Passing the Torch

Raf, Lola & Nina at Zuma

Raf & Lola check the waves

It can't be easy for my husband to accept that he's the father of three girls and married to a rather frilly woman.  Raised by a macho Israeli dad in a sports-obsessed family with a strong older sister and two younger brothers, he must have imagined that he'd raise a basketball team of boys rather than a parade of pink princesses.  There's only so much apologizing I can do; after all, it takes two sets of genes to create a child.  And we've long since determined that we're done having babies - there comes a time when you need to be grateful for the children you've been blessed to welcome into the world, and to set your intentions on raising them rather than having more kids.  Contrary to what our extended relatives may like to say when we see them once a year, we're not holding out for a son.


Still, I'm sure he feels a pang to teach a son how to be a man.  How to pee on the side of a road.  How to kick ass in a worthy fight. How to play basketball. He's never said as much, but I see how he studies my relationship with the girls, the way we bond over clothes or make-up or teen heartthrobs. It's different.  I'm sure he sometimes feels like a lone wolf in a sea of pink frippery.


But an interesting thing has happened.  Our youngest daughter, now 6 and three-quarters, asked him to teach her how to surf.  Over the past few months, he's taught her how to balance on a board in the swimming pool, bought her a wetsuit and a boogie board, hoping that she'll learn the basics before she's actually on a wave.  Today, he took us all to the beach so that the girls could jump on their boogie boards.  She took a few tumbles in the whitewash, coming up with sand in her hair and her nose, but she refused to get out.  Instead, she went back out in the waves, again and again.  She inspired her older sister, too, and we had a hard time getting them to leave the beach after a few hours.


"She's a natural," he told me, but his smile and the way he can't form the words to tell me how proud he is, is louder than words.