Big Girl Requires Minimal Adult Supervision

This publication has borne witness to several key developments in Kina’s life of the last year: potty training, writing her own name, being sensitive to other people’s emotions—the list is impressive, given the stasis of the world outside her door. And so, as we approach the one-year anniversary of The Daily Kina, it feels fitting to add “true playground independence”. Even before the pandemic, our visits to the playground were most often about family; other kids were of at best secondary interest, and Kina expressed no interest in their games. This meant that I spent a lot of time actually playing with, rather than observing, my three-year-old daughter on the playset. This was, to be super clear with you, very entertaining and mildly good exercise, and I was very flattered by her attention, but I have long wondered when she’d run off on her own.

As it turns out, that time is now. Yesterday, Kina spent hours exploring the Brooklyn waterfront with her good friend Futura, hopping around on the various architectural flourishes of our local parks, gossiping about smaller children, collecting rocks to throw in the water, collecting sticks to throw in the water, and throwing rocks and sticks into the water. From time to time, one or the other of them would run over to where the four parents were sitting and complain about some petty injustice, then—having filed her grievance—return to the play task at hand. After pizza lunch, ice cream snack, and five hours in the sunshine, we said goodbye and skipped off. The girls had all the play and exploration they could possibly have wanted, the parents talked about punk culture and vacations and obscure accents, and nobody really seemed to recall the moment, just eight months prior, when the kids were principally invested in the attentions of their parents.

You won’t be surprised to hear that I am conflicted about this, and I won’t rehash past newsletters in which I dread her looming disinterest. In fact, I think it’s worth noting that I did not find yesterday’s experience unpleasant at all; it is the culmination of a wish Laurea and I had over four years ago, as we whispered to each other in bed, fearful of waking the newborn. In various permutations, that whispering asked, when will we ever be the same again? I’ve spent much of those four years—and even a good chunk of this last year identifying as an appendage of my own child. I literally live to serve. To what extent this is actually Stockholm Syndrome seems up for debate, but I have been very clear-eyed about my investment in Kina’s life. It is not an accident, and not even really a sacrifice.

We are not having a second child. We will have only one day in our lives as parents in which our progeny are one thousand five hundred and sixty-seven days old. This will always be true, as those days step monotonically forward, but these last several hundred days have felt particularly important somehow, like we’re fueling her up emotionally for the road ahead. On the playground, we watch her interacting with these kids, deciding when to step in or step away, comfortable with herself (we hope) as she draws on the asphalt with a hunk of chalk. In those moments, we are looking for signs of the seeds we’ve planted in her—of independence, tolerance, strength, curiosity, and care. As each day passes, we see a new sprout, and we learn a little more about the road we’ve laid out for her; it’s usually something pleasant, sometimes surprising, occasionally worrisome (but not a lot).

If there’s anything I have learned since Kina was still just an embryo, it’s that our hard work has little bearing on the specificity of her fate. We can give her the foundation, but we cannot consciously provide much guidance on the house she decides to build on it. She will have the life she has, and she will draw on the tools we’ve offered her as she navigates that life. It surprises me that I experienced Kina’s independence yesterday with such relief and comfort—it’s unlike me not to be afraid of the future as it reveals itself. I suppose that’s my gift to the new-parent version of myself from four years ago—or his to me. I’m definitely not the same today as I was before Kina was born, and I never will be, but as we re-experience finding our way out of the nest for the first time since we were four, we are once again all big kids, with our own lives and our own friends and our own little pizzas. Tomorrow, we will be one thousand five hundred and sixty-eight days old together. All new, never the same.

Parade today was art-directed by Kina, but she offered very little to the execution. She and Laurea watched a television adaptation of The Runaway Bunny this morning, and so, these are bunnies. Kina drew the noses and bellybuttons on these three rabbits, and she insisted Laurea add cottontails to each of them. Laurea said she thought there should be musical notes, and proceeded to draw them, but backwards (because Laurea is not a university-trained and lapsed musician, as some other members of this household are). Kina sighed and said “I told you Daddy should do the music,” and then made me draw some other musical notes, and various clefs. I think it turned out well on all counts.

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Here’s a question: I’m starting to try to figure out how to reflect on the last year of The Daily Kina. If you’ve been reading this newsletter for a while, and you’re the kind of person who reads to the bottom—can you reply to this edition and let me know what you’ve found memorable, what’s stood out, what headlines have stuck with you, or what you’ve learned about little kids or their neurotic parents? Maybe you’ll have a take that I have missed, and I want to honor that for you—and for Kina. Thanks for sticking with us, and for your faithful subscription.