Dear Daughter…

An Open Letter to My Daughter, Who Is Definitely Reading This Instead of Doing Her Assigned Work

Okay. So. I hear you've been reading my blog at school, catching me talking about you in front of God and the entire internet, and coming home to call me out on it like I owe you a formal apology. I do not. But I do owe you this letter, so buckle up, because we're doing this the unhinged way.

I remember when you were a toddler and your whole personality was just chaos wrapped in overalls. You used to run at me full speed across the living room just to fling yourself into a hug like I was a finish line you'd been training for all day. You called ketchup "dip dip." You slept with approximately eleven stuffed animals in a formation I was not allowed to question. I used to rock you to sleep and think, this is it, this is the sweet little girl who's going to love me unconditionally forever and also probably still want to hold my hand in public when she's sixteen.

Reader, she does not want to hold my hand in public. She has never wanted this less in her entire life than she wants it right now.

Somewhere between "dip dip" and today, you turned into a young lady coming into womanhood who can end an entire conversation with a single look. Your brother calls it the Bombastic Side-Eye, and honestly, he's not wrong, he's just being generous with the branding. It's not a side-eye. It's a legal document. It's a fully drafted argument with an opening statement, evidence, and a closing rebuttal, all delivered in under one second, using only your eyebrows. I've seen grown adults flinch. I've flinched. You could end wars with that look if the UN would just return my calls about it.

And the sarcasm. The wit. Where did it come from. I have theories, and none of them make me look good, so we're moving on.

I want to talk about the growling, too, because I don't think we've ever properly addressed it as a family. You growl. Actual, audible growling, when words are apparently too slow a delivery system for the sheer volume of frustration you're experiencing in that moment. Nine times out of ten it's followed by "ugh, you just don't understand," delivered with the weary conviction of someone who has been catastrophically misunderstood since the dawn of time, usually because I asked whether you'd started your homework yet.

I also know about the finger. The one you flip at your brother around the corner, where you think none of us can see you, and then turn back around wearing the exact same face as an angel who has never sinned in her life. I want you to know I've seen it. I've seen it multiple times. You are not as sneaky as you think you are, and I say that with the deepest respect, because honestly, the commitment to the bit is impressive.

Let's talk about the vacuuming, or the concept of vacuuming, or whatever it is you believe is happening when I ask you to vacuum and you produce a floor that looks structurally identical to the floor before you started. I don't understand it. I've watched you do it. You are, by every account, a smart, capable human being, and yet somehow the vacuum defeats you every single time like it's some kind of ancient trial you have not yet been deemed worthy to pass.

I also want it on the record that I have sat through, and will continue to sit through, thirty-minute recaps of preteen social dynamics that would require a flowchart and possibly subtitles for anyone outside your friend group to follow. I don't always know who's mad at who or why group chats always implode, but I know it matters to you, and I will keep nodding along like I'm fully caught up, because that's love, baby, that's what that is.

Somewhere in there you also became fluent in K-pop lineups and anime plotlines with a level of detail that frankly should qualify for some kind of academic credit. I couldn't name a single member of anything you're currently obsessed with if my life depended on it, except for Felix, because his face is all over your walls,but I know it lights you up, and watching you light up about something, even something I will never fully understand, might be one of my favorite parts of this whole parenting gig.

Here's the truth, though, underneath all the roasting. When I found out I was having a daughter, some small, foolish part of me pictured a certain kind of girl. Softer, maybe. A little more interested in being my sidekick, my mini-me, my sweet little shadow forever. That is extremely not who you turned out to be, and I want to tell you, from the absolute bottom of my heart, thank God for that. You are sharper than I ever was at your age. Funnier. Faster on your feet. Entirely too smart for your own good and definitely too smart for mine, which is a problem I now have to live with for the rest of my life. You were never going to be my princess, because you were always going to be something better. Your own whole entire person, with opinions and side-eyes and a growl reserved specifically for me.

I wouldn't trade any of it. Not the sarcasm, not the finger around the corner, not the vacuum standoff, not even the thirty-minute recaps I only understand about forty percent of.

Now. If you are reading this at school again instead of doing your actual assigned work, close this tab and get back to it. I mean it. And when you get home, please feed your cat, he has been meowing at me all day like it's my fault, and frankly I've had enough judgment from the four legged creatures in this house for one day.

Love you more than K-pop, more than anime, more than you'll probably ever fully believe until you have a daughter of your own who flips off her brother around the corner and thinks nobody saw.

Love your “yeehaw” mother as you so lovingly refer to me as…