Papa Don't Bleach

My aunt sent this to me...For all you guys w/little girls running around your homes.

Papa, Don't Bleach
Fathers Discover the Unique Joys of Girls and Pink Laundry
By Tom Downey and Mark Colonna
Special to The Washington Post
Monday, June 19, 2006; C10

Let's consider laundry as a metaphor for stages of the male life.

When we were young and blissfully ignorant, our parents did the wash and we had no idea how, nor did we care.

Then we arrived at college, which is when young men are given their first hint of decision-making power. We embraced this freedom by stuffing 30 pounds of random items, mostly clothing, into a 15-pound washer and setting it on Warm.

We emerged from the experimentation of college with our new diploma-validated skills needed for adulthood, and we used these skills to master two distinct categories of laundry: whites and colors.

Then, suddenly, unexpectedly, we were married. This stage was accompanied by a brief and sadly failed attempt to get out of doing the laundry, because we "can't figure out how to do it."

Now we have finally arrived at the pinnacle of laundry knowledge: the pink laundry stage.

After years of daydreaming about guiding our sons, we find ourselves instead washing pink laundry. No, it does not mean we are so incompetent as to drop a red sock in with the whites, nor is it a metaphor for an alternative lifestyle. It means we have young daughters whose distinctive wardrobes require a separate load, the pinkness of which we never previously fathomed.

We pictured our fatherly role as teaching our boys about power tools in our wood shops (which also really only ever existed in our minds) and engaging in the age-old guy activity of taking things apart. We did not imagine that we would be putting together matching outfits for stuffed bears, an activity we don't understand but thoroughly enjoy, or that we would learn the 17 distinct shades between pink and purple.

Movies and television glorify the simplicity and significance of the father-son relationship. Don Vito and Michael Corleone, Mr. C. and Richie Cunningham, Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker, Marlin and Nemo. Have you noticed that you never see dads and daughters on Jerry Springer, talking about ridiculous problems?

We have learned the advantages of having daughters. A daughter runs in the room and gives Daddy a hug and tells him she loves him. A son runs in and punches him in the stomach (and then breaks a lamp, for good measure).
Of course we realize that our precious girls will be just as able as any boy to throw a perfect spiral, memorize the lines from "Fletch" and even assemble a carburetor. It is just that at this particular time, they are in a girly-girl phase -- much to the dismay of their high-achieving mothers. That much-idealized game of catch will have to wait for the moment.

At the end of the day, we are okay with all of this. We know we are playing an important role in society, one that is underrated and underreported by the media, and that college-age guys won't even admit is possible.

We are reveling in the quiet glory of pink laundry