A Letter to My Daughter
After I went to college, my father and I began writing to each other frequently. Though I often read Fu Lei’s Family Letters, I did not particularly envy Fu Cong, because I too had a capable father who guided me as both mentor and friend and had heart-to-hearts with me. Before I knew it, seventeen or eighteen years had passed; I had reached the age of fatherhood, and the baton had been passed to me.
It is not that I made no preparation for this, but compared with what I have stored up professionally—two degrees and more than a decade of experience—I do not really know how to be the best at the job of fatherhood. Being a father is still very different from being an engineer or a manager, because you grow every day, and every day brings me entirely new challenges. As an engineer, I can carry my coding experience from a year ago over to the present without much trouble; past experience even helps me avoid many pitfalls. But the way I dealt with you at three and the way I deal with you now cannot be the same.
Yesterday, because your sister needed to go to sleep, your mother entrusted your piano assignment to me and asked me to supervise your practice. This should not have been happening after nine at night; it was your dawdling that turned what should have been a forty-five-to-fifty-minute task—four or five pieces a day, ten repetitions each—into something that stretched from four in the afternoon, when you came home from school, until after seven, when I got home. I had planned to take you to the playground in the nearby park for half an hour. Unfortunately, you had not finished your assignment, and you promised to practice properly after dinner, so we lost our chance to go to the playground. After dinner you still did not value your time and lazed about. When I took over from your mother, you still had eight repetitions of the last piece left. When I sat beside you, you were dead tired and played even worse; what could have been finished in ten minutes took twenty, and you completed only one repetition.
You protested tearfully again and again that you were too tired and really could not play anymore. Though my heart ached, I still insisted that you keep your promise. I said to you, “Dad knows you are very tired, but since you promised Mom this afternoon that you would finish the remaining pieces after dinner, let’s finish them, all right? When you promise someone something, you should try your best to do it.” You asked me, “Dad, why should I try my best to do what I promised?” I explained, and you kept asking why. For the next ten minutes or so we went back and forth over promises, matching words with deeds, and related questions. Every time I explained one point, you threw out a new why. Finally, I lost my temper, and my voice grew louder and louder. Not to be outdone, you cried and shouted back. I used my authority as a father to roar at you to breathe deeply, lower your voice, and not let your emotions control you. You had no choice but to comply through your tears, scratching at your hair and taking several deep breaths before you barely held back your next scream.
But the one who truly needed to breathe deeply and lower his voice was me. Under your barrage of whys, I was the first to lose control of my emotions; yet, constrained by my role as a parent, I vented that loss of control onto you. Gandhi said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” I imposed on you what I wanted you to do without first asking whether I myself had done it, or done it well.
You see, this is what a “novice” father does. Compared with you, a “novice” daughter, I seem to have lived thirty extra years for nothing. For a four-year-old, losing control of her emotions is unavoidable; but for me, a man in his thirties, to lose control while you had not yet lost yours was utterly wrong. I should reflect on this and promise you: the next time I lose my temper with you, I will first lower my voice, then breathe deeply, until I have controlled myself enough to discuss things with you calmly.
The reason we are strict with you now is that we want you to do three things well.
First, maintain your focus. Compared with other children your age, your concentration is not as good; you often do one thing while thinking about another. When you do homework, you play as you write; when you practice piano, you think about dinner as you play. As a result, the same task takes you several times as long.
Second, develop a sense of time. Right now you do not care about or feel the passage of time. Of course, for a child to have no concept of time may not be a big problem. But what your mother and I have always wanted you to learn is a sense of time, an alertness to the truth of “It passes on like this, not ceasing day or night.” If we do not restrain you now, you will waste a great deal of time that could have been spent playing.
Third, perseverance. Perseverance is a quality a person must gradually forge while growing up; it is the companion that will ultimately help you solve every problem in life. If you shrink back in fear at the slightest setback or obstacle, then you will have no idea how to face greater challenges in the future.
