Confessions of a Girl Dad

 Gary Grossman 

 

 

Gary Grossman, his wife and two daughters

Confessions of a Girl Dad

By Gary Grossman

I was raised by a divorced Mother, although until I was nine we lived either next-door or with my maternal grandparents. Consequently, my maternal grandfather was the only male role model I had growing up, and he was of the generation that worked 50 hour weeks. My mother also always worked until she became disabled, so I suppose the main lesson of my early years was "everyone works." My wife and I are both university faculty members (now retired) and we had our girls later in life (I was 42 and a tenured full professor when our second daughter was born). Job security meant that I could spend more time with my girls and that was very meaningful. Without sounding pompous, I suppose one key to being a girl dad was ignoring stereotypical sex roles for raising kids. If my girls wanted to climb trees they climbed trees, if they wanted to catch crayfish, they caught crayfish, and if they wanted a baseball mitt rather than a doll, that's also what they received. Of course having a Mother who was a scientist also provided great role modeling and as a happy family that is still together (seemingly unusual for our generation), it's impossible to know which specific life-lessons our girls received from me and which from my wife.    


Anna at 3 1/2 Shows an Interest in Fashion

Your silhouette indents my thigh,  
an artist's brush upon my slacks,
slides back and forth, and up and down
as more of lunch is nuzzled clean 
upon my pants. 

Now blotched with amber, edged in red, 
the leavings of a ripened peach, 
a dash of green from spinach too, 
my wardrobe heralds new couture,
designed with patterns from your plate, 
cheek etched shirts and lip glazed pants.

A millennial parent, PhD, and a
a four foot napkin, neck to knee.

First published in Athens Parent Magazine    

Driving Rachel to Sleep: October 1994

Sunlight plaits your hair,
then morphs into a
tangerine ball 
bouncing towards me in
the rear-view mirror.        

I glance up to the
reflection of a 
wriggling toddler, 
clasped by the indigo 
arms of your new car seat.

I can’t ever seem to get you down.

Seven sunset clouds 
crawl by on my right,
as if they were the
last red cows returning
to the tobacco ad barn.

Your eyelids begin 
to open and close— 
foam atop the cobalt
waves of a small storm.

I decide to drive
further; worried that 
a vagrant street lamp
will jar you awake.

Heading for home I
embrace the roads
you will travel in 
the years ahead 

from Objects in Mirror May Be Closer Than They Appear

 

Night Noises

Toilet,
Faucet, 
Refrigerator,
Squeaking limbs,
Slap of the cat door,
Whippoorwill's chant,
Dust raining onto dresser tops,  
Warm air tickling heating vents,
Moon light skidding down louvered blinds,
An edged plea dodging round the bedroom door,                               

"Daddy, I'm scared, please come sleep in my room".

First published Athens Parent Magazine 2005


Make the Barbies Talk, Daddy

1.
Our kids don’t sleep, so we stumble through
the days. A bedroom brood chamber, 

queen (us), single (five-year old), and
crib (baby), while clean laundry in

the blue latticed basket shouts 
“fold me” as it squats in an unclogged 

square meter of bedroom, but there’s
no room for a body to sort 

clean boxers, so I wear nylon 
gym shorts—washed daily, in our 

soaped, porcelain white bathroom sink.

2.
We climb the hours until bedtime, 
our PhDs granting knowledge  

and fretful thoughts, as we navigate
the minefield of our home. Eyeless toes 

step lightly over homeless pacifiers 
and Legos strewn across red oak floors

like a modern version of Van Gogh’s 
sunflowers. Some breaths are half

taken, as we shrug, and another 
furrow joins the quartet at lip’s corner. 

3.
I’m an only child raised by a 
single Mom—now a father—young girls

and rhinestones a mystery, though my
wife—youngest of six—navigates

this sea of girlness like a homing 
salmon, zig-zagging through 21st 

century seas. Masters of class 
rooms, our tools—logic and analysis 

mostly fail with these girls. Some
dilemmas ethical—should we or 

shouldn’t we buy the requested
Barbies? Scientist Barbie makes

the cut, as do Latinx Engineer,
and African-American physician 

Barbie. Mom said “a boy—no dolls”.

4.
Nightmares run through our beds again, and I’m 
empty as the valves of a shucked oyster. 

But it’s time to animate the  
Barbies and I’m clueless, and dead

tired. Moving to Rachel’s room, my 
back against her bed—we sit on the

blue-grey braided rug, a Barbie 
in each hand and she says in a

slightly irritated, bird voice “make 
the Barbies talk, Daddy. Make them talk.” 

So I am pushing through my weariness, 
plumbing the depths of creativity,

and I morph Barbie One into a surgeon 
performing an appendectomy, while

Barbie Two quickly earns a PhD 
in astrophysics and begins lecturing

on black holes. I amuse Rachel for
five minutes and forty-two seconds— 

then she says “that was okay, but now
let’s change their outfits.”

From What I Meant to Say Was


The Dishwasher

1.

Rearranging the dish-
washer is my “thing”.

A family joke run amok,
I peer over shoulders,

“Dad aren’t you glad we’re
even putting plates in?”

But I move two blue-striped 
bowls from bottom to top

and the small plates to the
center, where they evade

the rotating sprayer,
wife and daughters laughing.

“Does it really matter?”
and of course it doesn’t. 

Like so many things done, 
and said every day. Force 

of habit or the mirage of
control of our environment, 

as in this is “my” house. 

2.

It is my one attempt at 
engineering, or is it geometry? 

Filling a finite space to 
the maximum. Efficiency 

squared. Or you might just
think me lazy, while I 

ensure the lowest number 
of dishes that I myself must

wash. Or perhaps a mild 
neurosis, my inability to just

let things slide, like lights
on throughout the night.

Accepting what I cannot change.

3.

When they were younger
and had friends sleep

over, after lights out, when 
they were nestled in bed,

small bird voices would
fly out from their

slightly opened doors
“what’s that noise?” 

“Oh don’t worry, it’s
just my Dad rearranging   

the dishwasher”.

From The Lyrical Years