Daddy How Do You See Me?

The most haunting words to hit my ears as a parent were from one of my daughters during her first week of college. She had not been on campus twenty-four hours before she got into some trouble. Our daughter hardly saw it serious, yet she felt she should inform us as to what was going on. Suddenly, even before we had arrived home from dropping her off (some four hundred miles away), she was on probation! We considered it serious. It was serious! And with this came all the fears and dreads and anxiety of having our seventeen-year old `baby' away at college. As a loving father I gave her some strong fatherly advice. Then it came, the email: "Daddy, how do you see me?" She didn't ask me what I thought. She asked me what I SEE. Seventeen years of parenting slammed to a halt.

In the midst of the situation my wife and I took a look at her MySpace page. We were worried about how her tennis coach would see her, how the administration would see her, how her residence hall advisor would see her. But these things didn't seem to matter (to her). I don't think those things matter to a daughter as much as how her father sees her.

As human beings on planet Earth we are conditioned to think that our eyes are receptors only. We use our eyes to `take in' information. We use our eyes to read the newspaper, observe beauty, make sure there are no oncoming cars before we enter the intersection. But, for the most part, we are unconscious of what seeing really is, what our eyes are really for. Seeing goes outward. While we think information is going in, something else is going out. Our heart is going out. How we see people is going out. Jesus warned us not to have an evil eye. How could an eye be evil if it is only a `receptor'? He said this because how we see (and even what we see) betrays the condition of our heart - what is on the inside.

As the weeks (and situation above) unfolded, something much deeper started taking root in me. Parenting had heretofore involved `providing for' my children (advice, clothing, tuition, whatever). But now I could see my role as something way deeper, far more important, and farther reaching. As a father I need to govern how I SEE my children. Rumors criss-crossed campus. Her sister (my oldest daughter) who also attends the same college was collecting `quite a picture'. And though she wanted to be somewhat discrete, the picture she passed on was not `pretty'. Then I said perhaps some of the most important words I have ever said, "What she becomes depends on what we think of her ... HOW WE SEE HER." (Wow, I said that?!) But it is so true.

Do I `see' my (other) children (the ones still at home) as rebellious, and disobedient? Or are they little explorers, prince and princesses wrestling for freedom! At what age are they actually young adults wanting to own their world? I propose it is at a very early age. If I see them one way I will be strict, controlling with rules, and boundaries (for their `protection', of course). If I see them another way I will empower them with words and action.

My neighbor ridicules me for giving my son a ride to school every day. "He should have to walk." And part of me agrees. I mean, when I grew up it was a two mile walk to school, uphill, against the wind, and through a foot and a half of snow, all year long, both directions, ... and I walked! "He should learn to be `tough'!" Well, that is one way to see it. The other way, the current way, is that it is valuable time with my boy that might be otherwise lost. As I look this way and that to make sure there are no oncoming cars he asks me an endless stream of questions. I come home exhausted (by the questions), but fascinated. And, here is the best part: even though there may have been chaos at the breakfast table getting us all fed and out the door, and even though there is the ongoing tension of `chores' and bedtimes, as he slams the car door and heads off to the front of the school, if I am listening, I hear the words `love you'. So, I see it as worth it.

Children don't need to know what we `think'. We make that really obvious. Our children need to know how we see them. Do we see them going somewhere (important), becoming someone (important)? Do we see them as underweight, overweight, or growing into their perfect weight? Do they think we see them as having the `goods' to make it? If they don't think we see them that way, they will find someone who (they think) does! How I see my children determines their futures, their destinies, their relationships. Are not our greatest `demons' all about how we perceive others (especially our fathers) see (or don't see) us?

So, how do I see my daughter in her first semester of college? As a seventeen year old queen conquering her country, heading into her world, not without some bumps, a tennis star, a future professional in sports psychology, someone who loves life, or do I see her another way? I see her beating odds, and doing the impossible. As the weeks unfolded, it turned out that some of the rumors were just rumors. Some of the bad news was, well, bad. But maybe not as bad as we made it. The `bottom line' truth perhaps we will never know. I think `God' intends it (life) to be that way. Real life actually has huge ambiguities in it, even the parts of life closest to home. I think life is designed that way - to give us room as to how we see it. And I think there will always be unanswered questions in relationships - to give us leeway as to how we choose to see them.

As I close, there is this other email on my desktop. It is a campus-wide email ... blah, blah ... but something at the bottom catches my eye.

The question is not what you look at, but what you see. - Henry David Thoreau