A Reason to Believe_ Lessons From an Improbable Life - Deval Patrick [37]
When 50 Cent came on for his show, he wore two ammunition bandoliers across his bare, muscular chest. The sound effect between each number was the ratchet of a gun clip. To the screaming delight of a hall filled with hundreds of fifteen- and sixteen-year-old girls, he rapped about “bitches,” “ho’s,” and violence. I got a glimpse of Katherine in the crowd, though she never saw me. Like the rest of the audience, she was completely beguiled.
Later, after we dropped her friends off, I asked Katherine about the concert. She said she had enjoyed it. I asked her if she knew what a ho was. She clearly knew, but she sighed, rolled her eyes, and said it was “just a word.” I told her that it was important she know that she was neither a “bitch” nor a “ho,” and that I never wanted her to accept being called that by anybody.
“You are a jewel,” I said. “Nothing less.”
Katherine scoffed at the time, but she got my message. I think her taste in music has “evolved” since then as well.
Years later, the summer after her nineteenth birthday, Katherine kept asking Diane and me when we would all be in the same place so that she could tell us something important. We were spending a weekend together at our home in western Massachusetts, preparing a picnic lunch, when she came into the kitchen and told us she was a lesbian. We both hugged her, told her we were there for her no matter what, and asked her to grab the mustard jar so we could get the picnic going. That was all she or we needed right then. The time for the endless questions would come in due course.
Alongside unconditional love, I’ve also tried to create expectations for our daughters. They know that I place a high value on decency, respect, and etiquette, all of which were emphasized in my youth. If one of their male friends came into the house with his hat on, I would politely ask him to remove it. We would not tolerate profanity or any other form of lazy speech—say what you really mean and feel without shortcuts, especially crude ones. We held our daughters accountable for the actions of their friends. Once, on the eve of her SAT exams, against strict instructions to stay home, prepare, and get to bed early, Sarah decided to go for a ride, and she gave her friend and study partner—who had no license and no driving experience—permission to back our Toyota SUV out of the carport. That was two strikes. Her friend proceeded to back the car into the front of the house, nearly knocking down the porch. Fortunately, no one was hurt. But that was strike three. The repairs to the house and car were costly, and I told Sarah that even though she wasn’t behind the wheel, she would have to work all summer to pay off the bill. Diane thought I was being severe, but I felt it was an important lesson in responsibility and its consequences. Every two weeks, right after she got her paycheck, Sarah gave us a share until the bill was retired.
Despite such episodes, or maybe even because of them, our daughters know they are loved, and for me, being a father, like being a husband, is another lesson in selfless love. It’s what you are no matter what else you are. Lately, it’s finishing a press conference, a community meeting, or an important bill signing, then having one of the kids call when you are trudging home at 8:30 P.M. to ask, “What’s for dinner?” It’s feeling that same silly blend of pride and longing watching them graduate from college that you felt watching them graduate from preschool, children we have known, as my grandmother would say, since “before they knew themselves”: children we have held