I was at the playground today, the one near the coffee shop where I usually get my one good caffeine hit for the day (today it was free, thank god, a barista remembered me from a gig I did for them last month). My daughter, Iris, was just… a wreck. Again. Every other kid her age, maybe a year older even, they’re all sharing shovels and buckets, digging in the sand, just doing their little kid thing. And then there’s Iris, just screaming her head off because some other kid *looked* at her plastic dinosaur. Not even touched it, just glanced in its general direction. And I just stood there, pretending to check my phone, probably looking like the world’s most useless dad, while everyone else just… stared. Or avoided eye contact. Mostly the latter, which, honestly, felt even worse. It’s just… I don’t know. I try. I really do. Sometimes I’m firm – “Iris, we share, it’s not just for you.” And sometimes I’m just so damn tired, or I have a deadline hanging over my head (usually both), and I just let her get away with it. Let her clutch the dinosaur like it’s the last relic on earth, just so I can get a few minutes of peace. And then I see other parents, these incredibly patient, calm people who seem to have a playbook for every situation, and their kids are just… better behaved. Quieter. More agreeable. And I wonder, is it me? Is it the fact that my schedule is a constant, unpredictable mess? That one week I’m working 60 hours, the next I’m scrambling for scraps, and consistency is just… not a thing in my life right now? So how can I expect it from her? It just makes me so angry. At myself, mostly. For not being better. For not having it all figured out, like everyone else seems to. For not having a steady income, a regular routine, a life where I can actually afford to be a consistently good parent instead of this half-assed, frazzled version of myself. I look at her, my beautiful, wild little girl, and all I see is a reflection of my own chaos. And it just makes me want to scream too. Like her. Just, full-throttle, no-holds-barred, blood-vessel-bursting scream. Maybe that’s what she’s trying to tell me.