Sharon Olds writes about her growing daughter . . .
The Month of June: 13 1/2
by: Sharon Olds
puberty at the same time, at her
own, calm, deliberate, serious rate,
she begins to kick up her heels, jazz out her
hands, thrust out her hipbones, chant
I’m great! I’m great! She feels 8th grade coming
open around her, a chrysalis cracking and
letting her out, it falls behind her and
joins the other husks on the ground,
7th grade, 6th grade, the
magenta rind of 5th grade, the
hard jacket of 4th when she had so much pain,
3rd grade, 2nd, the dim cocoon of
1st grade back there somewhere on the path, and
kindergarten like a strip of thumb-suck blanket
taken from the actual blanket they wrapped her in at birth.
The whole school is coming off her shoulders like a
cloak unclasped, and she dances forth in her
jerky sexy child’s joke dance of
self, self, her throat tight and a
hard new song coming out of it, while her
two dark eyes shine
above her body like a good mother and a
good father who look down and
love everything their baby does, the way she
lives their love.
Parents basically work themselves out of a job. That's the name of the game. That's what Olds is getting at. She's watching her daughter move from pupa to butterfly, ready to fly off. It's a heartbreak that's inevitable for most mothers and fathers.
My son is 16. He's going into his senior year of high school in September. He's already taking college classes. My daughter graduated from college about a year-and-a-half ago. At the beginning of July, she and her significant other will be moving downstate so she can attend medical school.
Now that President 47 has, in essence, started a war with Iran, I worry for my kids' futures. Last night, when I heard about the bombing carried out by the United States, my first thought was about my children and the fucking mess they're going to inherit from my generation.
I've been preparing my son and daughter for bright futures, full of hope and possibility. I've told them they can be anything they want to be. I'm the son of a plumber, and I teach college, work for a library, and hold two post-graduate degrees. That's kind of the American dream, isn't it?
My daughter is worried, too. She wants to be a doctor. She knows she's going to have to depend on student loans in order to attain her dream. Now, Republicans are messing around with the funding of higher education. (President 47 put the dumbest woman on the planet in charge of the Department of Education.) At a time when she should be focused on moving and classes, she's losing sleep over a feckless President of the United States and a sycophantic Congress. (If you're a MAGA supporter, go ahead and look up those big words, I'll wait for you.)
All my life I've tried to protect my children from harm (another of a parent's primary responsibilities). Now, the leaders of my own country have become the enemies, sabotaging the hopes and dreams of millions of young people. Aside from the Cuban Missile Crisis, I don't think we've ever been this close to nuclear war.
My daughter will move downstate in a couple weeks, and I'm expecting to be a little heartbroken. She's always lived close enough for me to help her out if she gets into any trouble. Even though she moved out a few years ago, I've still been able to wear the overprotective father badge. I'm still her daddy. For a little while longer.
Saint Marty wrote a poem for his daughter tonight.
Poem for My Daughter Who Is Moving Away
by: Martin Achatz
In two weeks you will be gone,
not within walking distance,
not a 20-minute drive away.
I won't be able to send you a text,
meet you for ice cream on hot
July days or a cup of winter coffee
when November turns from orange to ice.
Little girl (yes, I'm still going
to call you that, even though
you're 24 now and heading
to medical school, because I
was the first person to hold you
after you emerged from your
mother, held you so close
to my chest you became my
heartbeat, then my heart),
so, little girl, I will let you go,
get in my car, drive away from
you, until you get smaller and
smaller in my rearview mirror.
I will probably hug you first, slip
some cash into your palm,
like all fathers do, remind you
to get your oil changed on your car,
like all fathers do. And I'll probably
say something like I'm so proud
of you! because that's what's
expected. But, tonight, as I write
these words, I don't know who
I am right now. I'm waiting
to hear my heart start beating again.