Keeping my Daughter off the Pole by Fishing

I have a daughter and I have dreams for her. My dreams for her are not so grandiose as to be unachievable. In fact, to call them dreams is perhaps a bit misleading. I want for my daughter. I want for her all the things every parent wants for their child – good health, success, warmth, love, and happiness. More especially, I want for my daughter the ability to view the world through the eyes of wonderment. Curiosity comes natural for her, just as it did when I was 4 years old and questioned the world around me. I questioned my father about the stars in the sky and the mermaids below the sea. I questioned why water tastes like nothing yet boogers came in a variety of flavors - and dispositions.

Rather than sit and wait for my daughter to start questioning the world around her, I chose to take action. I first tried by taking her to some baseball games – why not? Baseball teaches teamwork and patriotism. She quickly grew tired of America’s national pastime.

I next gave fishing a shot – I mean, how hard could teaching my daughter be? A little self-reliance and recreation would be good for her. I have been fishing all my life and I turned out okay – my parole officer and the voices in my head say so. Taking her fishing would be doing her a favor, after all, I don’t want her to join a gang, or turn into some hippie, or even be seduced by the violin.

The first goal was to convince her that sharks or crocodiles don’t live in the body of water we would be fishing. Not because she is scared of them – but because she was afraid they would eat all the fish before we had a chance to catch them. She hates competition and will grow up to be quite the capitalist.

She showed the uncanny ability to find worms. It was as if she were a debt collector looking for worms in default. She reasoned that if worms are good enough for fish to eat, then they are good enough for humans to eat. I quickly dissuaded her from this line of thought by telling her if we eat the worms, then the fish won’t have any.

I showed her how to bait the hook and even let her bait mine. As she did this, she squealed with the ecstasy and joy usually seen in the criminally psychotic – I was proud of her. When she wasn’t looking, and before I cast my line out, I removed the worm from my hook thus ensuring she would land the first fish. She did – one after another. At the end of the day she asked me when we could go fishing again – and also not to tell mom - because this, was our thing.