It’s custom for parents to give a speech at their child’s bat mitzvah, to welcome all the guests and congratulate their child. At my daughter’s bat mitzvah celebration this weekend, I had a few goals: I didn’t want to go on for that long, I didn’t want to lionize her (every other aspect of the day did that), but I did want to offer something in the way of love and advice without sounding cliché. I’d been pondering my approach for about a week or so, and then, on Friday, like an epiphany, it came to me. I was fully confident about the message and how I would say; I just didn’t know if I was going to be able to say it without welling up.
My daughter, who didn’t want me to go on for too long either, had granted me permission to tell one anecdote. I told the story of one lovely father-daughter afternoon when, after I had taken her out of school to go to a doctor’s visit, I allowed her to enjoy a lunch in the park with me. After lots of pleasant conversation about school and camp and life—and while I was thinking how it “doesn’t get any better than this”–she off-handedly and amusedly said to me, “I just don’t understand why she married you.”
After lots of laughs from adults and kids alike at the bat mitzvah, I made my real point. That, in fact, I couldn’t say for sure why my wife married me, but I could say why I married her. (Cue the tears, alas.) As best as I could, I shared with my daughter that I loved her mom more than ever—that I appreciate, more than ever, that she’s the partner I have when facing life’s challenges and joys. And how I still enjoy seeing her every day.
And then I shared my epiphany from the day before: I praised Elena for being the person she is and suggested that if she ever has any doubts about what kind of a person to be in the world, all he had to do was look at her mom and take notes.
That was my advice to her on her bat mitzvah day.
The good news, for me and her, is that I mean it.
Eric Messinger is Editor of New York Family. He can be reached at emessinger@manhattanmedia.com
