“I hope my daughter grows up to be like you.”

It is an incredible compliment, and one that I’ve received only a few times in my life. Usually, it comes from someone I know well, but two weeks ago a stranger said it to me after only a few hours of interacting. I was deeply flattered, but simultaneously trying to stifle a laugh as I remembered younger Sarah. I was a passionate (read: stubborn), enthusiastic (spastic), articulate (challenging), and curious (demanding) diva, that learned most of my life lessons by trying, failing, learning, then trying and failing again.

So, if there is any part of the 21-year-old me that is noteworthy or admirable, all of the credit goes to my parents for departing from the norm and letting me fail hundreds of times so that I could one day succeed hundreds+1 times. The Biggers’ philosophy is not for every family — especially those that don’t drink too much, laugh too loudly, or debate too intensely — but I owe my compliments, accomplishments, and successes to it.

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My dad and stepmom, Erin, live in a condominium in Naples, FL that was built to function like its own completely independent ecosystem. Within the development, there are bars, restaurants, shops, a movie theater, spa, grocery stores, etc… literally, you can live a completely functional life without walking more than 1000 feet. A setup like that certainly attracts some… characters… and I usually meet a new one each trip.

During my most recent visit, we decided to go to one of our favorite restaurants for lunch — meaning we actually went to briefly eat food then consume our body weight in alcohol. After ordering, he casually commented on how much he loved having me around for the week (19 years divorced makes you appreciate that kind of thing), and that he appreciated my choice to come stay with family rather than party with friends for the 4th. To be fair, partying with my family is probably just as much fun as partying with my friends — in fact, my friends would probably agree with that — but I understood what he was saying. Within minutes, a conversation comprised of inappropriate humor, deep philosophy, candid honesty, and some cheesy cliches began. The Biggers clan doesn’t know what the word “taboo” means.

Throughout our conversation, I noticed two businessmen sitting next to us, also talking candidly (+1) and drinking heavily (+20). Our conversations remained equally loud but entirely separate for a good  hour or so, until the bartender asked if I wanted another Peroni. Feeling pretty full, I told him no, to which half the bar gave me hackled me for. (Side note: Naples has an average age of probably 70, and I’m getting made fun of at a bar…proof that the Biggers’ hereditary impressiveness stopped cold at my feet.) The businessman closest to me is now alone and joined in with a smartass joke (+100) so I relented and let the bartender fill up another one. The man asked where I was from and what I was doing in Naples, then where I was in school and what I was studying.

Atlanta. Oh that’s a great city! Family for the 4th of the July. Good for you! Georgia Tech. Wow – fingers crossed you’re an electric engineer? Nope, sorry – business student. But I’ve actually been working for the past nine months. What do you do?

I told him what our company does and my role in the business. He asked me some pretty marked questions about the industry and future of the company, to which I responded with all of the know-how and terminology I could muster. His eyes went wide, he laughed in disbelief, and told me he wanted to hire me because I knew more about IT than the guy next to him did, and he owned an IT firm. At this point, he introduced himself as a co-founder and senior partner of a well-established IT consulting and management company. Casual, right?

He yelled across the bar to get my Dad’s attention (I WANT TO HIRE YOUR DAUGHTER!), and asked how old I was, when I was graduating, etc. After at least thirty more minutes of interacting with us, he said he had a kind of personal question for me. I got a little nervous, but mostly giddy — I love when people open up to me.

I have a step daughter that I call my daughter and I love like my own. We’re very close and I want to be a cool dad. She’s a good kid, but she’s a cute 15-year-old, and that terrifies me. You are weirdly impressive for your age, and your relationship with your dad is incredible. How do I recreate what you’ve got?

Talk about a loaded question. I asked him some questions about his daughter to figure out what he was really asking. Turns out, she has a boyfriend, and he didn’t seem particularly thrilled about it.

Lesson 1: Why Controlling Your Teenage Daughter’s Love Life is A Bad Idea

So you don’t like her boyfriend?

Of course not, he’s dating my daughter! 

But he hasn’t done anything? Other than the normal teenage boy issues, he hasn’t actually given you a reason to dislike him, right?

Well, no. But I’m her Dad and I’m going to protect her from Sons-of-Bitches like him. 

You can’t do that. (Jaw drops, pure terror comes into his eyes.) You flat out just can’t. Even if you wanted to control every second of her existence once she’s home, which would be incredibly unreasonable, you can’t control her during school or extracurriculars or at friends’ houses. Chances are, she’s going to make a dumb decision somewhere along that not-at-home road, like skipping class, lying about which friends she’s with, or even sneaking out. That dumb decision will happen regardless of whether or not you try to control the situation. But, if you do try to micromanage her life with an authoritarian thumb, the chances of her repeatedly making dumb decisions skyrockets, and they will probably be worse. All you can do is teach her how to make good decisions and give her the tools and support to do so.

Fuck. I was worried you would say that. Okay, not saying I can do that, but if I wanted to try…

Lessons 2-7: How do I teach a 15-year-old to make good decisions?

