Raising a Princess Single Handedly

7/28/2019 Raising a Princess Single Handedly

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Raising a Princess Single-Handedly

By SIMON VAN BOOYPublished: June 26, 2009

IT was about 6:30 on Thursday morning, and I was cooking breakfast in my

pajamas. My daughter, Madeleine, 4, was helping by transferring eggs from

the cardboard carton into the refrigerator egg box. Its one of the things she

does, like pressing the button on the elevator, and licking the cake spoon.

Christopher Silas Neal

That morning we were both performing our duties with sleepy devotion.

Then I put down my whisk and asked Madeleine to throw me an egg.

She peered up curiously from her work. One of these eggs?

I nodded.

But it might break.

Just throw it, Madeleine. Ill catch it.

She looked at the egg in her small hand, and for reasons known only to her,

she began to carefully inspect the shell.

What at first was a trifling culinary request another egg for the mixture

quickly became something more significant: an unscripted moment of trust

between a father and daughter. I wanted her to trust that if she threw
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something delicate, I would save it. Her mother had died a year earlier. It

was sudden an undiagnosed disorder, a suspected case of Marfan

syndrome. Most people I know have never heard of it.

Sometimes Madeleine and I talk about that day. Its something very private

between us. I nod and listen. I want her to know Ill take anything she

wants to share, even if I dont have an answer, which is most of the time.

Another subtle exchange occurred last week when I was making dinner. I

noticed Madeleine leafing through a fashion magazine. Later that evening,

she said, So I think Ive found someone for you to marry. I almost choked.

She retrieved the magazine and opened it to a page featuring a catwalk

model in a blue dress with a yellow cape that she had circled in blue crayon.

She looks a little bit like Snow White, I said.

Oh yes, I know, came the answer.

It wasnt the first time Disney princesses had played an important part in

our lives. The night after her mother died, Madeleine begged me to stay up

and watch Sleeping Beauty. We sat together on the couch under a blanket.

It would have been like any other night except for the fact that we were bothliving in a world we could not have imagined.

That was the first of hundreds of nights we would simply have to fake

normalcy and hope it felt the same. Madeleine fell asleep during the film.

She missed the part where the Prince brings Sleeping Beauty back to life

with a kiss, and everything returns to normal. I wondered whether she fell

asleep on purpose.

At the end of Sleeping Beauty, with my daughter asleep on my lap, I wasremembering stories about World War II Id heard from my elderly

neighbors and grandparents during my British childhood. I remembered


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one about a restaurant in Paris full of people in beautiful clothes seemingly

enjoying fine food and wine.

Paris was then occupied by Nazi soldiers, and it was one of the coldestwinters in memory. To people passing the chic bistro, the scene was

unthinkable: the citys social elite sitting down to luxurious suppers when

so many were cold and starving.

But a closer look revealed the truth. The waiters brought menus, patrons

asked what was especially good that night. Wine was ordered by the bottle;

Champagne was shouted for by businessmen in black ties. Ladies

complimented one another on their clothes.

But for the duration of the night, all that emerged from the kitchen was

water. No food, no wine, no Champagne. Just bottle after bottle of water, on

trays, in Champagne buckets, in bowls, and in glasses. It was a night like

any other, yet unlike any other.

In a world marked by the absence of someone so irreplaceable, Madeleines

and my lives are the same, but also completely different. Im a fatherwho

makes bumbling attempts at motherly things. My in-laws, who live on Long

Island, are unfailingly kind; they overlook my mistakes and are alwaysavailable to Madeleine and me.

But in my day-to-day life, Ive developed a kinship with full-time mothers. I

ask them questions on the subway, in the supermarket, at the park. Buy this

kind of mop, they say. Use iron-on labels, they say. Feed her by 5 p.m. and

shell be tired by 7:30, they say.

The ethnic diversity of New York is working for me; after taking advice

from two Hispanic women on the subway, I now cook rice in chicken broth.


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I buy store-brand cereal and put it in the box with cartoon characters on it.

How could a man ever have thought that up?

I now hide all fashion magazines, not because Im against Disney-inspiredcouture, but because Im worried Madeleine will think those models are

what she is supposed to look like as a woman.

What I mean to say is: I think differently now about everything.

Around Christmas I searched for a single-fathers group on Craigslist. I even

placed an ad. I wanted Madeleine to know shes not alone in this situation,

that there are other girls living with their fathers. I also think I did it for

myself, to find some sort of community for men like me. Alas, I didnt geteven one response.

But for Madeleine, as if by some miracle, we soon discovered Hannah

Montana (another Disney invention), who lives with her father because

in the show at least her mother is dead. We dont have television, so

Hannah Montana entered our lives on a DVD purchased because Madeleine

had somehow found out about her through that underground toy-

smuggling and gossip network also known as nursery school.

I did try to interest Madeleine in the Jeremy Irons version of Brideshead

Revisited, but it annoyed her so much that she went to her room and

quietly closed the door. We eventually learned how to compromise our

movie nights with films starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers though

we may be watching them too often, as Madeleine has started dressing for

dinner, and in mid-meal extending her hand to me for a dance.

On New Years Eve (spent in our apartment), she asked me to put on a

black bow tie and dinner jacket. Our end-of-year countdown began at 8oclock. I found Internet footage of revelers in Trafalgar Square, and my

parents calling from southwest England only added to the effect. Madeleine

and I clinked our wineglasses full of sparkling apple cider, made resolutions


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and went to bed. Three hours later, when we were fast asleep, New York

erupted with cheers and fireworks.

Living together means that we sometimes have to manufacture our ownkind of happiness, because the worlds idea of it is out of sync with our

reality.

Besides learning how to fake New Years parties and sew buttons, Ive

learned about myself. The other day when I was brushing my cheeks with

shaving cream, Madeleine came into my bathroom. Surprisingly, she was

already dressed for school.

Im rather a messy shaver. Afraid I might get shaving cream on her dress, Isaid: Please keep me company, Madeleine. But dont get too close. Then I

laughed, realizing that what Id said characterizes the nature of my adult

relationships. Madeleine smiled up at me, and in my heart, I thought, Get

as close as you like.

The hardest moments are when I feel as if Im losing control. One night it

was past 9 and Madeleine was still awake. She also needed a bath, and the

toilet was leaking. On top of this, I suspected we had a mouse, and thus I

was worried about the deadly hantavirus.

Madeleine asked me for some hot milk, but on nights like this, you open the

refrigerator to find that youve run out. I thought the end was near when I

dropped the last overnight pull-up diaper into the slowly filling bathtub

next to the leaking toilet. Earlier that afternoon, the amazing part-time

nanny had told me she was quitting because she had found a photography

job.

But somehow, by the next day, everything worked out. The nanny had aroommate who was even more experienced with children, I discovered

Fresh Direct delivery, it took Raoul (the super) two minutes to adjust the


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Raising a Princess Single Handedly