The Secret of Raising Girls

"Hey Mike," he says leaning over the counter at "The Breakfast Club." "Who was that girl with you the other day?"

Incredulously I stare at the young stud.

"She's really hot," he continues.

Franklin, who is brown, laughs behind the young stud watching how I am going to respond.

"Ummmm," I finally say grabbing his arm a little too tightly, "She's twelve. Stay away from her."

His eyes grow wide as he stammers apologies.

"No f-ing way," he starts poorly. "I mean I didn't know. Oh Jesus, I'm sorry."

Franklin is howling as the young stud runs to the back to distance himself as far from me as possible.

Whitley Reynolds, a fellow member of "Counter Intelligence", shakes his head and with a sad smile says, "You get to do all of this again don't you?"

Sighing, it strikes me for the first time that I do.

Sarah has three girls and it appears each will follow in her genetic footprints and be drop dead gorgeous ... meaning they will be hit on sooner rather than later and I'm going to have a front row seat ... which will force me to take occasional action.

I am a survivor of raising two beautiful girls already ... and it never occurred to me until young stud inquired about 12 year old Maddie that I'll be put in the middle of would be suitors and wanna-be suit-ees ... until now.

I'm frond of telling people I'm a "Kristen survivor" and my support group of one meets often.

My oldest daughter had lots of suitors.

Once she brought one over and started to introduce me.

"Ummm," I hold up my hand before she can tell me his name. "It's nice to meet you. I'm sure you're nice. But you won't be here next week so let's save me the trouble of acting like I'm going to remember your name."

"DAD!" Kristen shrieks.

"Am I wrong?" I say ignoring the boy and looking at my beautiful daughter who suddenly doesn't have a come back.

"Okay then, let's just enjoy dinner shall we?"

I never saw the boy again because Kristen replaced him for not making a positive impression on her father.

All that to say, I've been around the block raising beautiful girls.

Alas, I get to do it again when their mother's not around.

When Sarah's around I can kick back and enjoy the emerging raging hormones, the awkward behavior of emerging sexual awareness and the mixture of being desired while desiring but too dumb to know how to handle it.

That will be fun because Sarah will be in charge and I can simply enjoy all of the awkwardness.

But when she's not around, I'll be forced into damn-if-you-and damned-if-you-don't action.

If I don't do anything, leaving Maddie to her own devices, which will be fun as Hell to watch, I'll get in lots of trouble with Sarah for not protecting her from boys ... and herself.

While it would be a lot of fun immediately, in the end it would be unpleasant for me to not intervene.

Meaning Sarah will kick my ass.

So I'll intervene and cut it off before it can grow.

Maddie will introduce me to someone and I'll say, "It really doesn't matter who you are ... you'll be somebody else next week ... let's just enjoy dinner ... shall we?"

And that's the secret to raising beautiful girls.