Up until a child is pre-teen, most of the activities in their lives ride shotgun to yours. They can ask, but ultimately, you determine where and when they do anything. You decide practically most of their extracurricular logistics. Heck, you even decide when they brush their teeth. But years after they have mastered the skill of talking back, their opposition to your dictatorial rule (sometimes) makes sense and is even expected. Their opinions and exertions have long taken physical form especially if their arguments are convincing enough as they storm out of childhood and into adolescence. The fraying of the once tightly woven system of interaction between father and daughter is about to be unraveled. That’s actually not a bad thing.
My struggle has always been to find the right venue for my daughter to exercise that free will. My frustration comes not from my OCD, control-freakish, tiger dad mode that I defaulted to since she was an infant, but from the unpredictability of the surroundings and interaction in which she chooses to express that independence. So, when a buddy of mine asked if we’d join him and his family on a Disney cruise, it took me all of 50 milliseconds to agree!
For me, the Disney ship checked all the boxes. It was a floating city where my daughter could roam freely with endless content to fire her imagination. It was staffed with 1:2 crew/guest ratio that would make it impossible for her to be lost. And if she ever needed, all crew members are trained to interact with children (even grown-up children) of all ages in almost all the major languages.
Except for excursions, dinners and when our families got together to see nightly shows, I gave my daughter free reign to explore anything she wanted. I didn’t even insist on her food choices and how much she ate. What I discovered was that she is a young lady who needed less and less supervision, made good decisions and totally relished her independence with a tremendous amount of forethought and responsibility that was always present, which I had trepidation (or reluctance) to allow her to express in our regular lives. She even baby sat my buddy’s daughter who was five years younger as the parents dined in the adults-only Palo restaurant! It was remarkably relaxing and everyone felt emotionally safe. I needed that the most.
It’s uncanny that as father and daughter, Disney provided the venue for her to explore her nascent adulthood as I recaptured moments of my own childhood. It is our sameness that has allowed us to see and appreciate our differences.
And due to planning logistics for an off-ship excursion, only one seat remained and we collectively made a decision for my daughter to join my friend’s family to round out a package of four. Disney was very good at managing the authorization for minors to disembark with authorized persons only. So, for that day, my daughter got to enjoy jeep off-roading in the wilderness while I luxuriated at the ship’s spa. We were miles apart from each other in a different country and yet, I didn’t feel worrisome. I could almost feel the stress lines mending on the treatment table!
Our trip was filled with happy moments of togetherness and separation. Even though I had the option to DM her with onboard messaging, I chose not to disrupt her quiet time. At dinner, she told me how relaxing it was to stare out at sea while watching people play shuffleboard from a lounge chair while listening to her downloaded Spotify. Clearly my daughter is mastering the art of her-time. I would tell her my day of lounging at the adult-only pool and flocking with parents-of-a- feather.
Distance builds closeness. Surely as bones grow back stronger after it is broken and ice gets harder with each refreeze, separation always reverts to a stronger togetherness. Always. And mended relations are far more resilient after recovering from points of separations (and even friction). Always.
This cruise for me was not only my first but was a long overdue vacation. What I didn’t expect was it became an eye opener for me to see just how much my daughter has grown post-pandemic. It’s uncanny that as father and daughter, Disney provided the venue for her to explore her nascent adulthood as I recaptured moments of my own childhood. It is our sameness that has allowed us to see and appreciate our differences. Our tapestry will continue to be unraveled over time, but it will also continue to be mended. In the decades to come, that tapestry will become worn, tattered, faded and patched. That will be our experience, our keepsake and our legacy.
