juz to share an interesting article:

What every father will learn sooner or later is that his daughters are female, and are thus incomprehensible.

OKAY, so I’m a guy, which means that the female mind is a strange and wondrous thing that I will never understand. Learning this lesson is part of growing up, and of growing older.

Just when you’ve accepted it, however, life throws in a spanner and you have to learn the lesson anew ... or at least, from a completely different perspective.

Like when you have children, and they turn out to be girls.

Being a father is easy enough when they’re toddlers, even when you include the “icky” bits of having to deal with diapers, colic and a complete disruption to your diurnal lifestyle. But then they start growing older, and begin to form personalities.

Feminine personalities. (Yes, the hint of an ominous undertone here is deliberate!)

Like when you’re going out, and you tell them the day before so that there won’t be any last-minute hiccups.

“Wear something nice, but nothing fancy. It’s not a formal dinner.” That’s pretty self-explanatory, right? It should take them, what, five minutes to look into their wardrobes and pick out something, shouldn’t it?

About an hour later, after much screeching at each other, looking for a favourite top or jeans that the other sister had the temerity to borrow without permission, the 12-year-old will announce, “Papa, we have to go shopping. I have nothing to wear!”

“You have nothing to wear? But you have so many clothes that you’ve taken over my cupboard too!”

“Yes,” she will look at me, not understanding how I can fail to comprehend something so simple as this, “but I have nothing suitable for tomorrow night. We can go to (insert latest trendy mall here) in the afternoon and pick up something.”

“But I have no money.”

“Papa, you must be more careful with how you spend your money. Oh, just bring your credit card along then.”

A lecture on economics, the labour system and capitalism just doesn’t help here. I’ve tried.

Then there’s their habit of making you feel bad, even when they’ve done something wrong.

Once when I was away at work, there was a blackout at home, so the candles came out. I reached home after the power came back on and the maid had gone to sleep.

The eldest was in the living room, vegetating in front of the idiot box. The 10-year-old was in the kitchen. The first thing I noticed was the horrified shock on her face. The second thing I noticed was all the wax that had dried up on the kitchen counter.

All over the kitchen counter. The little pocket-sized pyromaniac had been playing some game with candles, wax and fire!

So I ranted. She got such a scolding from me on the dangers of fire and the need for safety practices at home, and how many kids die in fires, and to never do something so stupid again ... a scolding punctuated by a twirling belt that never connected but which was used to emphasise certain salient points. Her lips quivered, she sulked, she was fearful.

An hour later, before she went to sleep, she finally apologised and promised never to play with fire again.

So I gently explained why it was important that she not do so. And that should have been that, right?

Like all the women in any man’s life, daughters too can have impeccable timing. They will suddenly feel the need to engage in a conversation – whether via SMS, voice, chat or email – at the most hectic and pressure-filled moment of your workday. Which is why the next day at work, I get an SMS: “Papa, I am still offended by what you said last night. You said I was stupid. Since I am stupid, I don’t think I will do well in my final exam.”

I could tell she was mightily peeved by the fact that she hadn’t used any SMS shortcuts or texting techniques, and was being extremely articulate in her self-righteous anger. So I call her.

“Hey, I never said you were stupid; I said that was a stupid thing to do, dear.”

“It’s the same thing.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“Yes it is ... only a stupid girl would do such a stupid thing.”

So I had to spend some time telling her how I had done some “majorly” stupid things in my life as well, and I don’t think I’m stupid.

Of course, I was not stupid enough to confess my 10-year-old self’s own arsonist tendencies ... I don’t want her to use genetic excuses for her next bit of mischief.

See, there’s the problem. You have hundreds of self-help books for single parents, and thousands of “men-from-Mars, women-from-Venus” books to smoothen male-female relationships, but none that tackle both – you know, single father with two hyperactive and too-damned-independent daughters. There’s a market for that, believe me.

It makes you want to tear out what little hair you have left, but then the little darlings ... er, devils, slip their tiny, delicate little hands into your big, uncouth ones as you’re walking down that damned shopping mall, and it all feels worthwhile.

> A. Asohan, New Media Editor at The Star, wonders if he will now get advice on how he should put his two terrors in their place.

sourced from The Star Online