1. Help her find her worth, and don’t chastise her if she forgets it every so often. I am always more confident in my values right after I’ve acted in a way that contradicts them.
2. Tell her she can trust you, then prove it. Unfortunately, after age 12, any trust that children put in their parents becomes negligible because they think you want to ruin their lives, so you have to earn it back.  Most parents tell their teenagers something along the lines of “if you feel uncomfortable or unsafe or get into trouble, call me and I will get you, no questions asked.” (Hint: if you haven’t, you should.) That’s all fine and dandy and worthy of some gold stars, but the aftermath is what separates truly supportive parents from the “others”, i.e. the parents who are more embarrassed that they didn’t know what their kid was up to than they are concerned with what the kid went through or is going through. I can’t even count the number of times I told my mom the truth about what I was doing, where I was going, and who I was with, while my friends lied through their teeth. Yes, sometimes we got into trouble. Okay, a lot of the time. But no parent ever berated my mom for knowing beforehand that I was doing something that *may* be troublesome (anything, anyone, and anywhere for a child aged 13-19 *may* be troublesome). In fact, most parents just wanted to know her secret, because they got a call two hours later after their child had finished trying to squirm out of trouble because he was too scared to call after what happened “Last Time.”
3. Give second chances, but not thirds. It’s very hard to excel at something or make a perfect decision the first time you encounter it. Teach her the value of moving forward, but purposefully and with redirection. My parents never got mad at me for messing up things I didn’t know or hadn’t already experienced. They did, however, threaten to murder me when I made the exact same mistake again, usually because I was lazy and/or being all teenage-angsty.
4. Show her that you want her to have experiences; make some things non-negotiable, and others flexible. Choose carefully — what you make non-negotiable will probably stick for life, and what you make flexible will probably be pushed to the limit. Because that’s what teenagers do. When you can tell the experience is something she is going to live out whether you like it or not, be flexible and choose to live it out by her side. It’s all about perspective. My parents knew that my brother and I were going to drink underage, so they let us drink casually with them at dinnertime (which, by the way, is not illegal) which certainly made us more responsible drinkers. If you know your daughter wants her cartilage pierced so badly that she will probably do it on her own at some sketchy sweat shop, relent and take her to a good shop. Non-negotiable things with my parents were/are making good grades, saying “thank you”, not driving under the influence, table manners, and never typin’ lyke dis.
5. Give her room to make tough decisions and live out the consequences. Mistakes happen, and will continue happening for the rest of her life — the way that you teach her to clean up new messes and deal with consequences will stick, so do it right. Make her own up to her mistakes, take responsibility, discuss what could be done differently, come up with a consequence, and then be done with it. Once the consequence has ended, don’t double fault her. If you do, she will feel like she’s starting at negative points, and will likely say “screw it” out of frustration. When she handles mistakes maturely and responsibly, make sure you tell her that you’re proud. Growing up is a series of trials and errors, and can feel like a lot more error than success if you don’t recognize small wins along the way.
6. Embody what you want her to learn. Mitch Albom wrote in his book, The Five People You Meet in Heaven, that “all parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair.” If you expect her to live a life of perfectly clean, high-quality glass, then do it yourself.

Lessons 8-11: But…What do you do when they mess up?

I let my Dad swoop in for this one since, y’know, I’ve never had kids. He said it depended on the situation, but in general….

1. What can I do to help? That was the first thing the man asking me these questions said when another business colleague walked up the bar we were sitting at to say hello, my Dad pointed out. “Why,” asked my Dad, “can’t you same the thing to her after she messes up? You really should.” He didn’t need to say much more than that to get his point across: the man was affording a businessman that he largely didn’t care about more support and advice than his own daughter.
2. If you’re lucky enough to have very valuable possessions, remember that material things are, well, material. Get pleasure out of the shiny objects in life, but never forget that a life isn’t made of houses or cars, but of the memories that played out in them. She is absolutely going to do something so fucking stupid that it will blow your mind and your wallet, (*cough* like back into her older brother’s brand new car just hours after he got it for his high school graduation, while he was sitting in it *cough*) but you can’t react to the material value unless you want her to live thinking that luxuries and commodities define her.
3. Relate to them. Sure, details like Facebook and texting have changed since you were a teenager, but a lot of concepts are timeless. Tell her about a time you screwed up similarly. Admit to her that you secretly threw a house party or stuck your car in neutral to back it out of the driveway for an illegal 2am joyride. Not only will she respect you, but she’ll realize how many of her “ingenius” ideas aren’t actually original and shouldn’t be tried, instilling a healthy paranoia for future sneak-ery.
4. Just love them. All the time, in every way you can. You have to love them even when you hate them, because those years are rough and they are probably hating themselves even more.

This continued on for another two hours or so… needless to say, my Dad and I were very flattered to have been chosen. I was happy for the opportunity to speak with adults as an adult, but I was even happier when explaining to this man that my Dad had always treated me like one. Happy, appreciative, and lucky (although that is another story altogether.) We were all smiling at the realization that the hard work we’d put into our family over the years had paid off, and apparently it was noticeable to outsiders. We decided to all head home — he had already skipped his evening plans to continue talking with us and we were pretty tired — so we said our goodbyes, hugged, and he flipped me another business card.

Thank you, Sarah. I hope my daughter grows up to be like you. If she does, I’ll be a happy Dad.

Blush.

Oh, and don’t forget about that job offer.

TLDR; Get drunk at bars and sometimes you get job offers and can pretend to be a psychologist.