should do something that was kind of in a grey area from how I had been taught. He was a pro at not showing what he was thinking, and he turned the question back on me with a calm, "I don't know. What do you think?" He wasn't going to let me put my responsibilities on him. Then when I started dating, as long as I was obeying pre-established family rules regarding dating, no boy needed to ask Daddy's permission to take me out, and Dad was always just as polite and respectful to them as he was to me. (Maybe more so because me he could tease mercilessly.)

When I got engaged, it was even more pronounced. I had grown up with the story of my oldest sister's husband asking for permission to marry her and Daddy saying "no," (which, as I have heard it told, scared my brother-in-law to death) then explaining that he couldn't give permission because only my sister herself could do that. So when I got engaged, I warned my then-fiance about my dad's orneriness. We lived around 900 miles from my parents, so they had never met him before we were engaged, and (long story why) he met them for the first time without me even being with him. Anyway, I told him not to ask permission because Dad wouldn't cooperate with that, but if he wanted to, he could ask for Dad's blessing.

Do you know what my dad said? He still said "no." Now don't get me wrong. I still think he was being kind of ornery, but I also really appreciate him. He wouldn't give his blessing because he barely knew Jon. He didn't know what kind of person he was. But he told Jon that he did trust my judgement, and we didn't need his blessing because, as always, it was my decision to make. I love my dad for that.

I think I drove him pretty crazy sometimes with how headstrong I was, but I hope I also made him proud.

I love this picture of my parents