“Don't look at Daddy's dick, sweetie.”
My 9-month-old daughter sat on the tile floor and watched me as I brushed my teeth. I did it just the way I had done for years – naked at the sink... and her gaze started to bother me. If that weren't bad enough, she climbed to a standing position, supported herself against my leg, and reached skyward for my cock!
Now, I had done nothing to provoke this – a guy's gotta brush his teeth. None-the-less my baby's searching hand had forced me past some terrible, unspoken line that prompted a full body spasm of defense far out of proportion to the threat.
I imagined a parade fathers: my dad, my grandpa, Governor Bill Ritter, the neighbor down the street, the social worker – all of them advancing on me, spurning, reproachful, disgusted, shaking their fists in a violent revulsion:
“YOU SICK SON OF A BITCH! NEVER LET THE BABY NEAR YOUR SHAME!”
No, no... of course not. The baby will be punished severely.
But wait a minute... That's not right.
I couldn't be the first guy to have blundered into his daughter's innocent curiosity about her daddy's junk. How had other fathers dealt with this? How did my dad do it?
To answer my own question: he didn't have to. My brother and I didn't pose the same kind of threat. Of course we weren't allowed to go grabbing and pinching his dick, but neither of us ever wanted to (Well, I guess I shouldn't speak for my bro.)
No, I mustn't be brutal about this. I mustn't be harsh, but what do I do?
Think, man!
I told her, “Don't grab Daddy's junk, sweetie.”
That made her mother laugh, so I rolled with it and it grew into a running gag. But it didn't end there. Daddies have to change diapers, you see? And in case you didn't know, baby girls have tiny little crevices that are impossible to avoid when wiping up all the poop that seems to ooze out of their butts all the time.
I'm just doing my job, see? There's crap everywhere and I've read that women must be careful when wiping their asses so they don't get that nasty shit stuck in
their junk, see?
So I do my best to clean my sweetie's junk – get the bits of blueberry and applesauce crap out of there so she doesn't get an infection or the clap or some kind of unpleasant yeast infection (I'm unclear about these maladies).
And I can't help but notice she's gazing up at me in a relaxed way. Staring right into my eyes. So I wonder if maybe she isn't enjoying this, which on the one hand is A-1, top-shelf, royally effed up... but on the other hand, who wouldn't like to have someone else hand-wash their privates?
Where do I sign up...? Just keep my Dad the hell away from me.
Apparently, incest hadn't entered my baby's mind at all -- probably because she has no shame. Nor should she. She's perfect in every way. Innocent on all counts.
I'm the one who must navigate the murky paths of shame for her. I'm the one who worries this could be weird (it's not.) I'm the one who has to remind himself that it's okay for a father to clean up his daughter after she's crapped all over the place. It's more than OK – it's required.
So maybe I've got a few hangups. Nothing serious, I hope. I can't be the only one.
