A Letter to My Daughter About Young Men
My dearest Adelaide,
One day you will ask me “Daddy, what was the war like?” and I will freeze like a deer caught in the headlights. “How should I answer a question like that?” I wonder. Especially to a young girl, curious about what she’s learned in school.
“Daddy was in the war. Both of them. I see his medals in our hallway!” Perhaps this is what you’ll tell your teacher. But as you grow into a teenager you’ll have more questions, and I imagine I will be somewhat of an enigma at times.
So instead I will tell you about young men and honor.
When I was a young boy, I was told by other boys that nothing was better than getting one free hand up a girls shirt in the middle of a dark movie theater. It was a strange sentiment because I just wanted her to smile at me and hold my hand. But holding hands was for “fags” they said. Grow a pair and cop a feel.
There is a terrible thing that happens in a young boy’s head when confronted by other members of your pack. Like jackals running wild, you do not want to be left alone to hunt, for fear that the pack may turn and devour you. So when they ask you to take down the innocent gazelle, you shyly comply to prove that, you too, are a member of this pack. This tribe.
