Her Father's Daughter

As hard as it sometimes is for me to be the mother of five boys, my poor husband has an even harder time. Not with being father to five boys, mind you. That he does very well.

No, the times he has struggled the most as a parent is when he's had to deal with our little "rose among the thorns". That's what he called Stephanie after she was born. It's the only time he's waxed poetic, by the way.

Truthfully, he didn't have many problems dealing with her when she was little. He cuddled her, kissed her boo-boos and generally made sure she could play, run and ride bikes and motorbikes as well as her brothers.

Terry was even fairly decent at getting her dressed and her hair brushed before she had to go somewhere. Of course he did these things in a completely manly way. For instance, he hated digging through a basket of clothes for matching socks for her, so he went out and bought her 8-10 pairs of socks that had ice cream cones on them. That way whatever socks he grabbed always matched. White socks would have served the same purpose, but he didn't want to be boring.

The two of them sometimes got into trouble too. Like the time I came home to find that, not only had he given all the boys haircuts, but he'd also given in to Stephanie's pleas to join in. Her long hair had been cut to where it grazed her jawline. As I sobbed over the loss of my little girl's hair, he explained that he hadn't meant to cut it so short, but she wouldn't hold still. And he didn't remember that it was the day before her kindergarten graduation ...

At any rate, as Stephanie got older their relationship entered into new arenas, and Terry discovered that he couldn't always deal with a girl the way he dealt with the boys. For example, when he started teaching her to drive, he took her to an empty parking lot, parked the van and told her to start it up and back out. As soon as she went into reverse, he said, "Boom. You just hit someone and killed them."

I ended up taking over the driving lessons.

I think the time when having a daughter confused him the most was when we lived in Uganda. Stephanie was a pre-teen, given to occasional hormones. I had to go back to the States for a couple of weeks to get some dental work done. Terry didn't mind taking care of all the kids, but he did insist that I had to do one thing before I left. I had to explain female cycles to Stephanie in case something started while I was gone. I was pretty sure we didn't have anything to worry about, but I was also pretty sure that this was one area he wouldn't be able to handle, so I did what he wanted.

Stephanie was already upset that I was leaving without her, and her mood didn't improve when I explained what could possibly happen with her body while I was gone. But then Terry really capped it all off when he had a "conversation" with her a day or so later.

"Did your mom explain things to you?" He asked abruptly. When Stephanie nodded, he added, "Good. Just remember:  if anything happens you can tell me, 'Red ball one. Bag is leaking'." Satisfied that everything was handled, he walked off.

Stephanie didn't speak to me for three weeks, and she still occasionally reminds us of how traumatized she was.

At any rate, I never let anyone feel sorry for her being in a family of boys. God designed our family, and He put it together in a way that was best for us. I told her not everyone qualifies to be a Boyd, and she was the only girl to make the cut. There's just not that many females out there that could handle her father.

So how does your husband do when it comes to raising girls?