When the Kids Become the Teachers

My daughter asked her crush to homecoming, and I realized she’s teaching me how to be fearless.

The obligatory homecoming picture.

Every now and then, life hands us a pause button. Mine came this last week while I was ordering a homecoming mum for my daughter. (Regular blue or navy? Teddy bear or something else?)

That’s when it hit me: here I was, on a Tuesday, helping her plan a milestone I once couldn’t imagine. Several years ago, this moment wasn’t even a possibility. Now it was real. This is really happening, I thought.

When my daughter came out, my wife and I made sure she knew she was loved and respected. Inside our home, we could promise safety and acceptance. Outside, though, the world was less predictable. We knew she’d need her own tools to navigate it.

Thankfully, she’s found more kindness than cruelty. Still, the sting of negativity lingers: being led on, ghosted, or whispered about in the stands. One father even forbade his daughter from being friends with mine, despite years of shared memories. And within our own family, a relative pulled the religion card, suggesting she was “living in sin.”

No child comes with an instruction manual. But parenting a child who refuses to compromise her authenticity has taught me something unexpected: sometimes the kids become the teachers.

Through every setback, she’s stood back up. She hasn’t lost her light, her sense of wonder, or her boldness. Just last week, she asked her crush to homecoming.

In that moment, it felt like the whole family was asking right alongside her. Suddenly, I was transported back to my teenage years—nervous, hopeful, hanging on a single response. But this time, the roles had flipped. Instead of me steadying her, she steadied me.

“She said yes, Daddy.”

With those four words, my wife and I let out our own breathless “Yes!”

Of course, my role as parent didn’t end there. The next day I was back behind the wheel as “Daddy Uber”—or Duber—shuttling her to practices and hangouts. But somewhere between all those drop-offs and pick-ups, I realized: I may be the driver, but she’s often the one charting the course.

Parenting has a way of humbling you. You think you’re teaching responsibility, resilience, courage. Then one day you realize your child is modeling those very things for you.

My daughter will face adversity ahead—just as we all do, regardless of orientation, color, or gender. But I no longer question whether she has the strength to handle it. She already has the tools. And if I’m paying attention, I’ll learn from her too—manual in hand, Duber on call.

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El Paso, Texas native Phillip D. Cortez is the author of I'll Be the Moon - A Migrant Child's Story. He and his wife are the parents of four kids, each possessing the incredible ability to ask for something the moment the game comes back from commercial.

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