Parenting is Weird and Awesome - 2 Minutes of Truth, Ep. 6

I'm Christopher Schmidt, and this is your Two Minutes of Truth. So one of the first things I remember from interacting with the lovely lady who is now my wife online, was that she had written a set of D&D-style character sheets for herself, her daughters, and the rest of their family. And while I gained a lot of insight from these D&D character sheets, the most amazing thing to me was that this lovely woman who was only years older than me when I was a freshman in college already had a 5 year old adopted daughter and a 2 year old biological daughter. It just seemed strange. Now that I've been helping parent these children for the past 13 years, it doesn't actually feel any less strange, but I've gotten used to it.

The first time I met my daughters was when I came out to visit and my elder daughter had just turned 6, and I helped her learn to skateboard on her 6th birthday with a skateboard someone got her, despite not knowing how to skateboard myself, and later that week when we went to the beach, my two year old took advantage of a very exhausted me to steal my wallet and hide it underneath the futon. There's a lot of things about our relationship which maybe have changed since then. One thing that hasn't changed is how much I adore them. I adore that my elder daughter is artistically talented, a brilliant language learner, and no matter what color her hair is this week, is always willing to help a friend. I adore that my younger daughter is technically inclined, so much so that at four years old she decided to take apart the lamp and see how it worked, so much so that at 14 years old she was teaching me new features of Google Docs and Google Drive when I worked for Google. I'm so proud of my elder daughter for getting into Hampshire College and going there this fall; I'm so proud of my younger daughter for getting on the honor roll for the first two semesters of high school after a difficult transition for any kid.

But most importantly, what I'm glad about is that I've been able to share in this life with them. That I've been able to raise them and we've been able to build a life of our own together. That we've been able to move from 19 year old college kid to the person I am today. And I owe almost all of that to them and my lovely wife. So to them I say: thank you, for making me the man I am today. .

As found on Youtube