I love my daughters. They are my life, they are miracles. I thought it would prove useful, for anyone about to embark on this journey, to have a road map, a guide from someone who’s been there before, trodden the path, and tripped on all the Lego pieces along the way.
Now, everyone’s journey is different, but these are the things that worked for me. Use them at your own discretion. That said, they’re great. Here we go.
(P.S. This is future me speaking: having read this article, I realize there are a lot of wartime references. I need to reflect on that.)
Rule 1: Logistics
As Hitler discovered during Operation Barbarossa, moving people is difficult. Moving children is worse. You’ll think everyone is “ready,” but what this really means is: one is brushing hair, another is hunting for shoes, and the third is suddenly writing a 1,200-word essay on climate change that’s due today.
I’m generally (always) ready first. And then I stand outside, slowly losing my mind. A few years ago I started leaving props, a football, juggling balls, occasionally a small camping stove, outside the front door so I could practice new hobbies while waiting. This solved the problem. I now have excellent ball control, mild smoke inhalation, and no expectation of ever leaving the house on time.
Rule 2: No Man’s Land
Mothers and daughters have complex relationships. Your role in that is: Fun Dad. This sounds like a good thing. It is not.
When your daughters become teenagers, arguments with their mother will break out like brushfires. If you’re in the room, you have only two options:
- Evacuate immediately, like a paratrooper under heavy fire.
- Go full-guns blazing in support of the mother.
What you must never, ever, ever do is sit there passively, thinking you’re being “wise.” You are not wise. You are about to be blamed for the global financial crisis and possibly the invention of Crocs. Pick a side, or run.
Rule 3: All Quiet on the Western Front
When your daughters are toddlers and the house suddenly goes quiet, this does not mean they are “resting.” It means someone is feeding yogurt to the DVD player.
Rule 4: The Shopping Frontline
Family shopping trips are not shopping trips. They are multi-theater operations involving snacks, bathroom breaks, and arguments about why one daughter cannot buy a bearded dragon. Treat them as such.
Rule 5: The Hundred Years’ Lunch
There is no way to enjoy meals out at restaurants with young children. So here’s what you need: a quick exit plan.
What you must do is take a steel bucket, some lighter fluid, and, just as they are about to decide (argue) what they want to eat, pull £100 out of your pocket, throw it in the bucket in the middle of the table, and set fire to it.
It’s a much quicker way to release the funds, and it saves an hour of arguments, dissatisfaction, and general culinary despair.
Rule 6: The Traffic Truce
You will learn more about your daughters’ lives in the car than anywhere else. They will tell you everything while you’re stuck in traffic, probably because they know you can’t run away.
Rule 7: Dad Jokes Are Biological Weapons
Your jokes will cause actual pain. This is good. It builds resilience.
Rule 8: Operation Irrelevance
When your kids are small, you are a superhero. By their mid-teens, you will become an outdated fax machine they can’t believe anyone ever used.
They stop listening to you and start believing their teachers. These are the same teachers who got a 2:2 in Sociology from East Downs Polytechnic, yet your daughters will accept their every word as gospel. You will lose all arguments. You will be blamed for the patriarchy, the weather, and probably Brexit.
Rule 9: Dad’s D-Day
Nothing prepared me for taking my firstborn to university. She had taken a gap year, so we were already used to her being out of the house. But one week before we moved her into halls, an emotional freight train plowed into my heart and parked there.
Every day I was a blubbering mess. Memories of her sports days, bath-time songs, toddler mischief, all of it arrived like a montage designed by Pixar to ruin me.
When you drop them off, it feels like a full stop in your family’s story. But after a few weeks, the pain subsides and you realize: this is just the beginning of something new. Something wonderful. Something significantly more expensive than when she lived at home.
Rule 10: Love is the Only Rule That Matters
For all the wartime logistics, the emotional freight trains, and the birthday arms races, this is the real rule: love them ferociously. Even when they think you’re irrelevant. Even when they roll their eyes so hard you’re afraid they’ll detach. Even when they leave home and the house feels too quiet.
Because one day, they’ll look back and realize you weren’t just “Fun Dad.” You were the rock. The safe place. The guy who always kept a football by the door, just in case.
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